Friday marked both the traditional Chinese Lantern Festival and the Western Valentine's Day. But the joyous day was unfortunately clouded by a new wave of haze, which shrouded more than 30 cities in China.

The Air Quality Index (AQI) reading showed that these cities, especially those neighboring Beijing, were all categorized as "hazardous" in terms of the level of health concern. Beijing even recorded a "beyond index" reading of more than 500 at about 11 pm that day. A blue alert for heavy air pollution was activated, and it is estimated that the whole city will remain gray for another few days.

This haunting smog and haze has  become one of the biggest concerns among Chinese people. It happened a couple of months after Beijing, as well as many local governments, passed their landmark emergency plans, which aim at reducing the negative impact of smog and haze through concrete measures.

However, according to a recent post by the Finance Channel of China Central Television (CCTV) on Sina Weibo on Saturday, the so-called emergency plan was probably just a specious regulation. The post complained that even though the AQI reading had surpassed 500, Beijing authorities did nothing except issue a blue alert, and there were no concrete measures taken, such as halting factories and controlling traffic. Basically, it just "turned a blind eye" to the gray sky.

CCTV's complaint has been shared and reposted online more than 10,000 times in less than one day. Although it is uncertain whether such a complaint is based on a legitimate legal basis, it being echoed by the masses demonstrates that severe regulations are highly demanded by the populace.

In fact, the last two years have witnessed Chinese authorities making huge investments to tackle the worsening air quality. At a State Council executive meeting on February 12th, the central government decided to establish a 10 billion yuan ($1.65 billion) special fund to deal with air pollution. What's more, all types of regulations, plans and initiatives have also been blossoming in local areas.

So far this anti-haze campaign has just started and has not had any real effect. But the complaints from the masses have shown that the current regime of handling air pollution still lacks responsiveness and practicality. How to technically effectuate  current regulations will be more convincingly embraced than adopting more theoretically-based policies, which are probably just armchair strategies.