User:Ianman2/Environmental policy in China

Authoritarian Environmentalism
Chinese environmental policy often takes the form of authoritarian environmentalism, in which the Chinese central government is the key creator and guider of policy. Authoritarian environmentalism can be used in tandem with other forms of policy creation and instruments of governmental control used for the purpose of environmental protection such as green grabbing. This form of policy relies heavily on the centralization of power within the state and the non-participatory role of citizens. Authoritarian environmentalism can thus allow for quick, proactive, responses to issues regarding climate change by a government since policy decisions can be easily streamlined.

The non-participatory nature of the citizens within authoritarian environmentalism also implies a lack of strong interest groups and lobbyists. The Chinese government is provided with the opportunity to augment environmental policy through top-down mechanisms without bending to the pressures and influence of interest groups. In doing so, authoritarian environmentalism may avoid standard dilemmas in policymaking such as the free rider problem or issues that arise as a result of competition over resources. The lack of input by third parties as well as from citizens may also result into a general lack of organized resistance whenever policies are implemented, as individuals become apathetic towards their role in crafting policy. This allows for a greater ease in which the Chinese government is able to not only produce, but enact large environmental policies, even when controversial.

Limitations implemented under authoritarian environmentalism may also prove significantly useful in the construction of sound environmental policy. In a democracy, individual liberties may come at odds with with goals involving environmental protection. An authoritarian system which employs limitations on these liberties, such as through restrictions on unsustainable practices or forced compliance with environmental policies, may prove successful in attaining environmental objectives. These limitations also foster a general deference to the state by individuals as they become accustomed to accepting the complete role of the state in matters relating to environmental policy. As a result, it becomes even easier under authoritarian environmentalism for governments to produce policies since citizens come to expect and accept the implementation of government-led policies.

Examples of Authoritarian Environmentalism in China
Throughout modern Chinese history, authoritarian environmentalism has been used to push for environmental projects, ranging from the creation of protected areas to the construction of megaprojects. The notion of primacy in environmental policy by the Chinese government can be seen through the construction of hydroelectric dams and water management. The construction of the Three Gorges Dam in Hubei, justified through various environmental and political objectives, exemplifies the ability of the Chinese state to take control over large-scale projects. Being the largest dam in the world, the creation of the Three Gorges Dam involved large amounts of policy coordination as well as the mobilization of Chinese workers to build effective infrastructure. The Chinese government was also successfully able to relocate citizens who would be displaced as a result of the dam. This success was very likely a result of authoritarian environmentalism since the non-participatory nature of policy decisions led many of those displaced to accept forcible relocation, given that it was at the behest of the Chinese government. In many cases of dams being built in China, citizens are often unwilling or unable to organize effectively given that the construction of dams is framed as a matter of importance and necessity by the Chinese government. Without instances of massive local resistance, the Chinese government is easily able to pursue environmental objectives and build massive amounts of dams. As a result of these environmental projects, China has experienced a quick development of its renewable energy industry and capabilities, allowing the country to rely more heavily on hydropower. Since 2015, China's installed capacity of hydropower far exceeded 300,000 MW, having doubled since 2008.

Afforestation in China, a practice that is central to many of the country's environmental policies, is able to be pursued much easier under authoritarian environmentalism. Policies to promote the planting of vegetation may be swiftly instituted by the Chinese central government as quickly as they are created. These policies may range from mandatory hedgerow coverage within construction projects to coverage targets for urban regions. More significantly, authoritarian environmentalism is central to the creation of policies spurring the large-scale planting of forests in China, namely in rural regions. The centrality of the Chinese government has allowed for the creation of afforestation policies that are high-profile in nature and very rapidly implemented, resulting in tangible policy outputs. In many instances, local officials are able to produce outputs (specifically, forest coverage) within two years of the creation of afforestation policy. These policies have been met with some levels of success: from 1978 to 2018, forest coverage in China has jumped from 12% to 21.66%.

Authoritarian environmentalism has also been used as a tool by the Chinese government in order to create national parks or other protected areas, frequently through the use of green grabbing. Similar to the construction of hydropower dams, the Chinese government is able to use its power alongside the justification of environmental objectives in order to forcibly resettle individuals who may inhabit a region designated to become a national park. Authoritarian environmentalism has allowed for Chinese policymakers to engage in the forcible relocation of ethnic minority groups whilst being met with little resistance as their moving is framed as crucial to environmental protection. For example, the creation of Sanjiangyuan National Park required the relocation of tens of thousands of Tibetan nomads who inhabited the region. The supremacy of the Chinese central government in all matters environmental has meant that objectives surrounding the creation of national parks can be easily implemented, even if they involve massive relocation campaigns. These policies also appear to be successful as over 220 national parks have been created in China since their implementation in 1982.

