CHINA, AMERICA AND CARS

China, with its big city’s broad boulevards suddenly jammed with cars, is plunging into the same love-hate automobile obsession that has long since absorbed the United States. As The Wall Street Journal reported recently, nearly 1,000 new cars are hitting the streets in Beijing every day, crowding a city already clogged with traffic and choked with pollution. The mayor complains that the flood of automobiles makes it hard to run the city. And local officials may ban private cars temporarily to improve air quality during the 2008 summer Olympic Games.

Cars in China are already a curse and a blessing. Aside from traffic jams and air turned blue by exhaust fumes, the country’s automobile industry is a mainstay of its booming economic development. The Journal reported that car sales were up 54 percent for this year’s first quarter compared with last year. It said the Chinese auto market, the world’s second largest, employs 1.7 million workers. At the current rate of increase, the 33 million vehicles on Chinese roads will surge to 130 million by 2020.

As in many developing economies, owning a car has become a mark of success, widely achievable with higher wages and reduced car prices. A Chinese-made hatchback sells for $5,200.

Consumer demand and the vital role of the automobile industry in the Chinese economy have left environmental considerations and mass transit largely in the lurch. Pollution restrictions and applications for a dozen new or expanded subway systems have been put on hold in deference to the automobile craze.

Does this sound familiar? Most Americans love their cars, often still preferring big SUVs despite record gasoline prices and rollover hazards. They put up with bumper-to-bumper morning and evening traffic in most big cities rather than turn to carpooling or mass transit for the sake of personal convenience and because the traffic burden has grown incrementally.

Both countries will do well to mitigate their traffic problems by expanding rail service. And both must seize the pollution problem by improving exhaust control and limiting the use of high-sulfur fuels. They can see in each other a reflection of the consequences for not acting.

China and the United States have a responsibility to harness their automobile industries to reduce the greenhouse gases that pollute the world’s atmosphere and contribute to climate change.

In their shared affection for the automobile, there is an opportunity to set standards that will improve the health of the planet while still providing drivers in both countries all the traffic they can handle.