Aerial photo taken on April 1, 2017 shows Anxin county, North China's Hebei province.[Photo/Xinhua]

The top environmental watchdog decided to assign 5,600 inspectors to conduct a year-long investigation into the sources of air pollution in northern cities on Wednesday, just four days after the top authorities announced that Xiongan New Area will be built in North China's Hebei province, which is known for its heavy industries and perennial smog.

This may not be a coincidence, because a balanced and green development strategy that focuses on the protection of the environment will be the hallmark of the new area, and is an integral part of China's new economic growth model. A specific pollution control and environmental protection plan for Baiyangdian, a wetland with lakes spread over 360 square kilometers in the middle of the new area, will soon be included in the Xiongan's development blueprint, according to media reports.

All this suggests that, unlike other economic hubs in the country which have for decades focused on economic growth, often at the expense of the environment, Xiongan New Area, which will offload some of the non-capital functions of Beijing, will be a model for China's future urban growth－by improving environmental protection, water conservation, use of energy and public services, which are essential for it to become a science and technology city, and center of innovation.

The fulfillment of the goal, however, will depend on the extent to which the government's efforts succeed in controlling air pollution in Hebei and other parts of North China. This explains why the Ministry of Environmental Protection has taken the unprecedented step, described as the largest ever undertaken, to "normalize compliance" to environmental protection rules in a region where some local officials were known to acquiesce to polluters in order to protect jobs and revenues.

The problems revealed in the latest investigations by seven environmental protection inspection teams in cities such as Beijing, Tianjin and Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei, show how difficult the fight against pollution is.

Thanks to the inaction of and lack of proper implementation of pollution control measures by local officials, as well as fabrication of environmental data by polluters, the situation remains serious and calls for harsher punishments to be imposed on violators. Yet the environment ministry has limited power to tackle the pollution problem head-on; it can only submit the gathered data and detected issues to local governments and ask for prompt action and feedbacks, which often turn out to be perfunctory.

To solve the problem, ways to give more teeth to the environmental agencies must be explored. And now that the plan for Xiongan New Area has been released, this is a necessity rather than expediency.