Critiques of Authoritarian Environmentalism
Given the necessitation of large levels of state control, critiques of authoritarian environmentalism propose that this type of policy control runs counter to democracy. Political science professor Bruce Gilley has suggested that, although authoritarian environmentalism can be useful in producing policy outputs in the face of various environmental challenges, it requires the creation of "structures of state dominion". These structures, in turn, can create incentives for citizens to submit to the will of the state by making the costs of defecting high. In some cases, citizens are unable to combat or protest the will of the state such as failed attempts to stop the construction of a hydropower dam in China's Tiger Leaping Gorge (which was originally scrapped due to environmental concerns, but reinstated under the name Longpan Hydropower Station). The result is a situation in which policy outputs become prevalent, but positive policy outcomes do not. In other cases, citizens of China come to rely on the Chinese government to retain supremacy in all matters regarding environmental policy, leading to individuals being "accustomed to non-participatory policy". The normalization of government control in environmental matters may extend into other realms and increase deference to the Chinese central government. This further entrenches the power of authoritarian governments as citizens may extrapolate non-participatory habits into other realms such as political participation.

This apathy by individuals towards intervention in environmental policies may extend towards interest groups and environmental non-governmental organizations. In China, environmental non-governmental organizations often have a diminished role within the political sphere compared to democratic nations and are only auxiliary in guiding policy at best. The minimal impact on decision-making by these groups as well as the general public may spur the creation of ineffective or misinformed policies that may create negative environmental outcomes.

Beyond simply a lack in participatory behavior by citizens, experts such as political science professor Mark Beeson, contend that authoritarian environmentalism may involve implementation through "limiting personal freedom". These limitations allow for greater compliance among individuals in regards to following environmental policies. This, in turn, may lead to a weakening of civil society as well an erosion of conventional democratic avenues of expression. Citizens within an autocracy may also be more willing to accept limitations on their freedoms when they are framed in such a way that they appear necessary in order for the government to achieve environmental goals. In doing so, the power of the central government is bolstered and citizens become much more unable to resist infringement by the state.

Other experts, such as Yifei Li, a professor at NYU Shanghai, are critical of the centralized approach that authoritarian environmentalism requires:

"When innovative capacity, epistemic power or knowledge is so centralised, it often means that Chinese state officials, well intentioned though they may be, just don’t know what is happening on the ground to the point where they ignore inputs from ethnic minority groups and independent scientists. In this case, centralisation becomes a disservice to the Chinese state. They are pursuing a one-dimensional approach of what China is currently and what China could become moving forward. By being completely desensitised to the complexity of the nation and the diversity of society, Chinese state actors undermine the state’s ability to govern well." To Li, China's monocentric method of environmental policy production results in outcomes that are not only worse off for the local environment, but harm the Chinese state as a whole. A centralized approach to policy, sans checks and balances to restrain the power of the state, may simply lack the mechanisms necessary to produce functional environmental policy. A reliance on centrality when crafting policy may also mean that shocks to the government hinder the formation of any and all types of policy. For example, high turnover in cadres within the Chinese Communist Party at the local level have led to a decrease in the creation of policy, not just policies regarding environmentalism. High rates of turnover may also incentivize officials in order to focus primarily in the short-term. In terms of environmental policy, this would imply the pursuit of objectives that prioritize visible results over actual environmental improvement. In the case of afforestation, this has involved the implementation of monoculture tree planting. Monoculture tree planting permits local officials to rapidly reach targets involving tree coverage whilst producing tangible results (oftentimes, entire forests) within a matter of years. However, this method has been shown to increase environmental degradation and desertification, as the trees planted are often unsuited to thrive in the local landscape. When viewing Chinese afforestation efforts, authoritarian environmentalism is able to produce outputs without the associated positive environmental outcomes.

Environmental Authoritarianism
In pursuing environmental goals, the Chinese government is often able to expand its reach and control, consolidating various forms of power into its leadership. As a result, Chinese environmental policy can be viewed through the perspective of environmental authoritarianism: the practice of using environmental objectives to justify the furthering of autocratic power. In only a small number of cases the Chinese government has been able to achieve tangible improvements in regards to an environmental project, whereas nearly every project has coincided with an increase in the power of the state. This is compounded by the fact that decision-making in the Chinese government uses top-down mechanisms, meaning that power is concentrated at the national level as opposed to the state level. When environmental policies are created at the national level, local governments with considerable amounts of information and expertise are not consulted. This lack of consultation can result in policies that are hindered or even left ineffective. Despite their inadequacy, environmental authoritarianism suggests that these environmental policies are still pursued by the Chinese government in order to achieve authoritarian goals.

