Since the Ministry of Environmental Protection sent an environmental inspection team to Hebei province at the end of 2015 on a trial basis, a total of 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the country have been inspected by teams organized by the top environment watchdog, with more than 150,000 people held accountable for pollution and environmental degradation.

The inspections by the top authorities' environmental inspection teams are like "healing poison through scraping the bone".

Behind the unrelenting campaign is the leadership's resolve to pursue a green and sustainable economy. With such a perspective, governments at various levels have gone all out to eliminate polluting enterprises, promote industrial upgrading and enhance economic quality.

For example, Wen'an county, in Hebei, has shut down more than 7,000 polluting artificial board manufacturers. And such huge progress brought about by the environmental inspections has motivated local governments to launch their own environmental protection campaigns as a way of promoting much-needed supply-side structural reforms.

Under the guidance of the central government's environmental inspection work, local governments have also shown greater willingness to shoulder more responsibility for environmental protection and overcome "lazy governance". It is now habitual for many local officials to ascertain the local air quality by means of mobile apps. It has even become vogue for local government officials to talk of environmental protection at meetings.

The stern environmental inspections carried out by the top environment watchdog and the less tolerant attitude held by local governments toward enterprises that harm the environment demonstrate the country's intolerance to pollution and environmental degradation, as well as its resolve to pursue greener development and abandon the previous development model that sacrificed the environment and ecology for economic growth.