A Major Spring Clean
About time too. But is this big spend on tackling China's environmental problems too little too late?
The environmental degradation in China is phenomenal. I'll never forget the taste of chemicals on my tongue after I gave up smoking; the grey smogs that enveloped Shanghai for 25 days every month; or the constant stream of factories and industrial wasteland along the Shanghai to Beijing railway.
Will the place truly be ready before the 2008 Olympics? Still, $175bn is no small sum, as long as it isn't siphoned off into a billion pockets.
China plan to protect environment
China plans to spend 1.4 trillion yuan ($175bn) over the next five years on protecting its environment.
The sum - equivalent to 1.5% of China's annual economic output - will be used to improve water quality, and cut air and land pollution and soil erosion.
China has some of the world's most polluted cities and waterways.
Beijing has often overlooked protecting the environment in the rush to develop its economy - but now it is paying the price, a BBC correspondent says.
A chemical spill in a river near the city of Harbin last year drew international attention, as water supplies to almost four million people had to be suspended for nearly a week.
Under the plan, sewage treatment plants will be built in 10 river valleys to reduce the harmful impact of waste water from cities.
Money will also be spent on cutting levels of sulphur dioxide and dust in large cities.
The state-owned Xinhua news agency said money would be used to curb soil pollution, which has contaminated agricultural produce.
The agency quoted Zhou Shengxian, director of the State Environmental Protection Administration, as saying that every year 12 million metric tons of grain were polluted by heavy metals that had found their way into the soil.
