My pragmatic take is that if we keep buying their stuff - and we will - they will soon become rich enough to clean up their environment, just like all rich countries do.

If you're familiar with the history of industrialism, all currently clean and rich countries went through a phase of horrible dirtiness as they rose out of awful poverty.

Fortunately, China seems to go through the same steps as the west 3-5 times faster than we did.

Sometimes, the only way out is through!