tackle “airpocalypses” in urban areas have followed a top-down model that excludes even lower-level officials from the political process, making environmental programs part of a much larger authoritarian agenda of state control and power centralization (Ahlers and Shen 2018; Kosta and Zhang 2018). Although centralization is often assumed to produce better environmental results (Gilley 2012), it is not a panacea when the central government lacks adequate information about complex local realities (Kostka and Nahm 2017). Moreover, in an increasingly authoritarian era, the state has embarked on aggressive initiatives to use emerging technologies and big data analytics to buttress the centralization of environmental power (Kostka and Zhang 2018). Existing research on China points to the emergence of a highly centralized “hard” authoritarian model of government (Shambaugh 2016), under which environmental policies become a vehicle for the consolidation and centralization of state power (Yeh 2013). The state profits from the environmental crisis by projecting itself as the sole legitimate steward of the environment.
Such dynamics are not limited to authoritarian regimes, although they find their starkest expression there. As Naomi Klein and others have argued, natural disasters can sometimes provide opportunities for capitalist societies to impose neo-liberal policies that might otherwise have been resisted (Klein 2010). This problem is related to what some scholars identify as the “environmental fix” for the capitalist crises of our time. David Harvey’s classic analysis of late capitalism points to its tendency to “fix” or deal with overaccumulation and underconsumption through global expansion into new spaces, temporarily displacing the crisis that results from such contradictions by finding new resources and markets (Harvey 1985; Bakker 2004; Castree 2008). State-led environmentalism can, and often does, serve non-environmental ends to strengthen the authority and reach of the state.
In sum, the debate over coercive state-led environmentalism may be one of the most pressing conversations of our time. Many people find themselves longing for radical solutions, as it appears time is running out. Even those who treasure liberal values and respect for human rights and public participation find themselves wondering if non-democratic measures may be necessary to protect the planet. They wonder if the earth may be in need of an autocrat to protect it from the abuses of people. Science and ecological necessity, rather than deliberative public processes, goes the argument, may be the most responsible ways to structure the governance systems of the future. This book will challenge this line of reasoning.
Here, we take stock of this rich body of past scholarship in order to evaluate China’s approach to environmental protection. Building on previous research, we conceptualize coercive state-led environmentalism as a three-dimensional enterprise:
State-led environmentalism materializes through a range of top-down governmental tools, techniques, and technologies that have the ostensible goal of environmental protection.
The state manages its relations with the society by incorporating some non-state environmental interests while maintaining and consolidating its dominant position.
The practice of state-led environmentalism has non-environmental spillover effects, most notably on the centralization of political power and the suppression of individual rights and public participation.
In each of the following four empirical chapters, we begin by identifying the primary governmental tools employed in the name of protecting, improving, or rehabilitating the environment. Examples include pollution crackdowns, centrally administered campaign-style inspections, target-setting, behavior modification, forcible relocations, big data monitoring, manipulating global trade, and geoengineering. Then, through a review of cases and examples where these tools are used, we evaluate the different mechanisms and discuss their social and political implications.
As the reader may have noticed, we use the terms “coercive environmentalism” and “state-led environmentalism” interchangeably with authoritarian environmentalism or eco-authoritarianism derived from past scholarship. We should also note that there are a host of other related terms – including eco-fascism, eco-totalitarianism, and eco-terrorism, as well as environmental fascism, environmental totalitarianism, and environmental terrorism – expressing the concept of coercion from both the political Right and Left. We agree with Anna Ahlers and Yongdong Shen (2018) that the notion of authoritarian environmentalism is a useful heuristic device, but it does not fully capture the nuances of how policies, practices, and social relations unfold on the ground. In an effort to investigate the practice of non-democratic approaches to environmental protection, then, we highlight the centrality of the state and its coercive power under the leadership of the Communist Party.
A note on the relationship between state and Party is in order as well. Beginning in 1987, under ongoing reforms first instituted by Premier Deng Xiaoping, a policy called “Separation of Party and State” – dangzheng fenjia 党政分家 – was enshrined into the main political report of the 13th Party Congress. Under this policy, the Communist Party was to yield day-to-day government operations to institutions like the National People’s Congress and State Council, leaving the Party to provide overarching guidance and to intervene only in major decisions. To avoid overconcentration of power, the passage of laws, implementation, and administration was to belong to the state rather than the Party (Chamberlain 1987; Zheng 2009). Since the rise of Xi Jinping, however, the supreme power of the Party has been reasserted in almost all critical governance institutions (Wang and Zeng 2016). For this reason, when we refer to the Chinese state in this book, we almost always mean the Chinese state under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Boundaries are so blurred that the institutions are all but inseparable.
China Goes Green follows the trajectory of the Chinese state under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as it wields environmental power at home and abroad. We also engage the debate over the nature and scope of China’s “consultative authoritarianism” in an effort to shed light on the particular governance style that the CCP has developed to maintain power for so many decades. The mobilization of grassroots neighborhood-level actors and volunteers, the co-optation of citizens’ groups to further state goals, and the system of social rewards and punishments all have roles to play in the environmental realm, even as they fall short of a participatory governance system that would allow truly independent citizen organizations and supervision from below.
Authoritarianism in Green Clothing
Our analysis seeks to articulate not only the environmental implications of the Chinese green state, but also many of the non-environmental consequences of authoritarian environmentalism. Given that China is now one of the world’s superpowers, this is a matter of enormous significance. The non-environmental spillover effects of Chinese environmental governance have been recognized: there are human rights consequences of big dam construction; nomads are sedentarized in the name of grasslands preservation; ordinary people in big cities complain that the state is invading their privacy by specifying their laundry techniques and investigating their garbage disposal practices. Building on this line of inquiry, we wish to evaluate more systematically the many intended and unintended consequences of coercive environmental measures adopted by the state. A truly effective model of governance in the Anthropocene cannot afford to ignore the non-environmental implications of environmental pursuits. Therefore, we examine the promise of China’s state-led approach along both environmental and non-environmental lines.
Our study reveals that there are admirable elements in the decisiveness of Communist Party policy makers on environmental issues, but there is also much to fear. Notable achievements have been made in sectors from renewable energy to the restoration of ecosystem services. At the same time, the crackdowns, targets, and technological surveillance tools used to implement environmental protection are also being used to assert and consolidate the hand of the state over the individual and over citizens’ groups. We find that there is much to learn from China’s determination to resolve its massive environmental problems, but we also caution strongly against the darker consequences of China’s style of state-led environmentalism. Not only
