10 things you need to know about China: Part 2 of 2: a look at what china's rise means for the U.S.--and for your future.

• Author: Smith, Patricia

An increasingly powerful player on the world stage, China is a critical country for Americans to understand.

Part 2 of "10 Things You Need to Know About China" looks at more key issues: the environment, population, education, human rights, and the prospects for U.S.-Chinese cooperation.

Part 1 of the article (Upfront, Sept. 7) covered:

1. Is China a superpower?

2. Why does everything seem to be made in China?

3. Is China still a Communist country?

4. What is the Great Firewall?

5. Should the U.S. fear China's rise?

6. Is China destroying the planet?

   China is facing an environmental crisis. Its cities are often wrapped in a toxic gray smog. To protect their kids' lungs, many parents keep their children from playing outside. People walking the streets often wear face masks. Only 1 percent of the country's 560 million city dwellers breathe air that would be considered safe in the U.S., and air pollution alone causes hundreds of thousands of deaths each year.

   These problems are the ugly flip side of China's miraculous economic boom: The many factories and power plants that have driven that growth are responsible for terrible environmental destruction. Most of China's electricity comes from coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels. As more Chinese enter the middle class and buy cars, emissions continue to soar.

   And all that pollution doesn't stay in China. A 2010 study found that almost 30 percent of the air pollution in San Francisco had drifted across the Pacific from China. China is also the world's largest emitter of the greenhouse gases that scientists say are causing climate change. (The U.S. is second.)

   The environmental situation in China is "very alarming," says Orville Schell of the Asia Society in New York. "But here, the Chinese Communist party has some ability and is gaining the will to do something about it."

   For starters, the government has put caps on the amount of coal that can be used and has lowered the amount of coal that can be burned in several provinces. It's also been pouring money into renewable energy. China has large wind turbine facilities and it's about to overtake Germany in generating the most solar power in the world. Its export of renewables is also growing, and that's helping to bring the price down globally. In 2014, Chinese companies made a third of the world's wind turbines.

   China's also promising tighter enforcement. "We are going to punish, with an iron hand, any violators who destroy ecology or the environment, with...