‘Working Paper - Please do not Cite’
China's Sustainability Agenda and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank1
Presented at
International Studies Association Asia-Pacific Conference City University of Hong Kong 25-27 June 2016
Robert J. Hanlon Assistant Professor Philosophy, History and Politics Thompson Rivers University [email protected]
Kyae Lim Kwon Postgraduate Research Fellow Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada [email protected]
1 Part of this paper is an adaption of an earlier article published in Environment, Development, Sustainability, (August 2015), ‘A comparative review for understanding elite interest and climate change policy in China’. The authors would like to thank the Kadoorie Institute at the University of Hong Kong for support during the next phase of this project. The authors would also like to thank ISA Asia Pacific conference organizers for their exceptional work and dedication to this event. 1
Introduction
In March 2015, President Xi Jinping made it clear that China intends to change the global governance economic order. He argued ‘we must see the whole picture, follow the trends of our times and build a new regional order that is more favourable to Asia and the world’ (Xinhua, 2015). Speaking at the Boao Forum for Asia, the Chinese leader highlighted the economic potential of the Asian region noting the importance of the soon to be launched Asian Infrastructure Development Bank (AIIB). The AIIB is a China-led development agency set to rival the longstanding Bretton Woods system including the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (Liao, 2015). Yet unlike its Western counterparts, the AIIB offers an alternative approach to development by offering loans for infrastructure that steers clear of the domestic political controversies often raised by other donor agencies. As Tiezzi has noted (2015), China is positioning itself as a principle actor within the evolving international order.
With the emergence of the multilateral AIIB, questions are being raised on how the 57 member organization will be governed given that it is the first Multilateral Development Bank (MDB) with China ‘sitting at the center of the table, setting the agenda, defining priorities, and rethinking rules’ (Chin 2016, p. 11). China hold’s just over 26 percent of the voting rights along with the ability to block any issue that requires a ‘super majority’ which demands over 75 percent voting support. With China having committed an initial $US 100 billion to the organization’s inaugural budget, it is unsurprising that Beijing has secured a dominant position within the group. Still, serious questions remain on how China will influence the intergovernmental organization (IGO). One concern that has increasingly been raised is how the AIIB will integrate themes of sustainable development within its framework.
In addressing this critique, the AIIB has announced that its clients must submit mandatory social and environmental reports if they are to be considered to receive a loan. As AIIB President Jin Liqun has noted, the banks first goal is establish strong institutional and ethical standards. He notes, “I will strive to ensure that the AIIB develops and embodies a corporate ethos that is characterized by transparency, integrity and accountability, and is focused on meaningful and measurable outcomes and results’ (TXF News, 2015). Liqun goes on to highlight sustainable development as a central pillar of the AIIB and notes, ‘The AIIB's assistance to its clients should be technically, financially, economically, environmentally and socially sustainable; its operations should be cost-effective and should be delivered in a timely manner. The AIIB's policies should be designed to reflect highest possible international standards, and these polices must be implemented rigorously’ (TXF News 2015).
While the AIIB has declared that all of its future clients will be required to submit an Environment and Social Standards (ESS) assessment for each proposed project, it is still not clear how rigorous the assessment process will be. In particular, protocol on how the AIIB will measure projects that could impact climate change is vague at best. For example, the Environment and Social Framework of the AIIB only touches on climate change in three sections of the 57 page document. What then can be made of the AIIBs commitment to climate change? In this paper, we argue that given China’s institutional dominance within the organization, one method to consider the AIIB’s climate change strategy is to look at Beijing’s institutional domination within the IGO.
In this preliminary paper, we argue that the AIIB sustainability strategy will be shaped in Beijing’s interest. Indeed, AIIB climate policy can be understood vis-à-vis China’s strategic sustainability interests. Yet what is China’s climate change policy? To answer this, we ask what theory is best suited to conceptualize China’s climate interest. Although this paper is still in its exploratory stages, we ultimately suggest that China’s strategy is one of self-interest. We apply this rational to the AIIB and conclude that Beijing will push a sustainability agenda within the agency that reflects the country’s policy self-interest.
We therefore introduce three dominant theoretical approaches used for understanding China’s evolving climate change policy. By drawing on public policy literature, we hope to provide a consolidated reference point for those looking to understand how the most populous nation in the world engages the international environmental regime. While past scholarly contributions have attempted to explain the ‘main’ motivation behind China’s rapid climate change shift, these studies are often narrow in scope and struggle to link their analysis with governance policy.
