Sure, and the Chinese government realizes that and so they’re trying to impose stricter pollution controls. But they also realize that large parts of their country are unindustrialized, and that to compete in the world and become a great power, they need to develop their economy.
I want to make something clear about me agreeing with what Stranger said: I have seen comparatively little of people talking about how to solve the pollution problems beyond relatively simple ideas such as “don’t open that factory” or “the government should do something about it”. I do not hang out with the types of people who would likely protest such things, but I have also seen a distressing lack of respect from many people (at least in Beijing) for the environment in their everyday lives, such as littering and leaving the lights on all the time.