In recent years, environmental problems have become key issues of the Chinese political agenda. Environmental issues, seen as politically sensitive subjects, have raised debates, social unrest and protests. The main problems affected China include air, water and food supply related issues. In order to address these problems, the Chinese government has increasingly invested in strategic renewable energy and clean-technology sectors. In this framework, environmental safety plays a crucial role. Environmental considerations represent central drivers of Chinese commitments on higher-technology manufacturing and service-sector opportunities. Despite these positive signals, experts have stressed concerns about Chinese ability to adapt its current environmental regulatory system to the current situation. At the same time, to strengthen its efforts in order to achieve concrete results, China has fostered investments in its healthcare system. Experts show that China’s healthcare reforms represent a critical measure of how the government believes it can balance the need to address the damages that its economic growth model has caused to people’s health, with the political risks related to its environmental efforts. China’s environmental concernshave reached a critical inflection point: these issues are increasingly driving national policies with key implications for public health, energy outlooks, and efforts to address climate change. Pollutionrepresents one of the most urgent environmental issues that China needs to address. Academic studies have alarmingly revealed that people living in the north of the Huai River, where Chinese air pollution is most severe, should expect to live on average five years less than their counterparts who lived south of the same river. In this context, Beijing’s smog has become a symbol of these kinds of problems around the country. Additionally, a study has shown that 70% of Chinese water is too polluted for drinking. Experts have argued that quantifying Chinese environmental damage represents one of the most challenging issues, especially due to the political sensitivities among Chinese policymakers. In this way, experts highlight that internal political resistance over publicizing actual data represents one of the main obstacles: data were held back because publication could create a political liability for Chinese central government, experts say. In this framework, experts have stressed that understanding the scale of China’s problems is fundamental in order to reinforce decision-making in both the public and private sectors. For instance, with reliable data on pollution China could understand and achieve theresources required to overcome associated health challenges. The gLAWcal Team EPSEI project Wednesday, 19 November 2014 (Source: NBR)