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The paper is divided into three parts. The first section provides a concise overview of the evolution of China’s environmental policy. Second, we draw on our three theoretical approaches including rational choice theory, institutional theory and advocacy coalition framework. Finally, we build a case for the necessity of plural theories to grapple with the complexity of factors underlying China’s climate change policy in relation to the AIIB environmental and social policy.
Climate Change Policy in the Chinese Context
China’s first environmental policies were a response to rapid industrialization beginning in the 1970s when it had become apparent that the failure to control emissions had resulted in the country becoming one of the most polluted in the world (Shi and Zhang 2007). The environmental protection system was similar to other centrally planned economies of Eastern Europe, which can be characterized by low levels of public involvement; absence of any environmental movement or NGOs; limited respect for international treaties or multilateralism; and most importantly, strong central state planning (Shi and Zhang 2007). Notably, a national regulatory framework was formulated in the 1980s, consisting of a series of environmental laws, executive regulations, standards and measures. By 2007, China had approximately twenty environmental laws along with 140 State Council executive regulations and multiple environmental standards as set out by the State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) (Shi and Zhang 2007, p.4).
Historically, the issue of climate change had been imported to China through the international community with the founding of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In 1989, the IPCC’s research led to the beginning of international negotiations (Stensdal 2012), of which China became a part. The previous decade had seen Beijing embarked on reforms to transition from a planned economy to a market-based system with a focus on economic growth and poverty eradication. Initially, climate change was framed as a scientific and foreign policy issue. In the late 1980s climate change policies were limited to scientific investigations led by the Chinese National Climate Committee founded by the State Science and Technology Commission that coordinated climate science research. As climate change entered the diplomatic lexicon, the issue took on a new foreign policy dimension. In 1990, the State Council’s Environmental Protection Commission issued a statement that would lay the basis for China’s international position founded on the principle of sovereignty of developing countries. Beijing claimed a right to develop its natural resource economy, viewing climate change as the responsibility and problem of economically advanced countries (Stensdal 2012).
Positioning climate change as a scientific and foreign policy issue was evident in the administrative arrangement responsible for developing China’s climate change bureaucracy, which consisted of the Chinese Meteorological Administration, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs(Wang 2012). Change to such administrative arrangement began in 1998 when climate change was transferred to the State Planning Commission, which become the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in 2003 (Wang 2012). As the NDRC is the government arm responsible for administrating and planning social and economic development issues, the transfer of institutional authority over climate change policy is significant as it reflects how climate change became perceived as a social, environmental and economic issue at domestic level by the Chinese political elites (Wang 2012; Stensdal 2012). Under the auspices of the NDRC, the Department of Climate Change assumes the responsibility for formulating ‘key strategies and policies related to climate change’; represents China in international climate negotiations; and coordinates the work of GHG inventories (Wang 2012, p.8). Under the NRDC’s purview other ministries and agencies, such as the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Ministry of Science and Technology, as well as the Chinese Meteorological Administration, also participate in climate change policy making by providing input grounded in their respective expertise.
China’s larger socio-economic and political context has shifted climate change policy from being framed as a scientific and foreign policy issue to a legitimate domestic concern that straddles environmental, economic and social policies in the country. Economic growth in the 1990s was significant and it accelerated in the millennium. To fuel this growth, between 2002 and 2008, China’s coal consumption doubled (Stensdal 2012). Consequently by 2008, national CO2 emissions were over twice the 1990 level (Wang 2012). Such rapid growth brought significant environmental and social consequences pressuring the government to adopt policy that would address the country’s deteriorating environmental standards while maintaining economic growth. To address the problem, former president Hu Jintao deemed it necessary to distance his policy
5 from policies of the Jiang Zemin era that solely focused on economic growth. To this end, the leadership adopted the concept of ‘Scientific Development’, best understood as sustainable development with Chinese characteristics that would seek to balance economic and social dimensions, as well as human society with the natural resource system (Halding et al. 2009). In March 2004, the concept was formally endorsed by the National People’s Congress. Most importantly, the shift in elite perception signaled that climate change was becoming an increasingly relevant domestic policy issue.
