China has recorded double-digit growth for the fourth year in succession...amid rising tension between the push for continued fast development and the environment...Ma Kai, head of the National Development and Reform Commission, said...the rate of growth was “still too fast and the cost is too large”...[I]t is worried about the pollution enveloping cities and the degradation of scarce water supplies...State Environmental Protection Agency threatened to close scores of plants, some run by powerful state companies, unless they complied with pollution rules...[SEPA’s] campaign may already be having an impact, with Datang International Power Generation, one of the country’s largest power producers, announcing yesterday it would begin to close five 50 megawatt coal-fired stations in Tangshan.