China Goes Green

Coercive Environmentalism for a Troubled Planet

Yifei Li, Judith Shapiro

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781509543137
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

What does it mean for the future of the planet when one of the world's most durable authoritarian governance systems pursues "ecological civilization"? Despite its staggering pollution and colossal appetite for resources, China exemplifies a model of state-led environmentalism which concentrates decisive political, economic, and epistemic power under centralized leadership. On the face of it, China seems to embody hope for a radical new approach to environmental governance. In this thought-provoking book, Yifei Li and Judith Shapiro probe the concrete mechanisms of China's coercive environmentalism to show how 'going green' helps the state to further other agendas such as citizen surveillance and geopolitical influence. Through top-down initiatives, regulations, and campaigns to mitigate pollution and environmental degradation, the Chinese authorities also promote control over the behavior of individuals and enterprises, pacification of borderlands, and expansion of Chinese power and influence along the Belt and Road and even into the global commons. Given the limited time that remains to mitigate climate change and protect millions of species from extinction, we need to consider whether a green authoritarianism can show us the way. This book explores both its promises and risks.

1
Asserting “Green” Control: The State and its Subjects

A chain of Chinese “oxygen bars” sells purified air for the modest price of 40 RMB for ten minutes of clean breathing, or 100 RMB for half an hour.¹ Water from the Himalayan springs of Tibet, which China supplied to world leaders during the G20 summit in 2016, sells for several times more than regular purified water. A “Beijing Pollution Fighters” WeChat group trades tips on the best home and car air purifiers, strategies to seal leaky windows, the efficacy of masks, and how to fit a facemask on a two-year-old. In China’s highly developed East, lung disease and cancer rates are spiraling upward. Because such diseases may take years to emerge, current epidemiological patterns in China’s developed areas can be traced to pollution exposure from the early reform-and-opening period of the 1980s after the death of Mao; in coming years, an even more dramatic public health crisis may be expected (Huang 2020).

These Eastern regions are known both for great wealth and intense pollution of air, water, soil, and food. The manufacture of products for export and domestic consumption has turned vast rural coastal areas into urbanized workshops and factories, widening the wealth gap between the developed East and the less developed West. Glittering highrises, brand-name shopping malls, high-end hotels, gated communities with aspirational European themes, luxury automobiles, collector wines, high (and fast) fashion, and conspicuous consumption – these are the hallmarks of China’s opulence.

The lifestyles of China’s rising middle and upper classes put unprecedented strain on an over-capacitated ecosystem. Urban affluence contrasts with the poverty of the migrant workers who support the very rich and almost-rich as nannies, construction workers, motorbike delivery drivers, hair-stylists, masseuses, and manicurists. Yet no matter where a person sits on the wealth spectrum in industrialized China, it is almost impossible to avoid the pollution – a byproduct of the manufacturing that created so much wealth in such a short time – and the consumption that supports it. Sociologist Ulrich Beck (1992) calls this phenomenon the “boomerang effect” in the spread of environmental risks. The urban rich whose lifestyle choices produce outsized environmental harms ultimately cannot avoid being exposed to them.

Beginning soon after Mao’s death in 1976, decentralization and economic freedom meant high growth rates, but also the fading of the Center’s unchallenged grip on power. However, when President Xi Jinping became paramount leader in 2012, he reasserted control. Xi, who removed term limits on his position, is widely seen as the most authoritarian leader since Mao. In the age of “Uncle Xi,” Beijing is re-exerting authority over localities not only to serve his power agenda but also to protect the legitimacy of the Communist Party in the eyes of a restive middle class upset about government corruption and pollution.

Meanwhile, in environmental matters, bureaucracies proliferate despite unclear areas of responsibility and lines of command, a hallmark of the bloated quasi-socialist state that exerts so much control over public life. Local leaders often benefit from pollution, and underfunded officials have even been known to rely on fines to enrich themselves or simply pay their own salaries (Jahiel 1997). Factory managers often take shortcuts and circumvent environmental regulations in order to maximize profits. The legal system for enforcement remains weak.

According to the economic theory of the Environmental Kuznets Curve, China is approaching a hypothesized point where profit from development will be put into pollution remediation, eventually leveling off pollution intensity before it decreases. A group of scientists has estimated that this tipping point will arrive between 2021 and 2025 (H. Wang et al. 2019). How will this transition play out in an authoritarian system? There are enormous benefits to decisiveness in these matters, but also considerable risks.

Crackdowns, targets, and behavior modification are key tools that the “green” Chinese Party-state is using to clean up the environment in its highly developed Eastern areas. Many urban Chinese blame the “system,” or tizhi 体制, for some of the egregious problems of modern China. If the Communist Party of China does not address corruption, inequality, and environmental problems, its legitimacy will remain shaky. This is the context in which we must understand the Communist Party’s intense drive to get a handle on pollution.