Environmental authoritarianism implies a form of environmental governance that differs from China's typical approach to environmental policy, using command-and-control authority over decision-making. Similar to authoritarian environmentalism, the success of environmental authoritarianism is predicated on the non-participatory role of citizens. In the case of China, the public is kept outside of the development process in regards to environmental policy and are given no sufficient channels for consultation or suggestion. The lack of involvement in policy production by the Chinese public both increases and further entrenches the power of the Chinese government, explaining the success of environmental policy in expanding authoritarian legitimacy.

Evidence of Environmental Authoritarianism
Similar to authoritarian environmentalism, environmental authoritarianism is evidenced in numerous projects instituted by the Chinese government that purport environmentalism. Ecological migration in China, for example, is frequently used as a tool in order to achieve the goals of the central government under the guise of environmental necessity. Implementation of policies that lead to ecological migration have been shown to create an enormous negative impact on regions in which immigrants are resettled. Resettlement regions in China tend to have higher ecological footprints and a lower biocapacity per capita than they did prior to the introduction of migrants. Migration not only creates a toll on human-environmental systems but the migrants themselves, as these policies can work against regional stability and lead to cultural erasure. More often than not, migrants are forced to move into China's urban areas (which typically lie in the eastern part of the country). In doing so, those relocated are more easily able to adopt urbanized lifestyles, which comes with a much larger carbon footprint. These migrants threaten to substantially increase their impact on the environment and worsen the climate crisis as a result. Given the negatives of ecological migration, environmental authoritarianism seeks to explain its use (alongside forcible relocation) by the Chinese government as a means to achieve authoritarian ends rather than simply being a byproduct of environmental protection.

Forcible relocation can be seen in the institution of ecological migration policies in the Tibetan Plateau, created under the pretense of preventing desertification and the degradation of the area's grasslands. Those living in the Tibetan Plateau may be forced to move elsewhere (often into urban centers) by the Chinese government, with environmental protection being used as justification. Although these relocations are being promoted by the Chinese central government as a positive way to reverse the effects of overgrazing whilst safeguarding the plateau's high levels of biodiversity, the assimilation of natives may be the real goal. In this context, environmental authoritarianism would suggest that the Chinese government is using ecological migration policies as a means to use the environment to rationalize the cultural assimilation of ethnic minorities (and further the government's autocratic control). A similar occurrence can be seen in Inner Mongolia, in which ecological migration has led to the displacement of thousands of Mongolian herders. These individuals are told that their movement from the region is necessary for the environment, since pastoralism is said to negatively contribute to the damaged environmental ecosystems of Inner Mongolia and create dangerous sandstorms. However, it is unclear whether or not pastoralism is the true cause of the rangeland degradation present in Inner Mongolia. Poor documentation and inadequate monitoring systems alongside an insufficient understanding of the region's ecological systems leave China's ecological migration policies largely unfounded. At the same time, as environmental authoritarianism suggests, ecological migration policies in Inner Mongolia achieve the goal of relocating Mongolian herders into urban centers, using environmental protection as justification. These policies are able to forcibly displace Mongolian herders (whilst eliminating their traditional lifestyles of pastoralism) and further concentrate power and control over Inner Mongolia into the hands of the Chinese government. Green grabbing, the process of appropriating land or resources under the justification of environmentalism, can also be contextualized through environmental authoritarianism. In the realm of hydropower, the Chinese government has used authoritarian environmentalism in order to streamline the construction of dams all around the country. Despite the fact that these dams are built under the pretense of the necessitation of renewable energy, many of these dams operate at over-capacity and often experience curtailment. The creation of dams in China by the government can also result in worse environmental outcomes. In the case of the Three Gorges Dam, experts in the fields of geology, environmentalism, and biology have suggested that the dam may very well result in catastrophe, given its location near large populations of people, proximity to threatened wildlife species, and close position to a seismic fault. Environmental authoritarianism suggests that the creation of massive hydropower dams by the Chinese government, such as the Three Gorges Dam, is done so with the larger goal of increasing authoritarian control, which often takes priority over tangible environmental results. In fact, the construction of dams frequently benefits local officials who are able to profit on electricity production whilst damaging local ecosystems and having harsh impacts on the social and economic well-being of nearby communities. Environmental agendas are successfully able to be used by the Chinese government in order to legitimize green grabbing and pursue hydropower projects; each project strengthening the government's control at the expense of local communities. According to John Flower, a researcher in the field of social anthropology, environmental policies in China that make use of green grabbing have the ultimate goal of "achieving socialist modernisation through ecological engineering". Affected communities, who are typically poorly compensated, find resistance difficult when hydropower is framed as crucial to the nation's success.