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Environmental Governance in China: State Control to Crisis Management

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Environmental Governance in China: State Control to Crisis Management Environmental Governance in China: State Control to Crisis Management Elizabeth Economy Abstract: After three decades of rapid economic growth, environmental degradation is now one of the most signi½cant issues facing the Chinese government. The country’s air, water, and land are all heavily polluted. Despite a number of environmental protection initiatives, both at the national and local levels, China ranks poorly when compared with other emerging nations. Formal government institutions have failed to ad - dress adequately the people’s concerns. Beijing’s system of decentralized authoritarianism lacks the political processes and incentives needed to implement meaningful national reform and to en courage local gov ern - ments and polluting factories to enforce laws and regulations. The Chinese government now faces grow ing pressure from civil society, as NGOs, Internet activism, and protests compel the government to proactively address environmental issues. Beijing would do well to increase engagement between the government and its citizens, rather than relying on its current crisis management style of environmental governance. In March 2013, residents in Shanghai watched as more than 16,000 diseased pigs floated down the tributaries of the city’s Huangpu River. Farmers upstream in Zhejiang province had slaughtered the diseased pigs, and rather than bury or cremate them as the law mandated, they had simply dumped them in a nearby waterway that flowed into the Huangpu. Hundreds of miles away, Hunan’s Liuyang River experienced a similar influx of dead pigs. This was only the latest in a string of environ- mental disasters in China. Earlier in the year, resi- ELIZABETH ECONOMY is the C.V. dents in Beijing, along with those in a number of Starr Senior Fellow and Director other Chinese cities, discovered that breathing the for Asia Studies at the Council on air where they lived was equivalent to living in a Foreign Relations. Her publications smoking lounge. And people in Guangdong learned include By All Means Necessary: How that Hunan-produced rice sold in their province in China’s Resource Quest is Changing the 2009 was contaminated with cadmium, a metal that World (with Michael Levi, 2014), when ingested can cause severe joint and spine pain The River Runs Black: The Environmen- tal Challenge to China’s Future (2nd along with cancer. For all the headlines these disas- ed., 2010), and China Joins the World: ters garnered, however, none was a ½rst-time event. Progress and Prospects (edited with Similar incidents had occurred repeatedly in the Michel Oksenberg, 1999). preceding years. © 2014 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences doi:10.1162/DAED_a_00282 184 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00282 by guest on 26 September 2021 At the heart of the Chinese government’s Asian neighbors–whether democracies or Elizabeth inability to protect the environment is au thor itarian states–also outperformed Economy the country’s particular mix of political China handily: Thailand (34th), Indonesia in stitutions, processes, and in centive (74th), and Vietnam (79th) among them. struc tures. Decentralized authoritarian- Still, parallels and lessons can be drawn ism, which so successfully spurred the from others’ experiences. Over the past country’s economic growth, has proved ½ve years, for example, new pressures to high ly damaging to the environment. On reform China’s system of environmental the economic front, the combination of governance have emerged. The Chinese centrally mandated targets for economic middle class, much like that in every other growth, devolution of authority to local of - country in the world at China’s level of ½cials, engagement with the international economic development, has begun to un - community, and constrained participation derstand the trade-off between the ben - by the private sector provided substantial e½ts of rapid, unfettered economic growth economic opportunities and incentives in the short term and the health, environ- throughout the political system to encour- mental, and economic price paid over the age economic growth. This same institu- long term. Aided by the widespread adop- tional con½guration, however, has not de - tion of the Internet, the middle class has livered an equivalent set of incentives– dis covered its voice and, increasingly, the either economic or political–to engender power to influence government policy– effective environmental protection. Put particularly at the local level–through simply, opportunities to “get rich quick” public pressure. Chinese environmental are more easily grasped than those intend- ngos, like their counterparts elsewhere, ed to “protect the environment.” are taking on increasingly sensitive issues, Is China’s environmental situation sub - moving from environmental education to stantially different from those in other anti-dam activism, pressure for greater countries with a similar level of econom- trans parency, and a stronger system of en - ic development, population size, econom- vironmental law. ic complexity, or political system? While The impact that these calls for change there is no country that closely approxi- have had on Beijing’s system of environ- mates China across all these metrics, Yale mental governance, however, has thus far University’s Environmental Performance been limited. The Chinese government has Index, which evaluates countries’ current largely resisted the path adopted by most environmental performance as well as (albeit not all) of the other countries their performance trends over the past ranked above it in the Yale index, remain- decade, offers some perspective. In 2012, ing wary of greater participation by civil China ranked 116th out of 132 countries.1 society. What is emerging instead is a crisis- China placed ahead of India (125th), which driven model of environmental governance boasts a similarly large population, de - at the local level, which, while effective in centralized political system, and complex delivering environmental protection on economy. (India, however, is a democracy, discrete issues in the short term, does not and its economic resources are far smaller: foster a sustainable, long-term environ- its per capita gdp is not even one-fourth mental governance structure. that of China.) When compared with vir- tually any other strong emerging econo- China faces a deep and enduring envi- my, such as Russia (106th) or Brazil (30th), ronmental crisis born of decades–or in China fared poorly. Its still-developing East some cases, such as deforestation, centuries 143 (2) Spring 2014 185 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00282 by guest on 26 September 2021 Environ - –of resource-intensive growth. Two-thirds the country’s water resources, but house- mental of China’s cities cannot meet the coun- hold and industrial demands have in - Governance 2 in China try’s air-quality standards, and according creased dramatically over the past decade to a 2012 Asian Development Bank study as individual wealth and the overall econ- of the country’s ½ve hundred largest omy continue to expand. At least ten cities, less than 1 percent meet the World provinces in China are below the World Health Organization’s air-quality stan- Bank’s water poverty level of 1,000 cubic dards.3 Much of the challenge stems from meters per person per year; these prov - China’s reliance on coal for power; coal inces account for 45 percent of the main- contributes around 70 percent of the coun- land’s gdp, 40 percent of its agricultural try’s overall energy mix, and energy con- output, and more than half of its indus- sumption grew 130 percent from 2000 to trial production. According to Jiao Yong, 2010.4 And as Chinese citizens become vice minister of water resources, in 2012 wealthier and move into cities, they will China had more than 400 cities without use more energy. Urban residents use on suf½cient water, 110 of which faced seri- average up to four times more energy than ous scarcity.9 China’s water is also highly their rural counterparts.5 polluted. The quality of the water has de - China also suffers from high rates of land teriorated signi½cantly due to industrial- degradation and deserti½cation, as well ization and urbanization. A February 2013 as high levels of soil pollution. Centuries report by the Geological Survey of China of deforestation, combined with overgraz- revealed that 90 percent of the country’s ing of grasslands and overuse of agricul- groundwater was polluted,10 and ap - tural land, have left much of China’s north proximately one-fourth of the water that and northwest seriously degraded. The flows through China’s seven major river level of soil erosion on the Loess Plateau, systems and their tributaries is considered once the center of Chinese agriculture, is un½t for even agriculture or industry. the highest in the world, and China has been unable to arrest the process of deg - The environmental consequences of Chi - radation. According to a survey completed na’s development choices are signi½cant. by state forestry of½cials, more than one- Equally consequential is how the environ- quarter of China’s land–well over one mil- ment affects the Chinese economy and lion square miles–is now desert or facing public health. As Minister of Environmen- deserti½cation.6 At the same time, soil tal Protection Zhou Shengxian stated in a pollution from unregulated factories has 2011 editorial, “The depletion, deteriora- seriously contaminated some of China’s tion, and
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