The principal-agent problem poses a significant challenge for Chinese central governance that constrains the effective resolution of environmental issues. This study focuses on a new enforcement mechanism, the Central Environmental Inspection (CEI), launched and implemented directly by the Chinese central government to assess whether this enforcement mechanism is effective in motivating public complaints and solving the principal-agent problem. Using the Difference-in-Differences method, we observed a notable increase in public complaints during the inspection period, which was associated with a significant reduction in air pollution, but these positive effects disappeared once the CEI concluded. These results suggest that the increase in public complaints was mobilized by the central government rather than due to a rebuilding of trust in local governments. However, follow-up inspections show that the sentiment of public complaints has a significant effect on air pollution improvements even after the CEI, suggesting that the inaction of local governments on public complaints was gradually addressed by central follow-up inspections.