What's changing in Beijing?

Quite a few things have changed in Beijing lately.  Gone are the foreigners, so many of the ex-pats who lived there have left over the past number of months due to new regulations with visas.  No longer can one person claim to be a tourist for 6 consecutive years within the Middle Kingdom, you know who you are.  Visa's are now incredibly difficult to come by, no longer can you call someone up, hand over your passport and a wad of cash, wait a day or so, get the visa back and then repeat year after year.  I never engaged in such activities...

DHL recently issued a memo on many other changes, which I picked up via the China Law Blog.  I found the following quite interesting:

• 20 enterprises around Beijing notorious for heavy pollution are requested for a 30 percent reduction in emissions.
• Enterprises which can not meet emission standards are requested to shut down temporarily.
• Work at all construction sites around Beijing, including cement and concrete mixing will have to stop on or before July 20.

I can see a huge amount of work being shifted inland temporarily as a result of this.  I'm going to be very interested if many of these regulations will be still in place when the Paralympics commence from 6th - 17th September 2008.  By the way, for those not in the know, the above picture is one of the FUWA's. Trust me, come the Olympics in two months we shall be brainwashed by the little fellahs...