In 2007, China’s watershed policy moment came with the publication of the National Climate Change Programme which outlined China’s efforts to abate GHG emissions (Stensdal 2012, p.4). Since then, China’s climate policy has evolved rapidly. Notably, in 2009, China announced its first carbon intensity target as part of the Copenhagen Accord: a binding target to reduce its economy’s carbon intensity by 45 percent by 2020 compared to 2005 levels (NRDC 2010). Further, since the 11th Five Year Plans (FYP) there have been significant policy shifts with the introduction of non- compulsory targets towards energy efficiency, renewable energy, and pollution.2
More ambitious goals were included in the 12th FYP (2011-2015) which is widely considered as the ‘greenest’ of all plans with the government incorporating its Copenhagen commitments into domestic policies. In particular, the 12th FYP followed up and expanded previous ambitions of the previous years by setting compulsory goals to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in China’s energy mix, improve energy efficiency, and increase forest coverage and forest stock volume,3 while calling for more market based policy mechanisms such as pilot emissions trading projects.4 Beyond FYPs, some scholars also consider the 2007 National Climate Change Programme and the 2008 Policies and Actions for Addressing Climate Change as cornerstones of China’s climate change policy (Stensdal 2012; Wang 2012). These two national communications outline China’s
2 In this period China stopped just shy of achieving its ambitious target of 20% decrease in national energy intensity (tons of energy emitted in standard coal or oil equivalent per unit of GDP output); and its renewable energy markets expanded exponentially. 3 Evaluations show that China has largely been meeting its climate change policy targets concerning energy efficiency as well as increasing the share of renewable energy in its primary energy mix. 4 Since 2013, such programs have been implemented in two provinces (Guangdong and Hubei) and five municipal areas (Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tianjin). Indeed, political modernization and economic transition from a centrally planned to a market economy are impacting China’s environmental policies. efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change and to integrate climate change into national and economic and social development strategies (Wang 2012).
Until recently, therefore, climate change has been considered foremost as an economic issue in China. Political legitimacy of the party is contingent upon economic growth, leading the Chinese elites to guard the country’s position as a developing country with the ability to grow its economy before internationally committing to reduce its emissions. As Richerzhagen and Scholz (2008) show, China has a ‘no regret’ strategy for climate policy, meaning that economic growth is not to be sacrificed for environmental protection (Richerzhagen and Scholz 2008, p.322). While China seeks to build technological capacity to minimize carbon output at the national level, it remained intransigent to commit to an emission reduction target in fear of jeopardizing its economic growth.
Then in late 2014, Beijing announced a China-US climate change deal which once again marked an important shift in policy. The CCP leadership collectively classified climate change as a high priority area that requires a clean energy strategy which is to be implemented between 2014 and 2020. President Xi Jinping’s call for an ‘energy revolution’ is to be accompanied by structural economic reforms that move away from an energy intensive export-based economy towards a domestic led economic growth model. The plan will undoubtedly have implications for China’s international climate change pledges.
We now introduce three contending schools of thought that each offer distinct explanations for understanding the mechanisms and rationale for Beijing’s elite driven climate policy. The scope of this paper is largely devoted to the evolution of climate change policy that concerns the domestic arena, as this remains an understudied area of scholarship.5
Thinking about China’s Climate Change Strategy
5 For China’s international policy stance on climate change, see Carter & Mol (2006); Heggelund (2007); Sunstein (2008); Oberheitmann & Sternfeld (2009); and Lewis (2012). 7
Rational Choice Theory
Rational choice theory (RCT) is often presented as a dominant theoretical approach to understand the drivers behind climate change policy. These types of theories are concerned with how social outcomes are established (Hechter and Kanazawa 1997). Barnett (2010) defines RCT as a “framework for understanding how actors operate with fixed preferences that they attempt to maximize under a set of constraints” (p. 154). Built on the general assumption of neoclassical economics, it holds that rational individuals make their choices based on calculations of utility and cost to maximize their well-being (Posner 1974), while being principally concerned with methodological individualism and self interest (Lovett 2006; Scott 2000). Human behaviour can thus be explained through a basic understanding of individual motivations and the logic behind individual decision-making (Scott 2000), and such understanding has an “extensive application to the political process” (Posner 1974, p. 356). For instance, Becker (1987) argues that political choices are determined by individuals and pressure groups to further their own self-interested goals.
RCT serves as an important conceptual mechanism for explaining China’s climate policy. Moore (2011) illustrates the application of RCT in arguing that China’s policy “can be best understood from the perspective of how threats and opportunities as a result of climate change bear on the regime’s core interests” (p.148) and refers to “the calculus of threat and interest” (p.147) as the compass guiding China’s policy. To explain the role of political self-interest in shaping policy responses, Moore frames interests in two dimensions: costs and benefits. First, elites are influenced by the physical threat caused by climate change within the context of health and social risk. Second, China’s political elites see opportunity within the potentially lucrative renewable energy market. Such ethical egoism not only serves the nation’s energy security and political interests; they also align with Chinese elites’ interests.
