In the Non-standard “The face hidden of JO”, Science and Life itemised this summer how much Beijing is a city «at the edge of the asphyxia». Authorities took draconian measures for Games, closing or moving plants and polluting power stations, stopping public and imposing works the car traffic alternately to leave the half of cars in the garage. So much measures which, supported by a favourable meteorology, contributed to preserve a correct air above the Olympic sites. All tests could be held as planned, and Games were gone.

Last week was held the last mishap of competition. The redemption of the Olympic flame. Life took back its course. The prostitutes and the sellers of pirate DVD came back on their place of activity, and restrictions on the car traffic were raised.

During Games, pollution would have returned to its weakest level for ten years for August. While economic growth multiplies the number of vehicles in China, authorities wonder if they should not institute long-term restrictions on the circulation. By way of signal, the administration quibbles, which has 10 % of cars circulating in Beijing, that is not less than three hundred thousand vehicles, this summer will continue noticing the policy of alternation instituted.

Last August, a high representative of the Chinese ministry of environment had announced that China would not stop in stopgap measures. But if it was relatively easy to agree to leave the car in the garage the time when take place Olympic Games, decreed national reason, it is probable that the Pekinese population will not accept a general implementation of pressures on the circulation, even if it seems to have received difference. An opinion poll driven as for Greenpeace on eight hundred inhabitants of the Chinese capital showed, ten days ago, that 90 % received an improvement of the quality of air this summer. But a third only possessors of cars claim to be ready to accept a maintaining of measures of restriction. The Daily of the people explained on Monday that the return to normal will not prevent the debate on the air pollution Pekinese. A debate in which would participate four hundred thousand persons, on Internet.

The return of exhausts did not defer this weekend. On Saturday, at some hours of the lifting of alternation on the circulation, cars had already taken again possession of the asphalt, tells Reuters. And, underlines Telegraph, famous Pekinese smog checked off the end of the nose on Sunday. The Chinese authorities will be able to find consolation by telling themselves that the move of the steelworks Shougang, one of the biggest sites of air pollution in Beijing, is final. But its impact should be fast absorbed by the motorised thirst for a country which develops in big step.

Picture: The air pollution in China seen by satellites Envisat and ERS-2 in 2005 © Agence spatiale Européenne