What the Sky Could Not Hide: Chai Jing, *Under the Dome*, and the Cost of Environmental Truth
Luna Tian
I. A Sky Full of Smoke, A Voice That Cut Through
On the morning of February 28, 2015, millions of Chinese citizens opened their smartphones to a video titled 《穹顶之下》—Under the Dome. Within 24 hours, the film had gone viral. By the end of the third day, view counts had soared past 150 million. Within a week, it vanished.
Its creator, Chai Jing, was no stranger to Chinese households. A former investigative journalist for CCTV, Chai had spent years reporting on social and environmental issues with quiet tenacity. But Under the Dome was something different. It wasn’t just journalism—it was personal. It wasn’t just informative—it was urgent.
This is the story of a documentary that revealed the smog shrouding China’s skies, and the even thicker fog of silence that followed.
II. The Making of Under the Dome: When Breathing Becomes Political
Chai Jing began work on Under the Dome not as an activist, but as a mother. In 2013, while pregnant, Chai was told her unborn daughter had developed a benign tumor. Though doctors did not directly attribute it to pollution, the experience left Chai haunted by a single, pressing question: “What’s in the air we breathe?”
She quit her high-profile job at CCTV and began researching full-time. Over the next year, she traveled across China, interviewed scientists and factory workers, visited heavily polluted towns, and pored over government and corporate data. Funded entirely out of her own savings, the documentary emerged as a unique hybrid—equal parts TED Talk, frontline reportage, and moral plea.
The film opened with Chai in a spotlighted auditorium, calmly walking through slides and statistics. But it didn’t stay abstract. Footage of blackened skies, sick children, and corrupt regulators followed. Chai explained PM2.5 and diesel emissions with precision, then accused some of China’s most powerful state-owned enterprises—namely Sinopec and CNPC—of violating environmental standards with impunity.
It was a careful indictment—but an indictment nonetheless.
III. An Unlikely Viral Storm: The Days China Held Its Breath
What happened next was something few expected.
The film struck a chord with the public. People didn’t just watch it—they shared it, debated it, quoted it. On WeChat, friends posted links with comments like “This is what we need to see” or “Finally, someone said it.” On Weibo, hashtags related to Under the Dome trended for days.
For a brief, flickering moment, the documentary was treated almost like an official campaign. Several state media outlets, including People’s Daily Online, reposted the video. China’s newly appointed Minister of Environmental Protection, Chen Jining, publicly praised Chai’s work and compared it to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.
Urban citizens in Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu—already used to checking AQI apps and hoarding air purifiers—found their private anxieties voiced on a national stage. The film made pollution not just a scientific or medical concern, but a deeply human one. It turned air into a political issue. And that was when the trouble began.
IV. From Applause to Erasure: The Sudden Censorship of a Conversation
By March 6, less than a week after its release, Under the Dome was gone.
The video was taken down from all major streaming platforms. The search terms “Chai Jing” and “穹顶之下” returned no results. Weibo posts linking to the film were deleted en masse. No public explanation was given, and no official order was released.
Behind the scenes, media insiders pointed to pressure from powerful stakeholders—particularly executives within the oil and coal industries. The state-owned giants that Chai had dared to name wielded considerable influence over both the economy and Party bureaucracy. To them, the documentary’s popularity posed a reputational threat—and perhaps a call for reform they were not willing to entertain.
Others suspected the deeper reason was political. Though Chai had framed her film as patriotic and reformist, Under the Dome exposed a hard truth: that environmental devastation in China was not a matter of individual behavior, but of institutional failure. The film revealed not only smog, but systemic opacity, regulatory paralysis, and profit-driven inertia.
In the eyes of Party censors, this was not merely a documentary. It was a Trojan horse for dissent.
V. Chai Jing’s Disappearance: The Price of Visibility
After the takedown, Chai Jing vanished.
There were no interviews. No social media posts. No clarifications. Some speculated she had been placed under surveillance; others thought she had gone abroad. A few believed she had been warned to remain silent “for the greater good.”
To date, there has been no official confirmation of her whereabouts or status. Her absence from public life became part of the story. It reinforced a pattern familiar to many in China: when someone speaks too clearly, too persuasively, they must be made to disappear—not physically, but from the realm of ideas.
Chai had not broken any law. She had not called for protest. She had not mentioned Tiananmen or democracy. All she did was ask questions too well.
VI. The Ghost That Wouldn’t Fade: Under the Dome’s Lingering Legacy
And yet, even in absence, Under the Dome refused to die.
Copies continued to circulate via private file sharing and foreign platforms. Screenshots from the film were used in presentations, parent meetings, and even college lectures. Among a generation of Chinese urbanites, it became a shared memory—something everyone saw, but no one dared to speak of openly.
The documentary sparked a boom in environmental apps and home air filters. Public understanding of PM2.5 rose sharply. More significantly, the film helped transform environmentalism in China from a fringe concern into a mainstream moral issue. It reframed air pollution as not only a technical problem, but a civil right.
Governmental response was ambiguous. In 2015 and 2016, Beijing rolled out tougher emissions standards and began publicly naming violators. But Under the Dome was never credited. It was as if the film had never existed.
VII. A Mirror to the State: Why the Sky is Political
Why did a single documentary provoke such a reaction?
Because Under the Dome revealed a contradiction at the heart of the Chinese state: that the same apparatus tasked with safeguarding public welfare is often beholden to industries that degrade it. In doing so, Chai Jing did what few journalists dare—she made the invisible visible.
In today’s China, visibility is dangerous.
The Chinese government has long tolerated limited debate—so long as it stays within the bounds of “constructive criticism.” Chai’s film, though measured in tone, crossed that line. It demonstrated the power of a well-crafted narrative to awaken public consciousness. And once that door opens, it’s hard to close again.
In the end, Under the Dome was not just about pollution. It was about trust, responsibility, and the right to know.
VIII. Conclusion: Looking Up, Even Now
As of June 2017, the skies over Beijing are marginally clearer. The number of “blue sky days” has increased. But the atmosphere for public truth-telling has grown heavier.
Chai Jing’s Under the Dome is gone from the internet—but not from memory. It stands as a reminder of what happens when one woman speaks plainly in a system that rewards silence. It reminds us that real reform is not possible without real information. And that sometimes, the most radical act is to tell the truth too well.
In a country where even the air is censored, Under the Dome asked its viewers to look up. Not just at the haze—but at the causes behind it. And perhaps, just perhaps, to imagine a sky worth fighting for.