I’ve seen enough videos out of China of people spray painting fields of rocks to make them appear like green fields

Can you stop the brainwash a bit? That's not at all what's happening, I could link you to the facts of what's going but your comment was just so incredibly lazy that I cannot bother.

China is one of the most polluting countries in the world

China has 3 times the area of the USA, but pollutes twice as much. Still bad though but they are improving.