Perceptions of climate threats are central in developing a calculated cost-benefit policy analysis while scientific findings that demonstrate China’s vulnerability to climate change have been instrumental in shaping elite interest. Such perspectives describe how elites understand environmental degradation and its impact on economic growth and political legitimacy. Hung and Liu (2011) have shown that a negative impact of climate change has been scientifically established and is politically acknowledged. China will likely face five major impacts: (1) the melting of glaciers (particularly in Tibet); (2) an estimated decline of 10 percent in agricultural production by 2030; (3) natural disasters caused by famine, storm, flood and severe weather; (4) rising sea levels impacting as many as 67 million people; as well as (5) an increase of 40 percent of the population becoming under threat of natural disasters. These problems are seen to be compounded by a high population, low per capita economic development, the country’s diverse climate range and an already vulnerable environment.
As Economy (2007) notes, social costs associated with environmental consequences of China’s economic success have been significant. Due to its reliance on coal, China is home to five of the ten most polluted cities in the world, and many of its cities and towns face serious challenges from lack of water and from continued land degradation that is contributing to desertification in northern China (p. 24). She notes that “local economies are clearly paying the price for their disregard of the environment as factories close due to lack of water or medical costs rise to an increasing number of health-related pollution illnesses. Chinese officials increasingly have to deal with large- scale public health problems to poor air and water quality” (p.24). Such appeasement of economic interests over environmental concerns is leading to increased social unrest. In 2010 alone, roughly 180,000 ‘mass incidents’ involving riots, protests, and strikes were reported, many of which were directed at official policy perceived as corrupt and environmentally destructive (Financial Times, 17 August 2011).
Food shortages are another central concern that could lead to social unrest. China must find a way to feed 20 percent of world’s population with 7 percent of the planet’s arable land (Lewis 2012). You et al. (2009) found that global warming is having a significant negative impact on wheat yields in China. The rising temperature from 1979 to 2000 has cut wheat-yield growth by 2.4% (p.272). By 2030, there is an expected drop between 5 and 10 percent in crop productivity including a decrease of 37 percent in rice, maize and wheat yields due to climate change (Lewis 2012). These figures add to the urgency and reinforce that climate change will have detrimental impacts on China (Marks 2010).
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Also critical are the recent findings that climate change is having a negative impact on GDP. For instance, Li (2013) argues that climate change policy has evolved in “response to water and energy shortages, health concerns, urban infrastructure damage, land inundation and GDP losses” (p.422).
The second aspect to the cost-benefit calculus involves opportunities, in particular in the domain of energy security and market opportunities, associated with climate policy by promoting an array of renewable and clean technology development. According to Hallding et al. (2009), energy security, which is closely related to economic growth, was one of the Hu Jintao administration’s overriding priorities. In their analysis they write: As the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party depends on its ability to deliver continued reform and development, the government’s focus on energy security is not merely an economic necessity – it is also about political survival. Since 1994, domestic oil supply has not keep pace with demand and China is presently covering half of its oil demand from imports. With increasing demands from transportation and petrochemicals, China’s dependency on imported oil is bound to increase to about 80 percent by 2030. But China is also increasingly dependent on coal imports as domestic mining and transportation of coal and transmission of electricity from coal fields in the west cannot meet increasing demands in the rapidly developing eastern provinces (p.10).
Indeed, China’s efforts towards developing renewable energy and energy efficiency stem from concerns over energy security.
Related to energy security is the opportunity for China to dominate the rapidly growing global green economy. Jin et al. (2012) argue that policies encouraging low carbon innovation such as new energy vehicles constitute a strategy of catching up with advanced markets. Likewise, Moore (2011) has shown that Chinese elites have coupled their ambitions for strategic economic transformation along with a transition to a low-carbon economy. The calculus of threats and interests have effectively shown elites that addressing climate change is imperative to secure future “material prosperity, social harmony and international security” (p. 75). Chinese elites recognize that climate change policy can be conducive to achieving other policy goals such as the promotion of public health, a reduction in air pollution, increased social stability, as well as economic growth potential. It is also worth mentioning that the framework of RCT has been relatively neglected for analyzing the influence of interest groups in shaping China’s climate change policy. This approach, of tracing interest groups’ influence, has often been used to explain the underlying rational behind US climate change policy. Indeed, policymakers in authoritarian states such as China are also subject to interest group pressures. Prior to 1978, interest groups had little impact on influencing legislation since the government held tight central control over third-parties. China’s authoritarian system allowed for centralized policy circles to disseminate elite interest downward throughout the CCP. Party elites were concerned with maintaining political legitimacy through centralized policy planning. However, the past three decades has seen substantial economic reform and the emergence of an entrepreneurial class that has challenged state-centered planning (Nee and Opper 2012). For example, Horowitz and Marsh (2002) found that interest groups at the provincial and sub-provincial level have varying degrees of influence on provincial economic policy.
