Back then, the US embassy started to monitor PM10 and PM2.5 particles in the air of Beijing... and it cause such an online concern among its citizens that the government forced it to not disclose the numbers... this lead to a profound changes after when municipalities tried to clean up their acts... if I do remember my reading well 5-6 years ago...
Global warming might be too complicated for some but talk about pollution and its negative effects, well most people no matter how simple they are would agree they are bad. As a result, they wear masks, hence they sell pure air in cans or air filtering machine for apartments... etc etc etc
As for coal and EV, China has no choice. - It has limited oil and gas - It has lost the race on ICE cars - It has a lots of coal
So by directing investments on EV, it will kill 2 stones at a time.... lower the oil consumption and be a leader in EV... As for now, it has to use coal, gas and oil for energy generation to meat its energy demand as it is a hard thing to balance between the economy to appease the population so that they do not revolt and the future green visions.
Hence you have a country that is invested in coal and also in hydro (over invested another topic), solar and other renewables... EV (over invested another topic) etc etc etc...
