China is blamed to be in efforts for weather control in the region. Western media is rife with such news. The Bangkok Times has published a chilling story titled, “Can China control the weather?” in this regard. The story lets us know that after successfully tackling its coronavirus outbreak, China is now setting its sights on taming the weather. Last month, Beijing announced plans to develop a comprehensive weather modification system which by 2025 will cover more than 5.5 million square kilometres -- 60% of the country's territory and more than 1.5 times the size of India -- with hail-suppression technologies embedded across 580,000 sq km. Mastering the weather might seem like a lofty dream to some, but China has been using cloud seeding and other technologies for decades to produce more rain for drought-ridden areas, reduce hail that can damage agriculture, support disaster relief and clear skies for important events, such as the 2008 Beijing Olympics. China spent more than US$1.34 billion from 2012 to 2017 on different weather modification programmes, and by 2015 rainmaking and hail-suppression projects had already been used across 30 provinces. In November last year, a county south of Beijing produced 5 centimetres of rain to alleviate a local drought and improve air quality by launching 16 “artificial rain enhancement rockets” from the back of a pickup truck. Meanwhile, weather modification practices in Xinjiang have helped protect its farmland from natural disasters by reducing hail damage across the region by 70%.