Interest groups in China involve a range of actors which include large state-owned enterprises (SOE) that take directives from political handlers to a small and emerging entrepreneurial class that can operate outside the sphere of party influence. Other interest groups include local level political units, foreign business actors, as well as local and international non- governmental organizations. As David Lampton (2013) has argued, ‘Many of China’s powerful new interest groups are economic in nature. Labor and management now clash over working conditions and pay. Likewise, as Chinese businesses come to look more like Western corporations, they are only partially submissive to party directives’. Many of these groups are encouraged to voice their concerns and participate in state-organized forums called “leading small groups” (lingdao xiaozu) when they are in conflict with one another to resolve the dispute. Interest groups are often active in nondemocratic regimes since governments are sensitive to the policy preference of economic elites.
While interest groups in China hold greater power today than in the past, their ability to influence policy is limited. Drafters of state policy remain an elitist group within the Chinese Communist Party. Indeed, Steinberg and Shih (2012) note that private interest groups use their contacts with low level politicians and bureaucrats to promote policy preference. Brahm (2002) also found that the private sector will cultivate and use relationships with high officials to make policy interests known.
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In considering both strands of RCT, individual interest and interest groups, the analysis shows that despise the growing influence of interest groups Chinese Climate Change policy firmly rests in the domain of the country’s elites. We now turn to other important variables in theory of public policy, namely institutions and policy coalitions that reflect the changing social, political and economic contexts, and how they relate to elites’ interests. In building bridges between separate clusters of literature by drawing their connections to elite interest, it will be shown how the authoritarian institution serves and enables elite interests to be manifested in the larger society and how civil organizations, representing the changing contexts, hold as their objective to influence the opinions and beliefs of the elites.
Authoritarian Environmentalism
The second approach for conceptualizing elite power in China and how it relates to climate change policy can be grouped under the category of ‘authoritarian environmentalism’. A number of scholars have focused on the authoritarian regime as the key variable to understand the evolution of Chinese environmental policy (Josephson 2004, Purdy 2010 cited in Gilley 2012). Research questions are often framed to explain the ‘rapid and comprehensive’ policy outputs from promulgation of the National Climate Change Programme in 2007 to an international emissions intensity target in 2009, which then led to “all agencies of government issuing extensive implementing legislation, regulations, and circulars dealing with energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable…and climate change mitigation” (Gilley 2012, p. 290). Whereas the concept of ‘authoritarian environmentalism’ has been discussed both as a prescriptive model and a descriptive model (Gilley 2012), the theoretical underpinning is anchored in the long standing literature on institutionalism in comparative public policy. This school of thought regards political institutions as the fundamental variable that determines the mechanism of policy process and the outcome.
Authoritarian environmentalism, or eco-authoritarianism, emerged as a theory for understanding policy making processes in non-democratic societies that were facing unprecedented environmental challenges (Gilley 2012). Beginning in the 1960s, advocates of eco- authoritarianism held that the ecological crisis was due to problems such as overpopulation, natural resource exhaustion and ecological destabilization. They held that the best way to bring social changes was to reform the system of governance from that of liberal market democracy to authoritarianism. Such views were premised on the belief that modern capitalism was at the crux of the contemporary ecological crisis; and that an enlightened ‘eco-elites’ would best serve the community by guiding and implementing reforms to the system (Ophuls 1977; Heilbroner 1975). However, eco-authoritarianism became largely forgotten following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The economic rise of China through central planning and open market policies, coupled with a seemingly progressive and rapid policy output in the domain of the environmental and climate change has renewed the eco-authoritarian concept. In reviving this line of literature, contemporary authors draw a distinction between the older approach and one that fits within a post-Soviet world order. Revived eco-authoritarianism argues suggests that total control of society by a central government is no longer necessary. Rather, authoritarian regimes act as advocates and can develop effective policy in garnering outcomes to endorse climate change mitigation. They further suggest that governments ought to conduct public policy and intervene in order to engineer the citizenry’s behaviors in social and economic activities. Gilley (2009) distinguishes between these approaches as ‘descriptive’ and ‘prescriptive’ models for thinking about authoritarian policy. Whereas the former is concerned with how the process is likely to evolve, the later considers how states should evolve public policy strategy.
