--File--un épais brouillard à Taiyuan, Chine du nord dans la province du Shanxi, le 1 novembre 2011. Des dizaines de milliers de personnes, dont plusieurs personnalités chinoises, hav
--File--Heavy fog in Taiyuan, north Chinas Shanxi province, 1 November 2011. Tens of thousands of people, including several Chinese celebrities, have used an unofficial online vote to press the government to measure air pollution more accurately, illustrating how the Internet¨Cand especially Twitter-like microblogging¨Cis challenging Beijings control of information. The vote appears to represent small, but significant, progress for quiet efforts by the U.S.ªwhose Beijing embassy has Tweeted its own air readings since 2008ªto use social media to reach out directly to Chinese citizens and to pressure Beijing to address the true scale of Chinas environmental problems. Pan Shiyi, one of Chinas best-known property developers, launched the voteªwhether China should adopt the air-measurement standards used by the U.S.ªon Sunday (6 November 2011) through his Sina Weibo microblogªa hugely popular service owned by Sina Corp. on which he alone has more than 7.4 million followersª following a series of days when Beijing was shrouded in choking smog.