For the Party, this is not only a question of dealing with a problem that contributes to citizen dissatisfaction and hence the prospect of social instability. It is also an opportunity, or even a mandate for the state to consolidate control. Indeed, from the perspective of the Chinese state, the green agenda is closely linked to the authoritarian one because implementation failure could mean an increase in protests, or what the government euphemizes as “environmental mass incidents,” or huanjing quntixing shijian 环境群体性事件.

The state’s unease is evidenced, for example, by its repeated attempts in recent decades to head these off by providing centralized “complaint hotlines.” These are intended to defuse frustration and gather data used to reward or punish local officials for their performance on a social stability metric. (This metric has contributed to abuses, as officials have brutalized potential petitioners when they attempt to leave home to petition higher authorities.) Despite such efforts, environmental protests continue to erupt, posing a serious challenge to the state’s grip on power. Official sources suggest a steady annual growth rate of 29 percent in the number of “environmental mass incidents” since 1996 when record-keeping started (Yinan Wang 2014). Fear of luan 乱, or chaos, has been an entrenched anxiety since the anarchic phases of the Cultural Revolution turned China on its head and destroyed an entire generation. Environmental issues could, it is feared, be the wedge for public mobilization that they were in Eastern Europe. We would be remiss, therefore, to think that the state’s enthusiasm for “ecological civilization” means China has become some sort of “eco-utopia” like Bhutan, which has been known for its pursuit of Gross National Happiness since the 1970s. Rather, in a bid to intensify its fragile hold on the Chinese populace, the Party has included environmental protection among a panoply of state goals that include poverty alleviation, corruption crackdowns, and building a “harmonious society.”

To explain how the Chinese state came to rely so heavily on campaigns and crackdowns, and why so much of China’s environmentalism comes from the top, or Center, we must see that the Party’s choices and tools are limited to those of the authoritarian system it has created. Mistrust and even fear of public participation, civil society organizations, and democratic processes mean that the public space for environmental activism is carefully delimited, even if the boundaries can be murky and changeable across time and space. Risk-averse local officials, for whom stability outweighs transparency, await guidance from superiors before taking action (as seen in the catastrophic delay in announcing the coronavirus outbreak in 2020). The city of Kunming in southwestern Yunnan province can be freer than Beijing; months when there are no important meetings can be freer than those when major decisions are being made. Environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) flourish, but always within the confines of collaboration with the state. Registration with the Ministry of Civil Affairs (for Chinese groups) and the Public Security Bureau (for foreign groups) is mandatory since the passage of new NGO laws in 2017. Teatime “chats” with security officials are necessary for the continued operation of well-respected environmental groups like Friends of Nature and the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), and for less prominent organizations like the conservation group Shanshui. Foreign-affiliated groups like Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots have an even more delicate row to hoe. Environmental civil society groups are fundamentally entwined with a state that has a felt need to keep close tabs on their every activity.

Some years ago, one of us, Judith, was approached by a Dutch foundation that wished to present a prestigious environmental award to Ma Jun, the founder of IPE. The decision-makers were hesitant about whether he was “sufficiently independent of the government.” Ah, responded Judith, that is the wrong question. Rather, the question is whether IPE has been able to function within the system and still achieve its aims of information transparency, citizen empowerment, public pressure, and strengthening institutions within the government (like the Ministry of Ecology and Environment) such that they can achieve shared goals of environmental protection and implementation of law. While environmental groups must tread carefully within the boundaries of the permissible, IPE has successfully worked to shift those boundaries and open up space for a longer list of acceptable strategies and activities. (Ma Jun got the award.) Similarly, Judith was approached by a Washington, DC-based ocean-protection ENGO seeking to open a Beijing office. They told her they planned to use the same strategies they use elsewhere in the world, including running grassroots mobilizations while maintaining complete independence from the government. Good luck, said Judith, but in China this approach just won’t work. You must have allies or even sponsors within the state or little can be done. Even potential university partners are deeply entwined with the state.

In China, environmental governance challenges conventional Western ideas about the state–society binary relationship. A diverse range of non-state actors includes ENGOs and social enterprises, industrial associations and “public service units,” or shiye danwei 事业单位. These actors work directly or indirectly under the shadow or sponsorship of the state. Some are affiliated with a state agency or even operate on the premises of their “supervising” governmental unit’s secured compound. Business cards from people in “non-state” environmental groups often list government affiliations as credentials; reflecting the nation’s socialist origins, state connections convey validity and the right to exist. In the local environmental programs in which we participate, official “letters of introduction” with red-ink chops from state agencies open doors and assure our contacts that it is safe to work with us. The state’s penetration of civil society thus runs deep. However, just as ENGOs need state support to conduct effective environmental advocacy, so does the state depend on ENGOs to help reach the nation’s vast and diverse populations. Environmental groups sometimes serve as its eyes and ears in monitoring pollution. They make up shortfalls in delivery of services including river and beach trash cleanups, and they clarify environmental messages in public awareness campaigns like those about shark fin and ivory (as we will see in chapter 4). This symbiotic relationship shapes environmental outcomes in a range of situations in China’s industrialized East.

