Energy and the Environment

Even as the Chinese government is trying to shore up economic growth, it is attempting to reduce smog, polluted water and contaminated soil, topics that have stirred popular anger.

But reducing the pollution blighting many parts of China depends on cutting back on the heavy industry, mining and coal use that underwrite much of the economy.

The government’s next five-year plan, which was issued along with Mr. Li’s report, laid out goals to cut pollution from this year to the end of 2020. The carbon intensity of the economy — the amount of carbon dioxide pollution released to create each unit of growth — would fall 18 percent over those years, according to the plan.

More Than Air Pollution

For many Chinese citizens, industrial toxins that have soaked into the water and soil are equal, if not greater, worries than smoggy skies. They worry that heavy metals and other pollutants have contaminated so much of the countryside that food is unsafe.

The five-year plan includes proposals to expand monitoring of polluted soil, and to set up hundreds of model farming and construction sites to show how toxic earth can be cleaned up. But a lasting solution may be a long way off.

Military Spending Slows as Revenue Dips

China surprised many experts when its military budget for the year grew by 7.6 percent, far below the double-digit increases that have become the norm. But the Ministry of Finance report shows that the growth of government revenue is slowing down, along with the general economy. This year, revenues for the central and local governments are projected to grow by 3 percent, about half of last year’s rate of 5.8 percent.