If the burden of environmental protection is a side effect of industrialization and modernization, such a side effect comes earlier in rural areas than the higher quality of life that modernization brings.

This is surely in part because environmental protection pressure in cities propels polluting enterprises to be relocated to remote rural areas. The revenue such industries bring to local finances has blinded some local officials to the potential hazards they pose to the environment.

What has added to this increasingly serious problem is the neglect of environmental factors in the current urbanization drive across the country. Modern agricultural production featuring animal husbandry and the overuse of fertilizers and pesticides has also become a source of pollution.