Environmental authoritarianism has also been used to explain Beijing’s rapid policy advances since the government is not under any intense electoral pressure often seen in liberal democracies. Indeed, China’s policy to address climate related issues has surpassed strategies employed by Western democracies that suffer from partisan roadblocks. Eaton and Kosta (2014) have suggested that advanced democracies have been “paralysed by interminable negotiations at the international level and the ceaseless pressure of lobby groups and high-consuming voters at home,” whereas authoritarian regimes, and notably China, have been “more nimble and capable” (p. 859). This is enabled by the high degree of state autonomy and the norm of coercive power conferring advantages on eco-elites who “enjoy greater freedom of action owing to their relative autonomy from interest groups and secure positions in power” (p. 379).
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Seeing the relative merits of authoritarianism in the protection of environment, proponents highlight the ability of Chinese leaders to ‘compel’ industry and public to comply with stringent regulations (Gilley 2009; Gilley 2012; Josephson 2004; Beeson 2010). Whereas politicians in democracies, constrained by electoral cycles, and are generally averse to adopting unpopular policies, authoritarian leaders can enforce policies more effectively, albeit in a drastic manner (e.g. cutting off electricity and water to companies not complying with energy efficiency regulations). Thus, “authoritarian leaders are potentially better environmental stewards…as they are comparatively insulated from societal pressure and can take the long view on environmental issues” (Eaton and Kosta 2014, p. 360). Inspired by the authoritarian environmentalism thesis, Shearman and Smith (2007) advocate a system that places decision-making entirely at the hands of eco-elites whom they refer to as ‘enlightened scientists’. Beeson (2010) also conjectures that climate change is likely to lead to a movement away from democracy to authoritarianism since the latter regime is better placed to achieve environmental outcomes.
The prescriptive environmental authoritarianism thesis has of course been criticized for neglecting the problem of implementation, which faces significant hurdles in China. First, weak legal enforcement mechanisms are hindering environmental protection (Mol and Carter 2006). Hung and Liu (2011) argue that China will struggle to improve its climate change regulation until local authorities are given greater legislative powers, while judicial and legal enforcement institutions are held to greater accountability. However, emerging political pressures could lead to a strengthening of regulatory bodies. As He et al (2012) point out, the 12th five-year-plan called for a shift towards green governance. They write “The Plan stresses a governance reform, including institutional changes that should be made to end the high concentration of power and lack of supervision over accountability, so often identified as a root cause of implementation failures in environmental management” (p. 26). However, He et al. (2012) acknowledge that major hurdles exist before China will be able to reform. These include ecological restructuring of the economy, develop a global perspective towards environmental management, diversify stakeholder input so that it moves away from the traditional statist-approach, as well as sustainably balancing China’s increasing consumer demand.
Second, China’s bureaucracy often hinders genuine environmental progress at the local level (Guan et al. 2011). As Ma (2010) notes, local coordination is imperative for China to meet its ambitious green economic goals. In this sense, a top-down policy approach risks disconnecting national objectives from local environmental concerns. Still, there are examples where local governments have been able to incorporate environmental concerns into policy planning. For example, Li, Miao and Lang (2011) have shown that although economic development continues to be a core policy area for officials in Suzhou Municipality (Jiangsu Province), the government is incorporating “substantive local commitments to environmental good practice” of local and provincial political leaders (p. 115). Evaluating the critical problems associated with implementation based on fieldwork in five municipalities and 11 counties in Shanxi6, Hunan and Shangdong provinces between 2010 and 2012, Eaton and Kostka (2014) point to the problem of the high turnover of leading cadres in local governments that hinders implementation of the top- down policies. In China, local leaders change office every three to four years, as it is meant to keep local Party secretaries and mayors ‘on the move’ to promote the implementation of central directives and to reduce coordination problems. Yet due to the short time horizon of the local officials, who have the responsibility for interpreting and carrying out the centrally directed policies, they tend to choose ‘quick, low-quality’ projects that do not result in improved environmental outcomes in the long run, and ultimately defeats Beijing leaders’ commitment to address China’s environmental crisis.
A third concern for implementation involves the development of policy with little input from civil society. As Marten (2006) points out, the role of media and limited ability of civil society interest groups to influence policy circles presents a significant stakeholder gap. However, examples of localized not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) campaigns have been on the rise. For example, Lang and Xu (2013) have noted that NIMBY campaigns in Beijing and Guangzhou helped shut down local incinerators and led to greater community consultation. The authors conclude that the rise of NIMBY campaigns throughout the country are contributing to the development of environmental activism and to more assertive civil society movements in the area of waste management.
