‘Juggling’ for a green China

Green Politics in China: Environmental Governance and State-Society Relations

Joy Y. Zhang and Michael Barr

London: Pluto Press, 2013, 159 pp

The sheer size of China’s land mass, population and contribution to the global economy mean that the state of its environment has international repercussions, but “Green Politics in China” focuses mostly on the domestic scene. It is, after all, the Chinese people who are hardest hit by the pollution and environmental degradation caused by rapid industrialisation, yet they are also prime beneficiaries of the resulting development. This is one of the paradoxes facing Chinese environmentalists for, until recently, few ordinary citizens were concerned about the environment. Another paradox concerns how to relate to the authoritarian state which has a green policy, but lacks transparency and sometimes fails to enforce its own regulations due to preoccupation with economic advancement. These factors lead the authors to describe China’s green movement as “a juggling act between development and social stability”. (p. 6)

This highly informative book takes the reader inside China’s green movement to meet the activists involved in environmental NGOs
(ENGOs) and learn about their goals, methods and programmes. The movement grew out of nature clubs formed in the 90s, which monitored air and water pollution, and pooled their findings with information gleaned by academics. Today, some ENGOs organise bird watching; others offer free nature photography lessons and low-budget field trips in the hope that people will reconnect with nature, start to notice changes in their surroundings and become more involved. Still other groups stress public education, monitoring pollution on site, advancing solutions for specific problems, and enforcing existing environmental protection regulations. In all cases, the aim is to reach out to ordinary citizens, and counteract the effects of abrupt urbanisation, including the notion that what is man-made is better than what is natural. 

Those familiar with the radical tactics of environmentalists in other places might term the Chinese activities “harmless” — so non-confrontational as to be ineffective, but the authors caution against hasty, out-of-context judgments. The priority of Chinese environmentalists is not to confront the state, but to cultivate an informed public that can question policy, hold the government accountable and eventually influence decision making. According to Zhang and Barr, the ripples created by Chinese environmentalism are far broader than seen at first glance, extending to the country’s newly emerging civil society. “Public questioning of authority, at least on environmental issues, is an increasing phenomenon in China… the trend towards public disclosure of environment information and the general defence of the ‘right to know’, are both empowering and daring.” (p. 28 & 12) The ripples go beyond environmental issues to readjust the relation between state and society, and “to help pluralise the political process”. (p. 12)

In view of China’s preeminent place in global manufacturing, international factors do intervene in local environmental issues, not least as “developed countries dislocate their environmental burden by consuming goods produced in China.” (p. 33) In this respect, the book recounts an interesting story that also highlights the juggling in which ENGOs must engage. Since 2000, southern China has become a hub for making branded IT products for international companies, and such factories are big polluters. By 2009, illegal dumping by IT manufacturers was identified as an increasing threat to the soil; 41 Chinese ENGOs banded together to form the Green Alliance, which contacted 29 international IT companies whose local suppliers had been shown to contribute to the pollution. Only Apple Inc. did not respond, viewing the identity of its subcontractors as a business secret. Eventually, with the help of a California-based NGO, Apple was pressured into holding transparent discussions with the Green Alliance, but the latter’s campaign met with local resistance, “especially those young consumers who embraced Apple’s brand culture… It soon dawned upon Chinese ENGOs that to win support for their campaign, they not only needed to analyse the pollution statistics, they also had to understand and respond to the values held by domestic consumers.” (p. 82) 

 One can only wonder what public reaction would be to a similar case here in Jordan or many other countries, for that matter. The Apple case shows that despite the particularity of China’s environmental movement, which the authors quite correctly expound, there are many commonalities with green issues the world over, and many lessons to be learned from this book. 

Sally Bland