Historically, there have been clear restrictions on political participation and protest by citizens in China. However, the rise of new social media in China’s high-tech context, opens up new  avenues for political participation. In the next interview, associate professor Lei Zhang, from the school of the environment at Renmin University, will explain how public participation takes shape in the case of air quality in Beijing. She will first tell you about how PM2.5 emerged as a topic of public debate during the 2008 Olympic Games. Secondly, she will address how an important part of this debate occurs online, in an interplay between so-called ‘netizens’ and NGOs whose activities strongly rely on environmental data.