6 The authors justify the choice of Shanxi, as the province has been attempting to diversify away from heavy reliance on the coal industry for a “green rise” (lüse jueqi 绿色崛起). 15
Due to such problems, Niemeyer (2013) rejects the merits of authoritarian environmentalism, and uses empirical evidence to argue that democracy is more effective in implementing environmental policies. He argues that rhetorical policy outcome and implementation must be distinguished when praising China; and that the “solution to the problem is not to give in to an authoritarian impulse and bypass public debate altogether, but to democratize public discourse along deliberative democratic lines” (p. 431). Furthermore, the explanatory power of authoritarian environmentalism is greatly weakened when considering that China’s ongoing reforms and changes in the social context has increasingly been allowing more public participation, especially in domains dealing with environmental issues.
Considering the previous discussions on RCT and authoritarian environmentalism, when the two approaches are bridged together a clear image of the relationship between elites and China’s climate change policy emerges. Elite interest should therefore be understood as a primary force and a necessary condition to set state machinery into motion. In fact, the two concepts are rather complementary as those that apply RCT seek to explain the main factor that shapes the policy agenda, whereas those using the framework of authoritarian environmentalism explain the rapidity of changes in policy.
Having noted strengths and weaknesses of authoritarian environmentalism as well as its connection to RCT, we now turn to a third approach. The advocacy coalition framework (ACF) has been used to capture the changing social context and the role of domestic and international NGOs in influencing the process of climate change policy making. The ACF offers an important tool for understanding critical factors that inform and influence the elites’ beliefs on climate change.
Advocacy Coalition Framework
The advocacy coalition framework (ACF) can be used to explain elite policy making processes by examining interactive structures among major stakeholders who express interests, beliefs and actions in certain socio-economic contexts (Weible, Sabatier & McQueen 2009). ACF sees policy processes as a competition between coalitions, or sub-policy systems, with different beliefs about policy problems and solutions (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1993; Sabatier 1998). The construct is based on a theory of bounded rationality, which states that cognitive limitations necessarily lead individuals to rely on heuristics for decision making rather than being ‘rational’ (Simon 1985).
Belief systems are seen as the primary heuristic motivator that individuals use for policy decision making. Policy subsystems, considered the most useful unit of analysis, consist of actors from the state, industry and private organizations, including actors from international or foreign organizations. With shared normative and causal beliefs, these subsystems participate in coordinated activities to influence policy decision making (Sabatier 1998). ACT has been applied in the context of climate change (Bortree, Ahern, Dou & Smith 2011) to understand how changing economic, political and social contexts have increasingly been allowing non elites to influence the process of policy process. Some networks have shown interest in the area of climate change. The decentralization of China’s political and administrative systems has led some groups to act as policy watchdogs and repositories of climate and environmental policy knowledge.
Notably, Francesch-Huidobro and Mai argue that “China’s adoption of a market economy has resulted in an increase in the diversity of views and preferences now being expressed” (2012, p.44S). In general, the Chinese government’s desire for modernization and advancement has opened up more political space for alternative policy-making mechanisms as well as for articulating environmental interests in society (Li, Bo & Lang 2011). Specific to the domain of climate change, a number of commentators have noted how the evolving Chinese environmental state has witnessed increased political involvement of non-political elites in environmental tasks through regulatory or enabling policies (Li, Bo & Lang 2011; Mol & Buttel 2002). Moreover, the past decade has seen decreasing power of the central government, leading to more decision making at the sub-national cadre level.
The growing role of NGOs in China is especially significant. While Chinese policy is largely a top-down process, the ongoing reform has loosened the government’s grip over the policy process and provided more room for non-governmental actors. The emergence of environmental
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NGOs (ENGOs) since the 1990s has been widely documented, as they are among the most frequently studied types of NGOs in China (Zhan and Tang 2013). In the area of climate change, the first Chinese ENGOs were established in the 1990s by those who had been exposed to environmental movements from overseas (Economy 2007 cited in Stensdal 2012), and worked with local governments, communities and research institutions mainly on nature and species conservation. Since the late 1990s, the number of international ENGOs working in China has increased significantly (Economy 2005; Zusman and Turner 2005).
Zhan and Tang (2013) have characterized civic ENGOs as those that are operated by citizens in grassroots movement and who differentiate themselves from government-organized NGOs (GONGOs), student led groups and international NGOs. According to two national surveys by All China Environmental Federation, the number of Chinese ENGOs increased 30% from 2005 to 2008 (from 2768 to 3539). Civic ENGOs, along with GONGOs, have been increasingly involved in policy advocacy (Ho, 2007; Teets, 2009). Still, access to financial resources and maintaining strong political connections are widely considered to be necessary pre-requisite for gaining access to policy makers.