The Communist Party’s uneasiness with civil society groups has created a particular, or even unique, style of environmental politics. As we now turn to the empirical parts of this book, we focus on a series of tools, techniques, and technologies that the Chinese state is using to achieve green goals. We begin with a focus on campaigns and crackdowns. Then we explore the state’s use of targets and goal-setting. We end the chapter with a discussion of behavior modification, particularly as seen in the implementation of new urban recycling regulations.

Campaigns and Crackdowns

China’s reliance on political campaigns (yundong 运动) dates to well before the 1949 revolution. During the Yan’an years (1937–45), when Mao’s battered communists who had survived the Long March regrouped in a remote, cave-dwelling area of Shaanxi province, the Party used mass mobilization to engage ordinary people in support of the leadership and its policies. Campaigns were intended to achieve a specific set of goals, often in a short time. They were an effective means of silencing critics, eliciting conformity and support, and engaging large numbers of people. China’s political campaigns are infamous. They include the 1957 Anti-Rightist movement (intended to ferret out and label the enemies of the Party), the 1958–60 Great Leap Forward (intended to launch China from socialism to communism, to industrialize and overtake capitalist countries in iron and steel output, and to break all records in grain output), and the 1966–76 Cultural Revolution (intended to throw the country into a state of “continuous revolution,” reassert Mao’s vision and power, turn the entire country into a nation of soldiers engaged in a “war” against nature and against Mao’s enemies from within and without, and wage “class struggle” against critics). There were also hygiene campaigns, like the one to rid China of “pests” like rats, flies, mosquitoes, cockroaches, and, unfortunately, sparrows, which were later proved to have eaten more destructive insects than grain (Shapiro 2001).

Even after the death of Mao in 1976 and the repudiation of most of these Mao-era campaigns as severe mistakes, not least because many of China’s new leaders had themselves been victims, the Party continued to rely on campaign-style political movements (van Rooij 2006). For example, in 1983 a short-lived campaign against “spiritual pollution” was intended to crack down on “unhealthy” tendencies in literature and the arts. A 1986 campaign against “bourgeois liberalism” attempted to do the same. In both cases there was a lukewarm response from those charged with implementing them and from the masses, and the campaigns fizzled out. But the overarching political climate of the post-Mao decades has still been one of “cold winds, warm winds” (Shapiro and Liang 1986). The limits of the acceptable are constantly shifting and ordinary people remain off balance. Even today, everyone in Beijing knows that every March, at the time of the “two sessions” of high-level Party organizations, a politically conservative wind will blow and everyone must stay alert not to push boundaries or take risks. There are more residence checks and a greater presence of military and civilian security forces. Publications are postponed, book talks canceled, television programs suspended, internet censorship filters tightened, journalists furloughed, and petitioners and migrant workers rounded up and sent home.

There are also, of course, campaigns that are less overtly political, like those against walking on the grass or spitting in public. During a campaign in 2010, when Shanghai hosted a World Expo, the city government urged its citizens to give up the “backward habit” of wearing pajamas in neighborhood streets, even going so far as to recruit “community volunteers” to monitor and reprimand pajama-wearing locals. A more recent campaign against the “Beijing bikini,” whereby men roll their undershirts to their armpits on hot summer days, has brought levity to such government efforts to mandate public behavior. Unfortunately, the time-honored game of mahjong is also under government attack as part of a stated effort to purify the social environment and improve the public image of citizens. For elderly retirees who rely on the game to pass time with their neighbors, this is a sad development. During the 2020 coronavirus outbreak, Anhui law enforcement officers were even seen smashing mahjong tables in people’s homes as a way to stop residents from gathering in groups, while in Sichuan, camera-carrying drones hectored mahjong players to stop their games.

During such campaigns, the state manipulates public opinion through a coordinated set of activities. Officials mount red banners across the streets to display punchy slogans. Television and radio programs broadcast tuneful jingles about the campaign in order to spread it to the masses. Schools, hospitals, neighborhoods, and factories organize trivia competitions in line with campaign themes. Newspapers publish stories about exemplary citizens who achieve campaign goals for everyone to “learn from.” Long lines of buses take teenagers and retirees to “must-see” educational films. Subways, buses, and taxis display themed ads. Celebrities are recruited as advocates. Schoolchildren are made to “volunteer” to distribute informational leaflets on the streets. All these campaigns share a top-down, directorial flavor whereby the state tells ordinary people what to do, whether or not they themselves aspire to be civilized subjects of the People’s Republic. As we see in the next section, campaigns can also be punitive, with massive deployments of surprise inspections. These can have real consequences,...