NOBODY TELL THOMAS FRIEDMAN: China Embraces NIMBYism. “It is becoming increasingly evident that public opinion in China is affecting the ability of officials to launch big projects by decree—a quality of the government’s autocratic system that Communist Party officials have long compared favorably against the inertia of India’s messy democracy. Over the past few years, ordinary citizens have stepped up pressure on local governments to cancel major industrial projects that could worsen already astronomical pollution levels on China’s eastern seaboard. That trend has accelerated recently.”