Indeed, ENGOs in China can be understood as bottoms-up drivers of climate change policy (Stensdal 2012; Francesch-Huidobro and Mai 2012). For Stensdal (2012), this began with the evolution of Beijing’s normative framework on climate policy in tandem with the country’s changing socioeconomic context. She finds significant policy sub networks at play which she identifies as “the Climate Change Advocacy Coalition”. Stensdal shows that this Coalition-- consisting of climate scientists, members of domestic and international ENGOs and sections of the media--has been able to influence policy agenda setting and decisions over policy measures. By applying the ACF method, Stensdal was able to measure the influence of advocacy coalition members on policy via two approaches. First, she explored agenda-setting, or the degree of convergence between the basic topics of the policy and the stance advocated by coalition members. Second, Stensdal looked at policy-measure decisions, or the overlap between Beijing’s policy outcome and the Coalition’s advised measures of implementation. Her findings argued that there was a positive correlation between the Coalition’s agenda setting interests and policy outcomes of the National Climate Change Programme, with adoption of carbon intensity target being the prime example of the Coalition’s influence.
Attesting to the importance of non-governmental actors and bottom-up influence on China’s climate change policy, ACF has also been applied by Francesch-Huidobro and Mai (2012) for analyzing climate change advocacy coalitions in Guangdong province. They studied the networking activities of three climate advocacy coalitions in the Pearl River Delta namely the Guangdong Energy Conservation Association, the Guangzhou Energy Source Association, and Guangdong Low-Carbon Association. All three organizations had been established in response to the national government’s call for low-carbon development at the municipal level. Although the authors deem these organizations do not constitute typical advocacy coalitions, they still suggest that each group is operating within the climate policy subsystem.
These coalitions have enabled energy conservation work, as well as low carbon development pilot schemes in Guangdong province. Contributing to the development of the theory, Francesch-Huidobro and Mai (2012) have also identified the characteristics of these advocacy groups working within the policy subsystem of ‘nonpluralistic regime’. They suggest these groups are mutual interdependent, require government recognition and endorsement, top-down organizational structure, and contribute to policy reform through bottoms-up pressure grounded in normative logic (p. 61S). To support their argument, the authors emphasize the importance of ACF that shifts the focus on the role of sub-policy networks as they serve as communication channels for new normative beliefs to infiltrate layers of the Chinese society.
It is also important to note that these scholars recognize that using the Advocacy Coalition Framework also serves to highlight the particular nature of the Chinese context: the highly dependent relationship between the state and interest groups. These groups have political blessing, explicitly or implicitly; and that while they stand behind a cause of their own they are highly confined to the boundaries that the state allows them to operate within. For instance, Tang and Zhan (2008) document how for civic organizations to be influential in policy advocacy, political connections to the party-state system are necessary.
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In sum, the key insights that we derive from ACF is the connection between sub-policy networks that include non-political elites: the purpose of the climate coalitions in China is to influence political elites. Stensdal’s analysis clearly demonstrates how the objective of the coalitions was to influence the political elites who hold the ultimate key to setting policy agenda and making decisions. Francesch-Huidobro and Mai show how the existence of the coalitions stems from the government’s call for municipal low-carbon development; how they needed the elites’ recognition and endorsement in order to serve as communication channels to disseminate new beliefs on climate change. The authors collectively highlight the salience of bottom-up policy approach to climate change coalition, as well as government’s endorsement and their direct involvement in such coalitions.
Conclusion
In this preliminary study, we provide a multidimensional framework for understanding China’s rapidly evolving climate change policy which we argue can be used to understand Beijing’s policy interests at the AIIB. This article has shown that in it is vital to draw on a range of theories that can offer complementary insights into understanding climate policy in China. At the same time, elite interest is the key variable that is connected to other factors that influence the policy making process. These include the institutional makeup of the Chinese authoritarian state which enables elite interest to be manifested in a streamlined and efficient manner. It also shows how the ultimate objective of climate change policy coalitions is to influence the interest of the political elites by persuading their beliefs on climate change. By understanding China’s domestic climate change interests, we are able to anticipate how Beijing will influence climate policy at the AIIB. While Beijing will most likely shape the AIIBs initial climate strategy within its own interest, time will tell if other shareholders can leverage their concerns. Although, this is unlikely during the foreseeable future. References
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