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While mass mobilization and political campaigns were the main administrative tools for policy implementation in China during the Maoist era (1949-1976), they continued to a lesser extent into the reform period. In the Maoist era, these campaigns shaped the social and economic life of residents and government officials. However, the use of campaigns and mass mobilization diminished in the 1980s and 1990s in favor of modern administrative procedures. Instead, narrower mobilization of cadres and campaign-style policy pushes became part of the available administrative tools for policy implementation. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sometimes reverts to campaign-style methods to deal with uneven implementation and local government foot dragging. The use of policy pushes suggests an elastic form of implementation where an intense wave of central leadership policy commitment can stretch down to the local level for a short period of time and then it recedes. Looking at the single child policy (birth control measures) from the 1980s to the early 2000s, and several environmental policies such as ‘blue sky’ days, the authors demonstrate that the CCP still relies on campaign-style policy pushes as one of the administrative tools for policy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the fairly recent phenomenon of citizens and organizations requesting disclosure of environmental information in China. Chinese citizens and organizations are invoking the new open government information regulations to push government agencies, particularly environmental protection agencies, to fulfill their legal obligation of information disclosure. By requesting that government agencies disclose environmental information, citizens and organizations have turned themselves into active agents pushing forward the implementation of the new regulations. The findings of this article suggest that a bottom-up legal mobilization in the field of environmental information disclosure, though still with a limited scope, has been happening and endeavoring to make social and political changes in China. Furthermore, this legal mobilization can be seen as an important part of emerging civil society activities in contemporary China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

China's reform/opening process has been exceptionally successful at generating lasting economic growth and in lifting millions of people out of absolute poverty. However, this success came at a significant price. Environmental degeneration represents one critical issue. Other serious topics include an increasing income and development gap between and within provinces, and between rural and urban areas. A proposed shift towards a low-carbon economy seems to provide an answer in addressing this complex environmental–development challenge. However, decisions on a future course of action are not made in a political, economic or social vacuum, instead decisions are made in the context of a particular structural environment, which restricts the options available for actors. Applying a structure–agency approach will help to identify and highlight the existing structural challenges inherent within China's development strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

China is currently not only the most populous country on earth, but also the world's largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter. As China's population growth continues contributing to the overall global population increase, the country remains a significant player in the global problems related to climate change. The Chinese government, however, has recognized that a low-carbon economy is in the country's long-term economic and social interests and this is now a key part of its national development strategy. This paper examines the evolution of policies for sustainability in China and explores their compositions, functions and operational mechanisms. Some emerging features and trends in China's development model are examined, arguing that they represent a clear shift towards sustainability. Further problems and challenges associated with this change and how they impact on China's policies and strategies are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Whether government has the political will and capacity to control pollution is crucial for environmental outcomes. A vast country such as China, with centralized policymaking but idiosyncratic local implementation of environmental regulations and drastic regional disparities in wealth, raises the question of how does the central government stimulate local environmental commitment to accommodate such diversity? In exploring this issue, this paper compares three national environmental management programs that are used as influencing and bargaining tools between the central and local governments of China: Quantitative Examination of Comprehensive Control of Urban Environment (1989), Model City for Protecting the Environment (1997) and pilot Green Gross Domestic Product (2005). Although the introduction of these schemes represents an important step forward in addressing demanding environmental issues their impact is found to be mixed. However, each scheme also has something important to offer to this particular realm of environmental management and by recognizing and compiling their comparative advantages a number of policy implications for future local commitment towards and capacity for environmental protection can be provided. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The international climate change regime is comprised of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol. Under the regime, China and India, two of the largest developing countries, have been exempted from any binding greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets that apply to developed countries. However, with their GHG emissions increasing, China and India have faced growing international pressure to undertake binding mitigation obligations in international climate change negotiations. To enhance their bargaining power in the negotiations, China and India have been cooperating with each other, which has not only led to a new approach to addressing climate change but also defended the ethical benchmark of the regime. In addition, their cooperation has weakened the EU's traditional leadership status and the leadership ambitions of the US such that China and India will now play a more important role in shaping the future of the regime. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although China and the US are starting their fourth decade of energy cooperation, it is only recently that there has been a concerted US effort to create a framework for US-China bilateral energy relations. The past 30 years have witnessed many successful energy projects that have lacked follow through and institutionalization, often becoming 'one-off' exercises that duplicated previous projects. Recent initiatives intend to establish long-term linkages between US and Chinese energy bureaucracies, linking energy efficiency, energy security, and environmental issues. The US is nesting the bilateral relationship in global and Asia-Pacific multilateral energy and environmental regimes, and is also using bilateral agreements as mechanisms to promote domestic energy and environmental reform. This paper will examine US-China relations in the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate and the Five-Country Energy Ministerial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has recently become the world's largest emitter of carbon and is already facing many harmful effects domestically from climate change. Chinese leaders have therefore made a high-level commitment to curb emissions, as evident in the 2007 National Climate Change Program. However, the government has missed many of its targets, in particular its goal of reducing energy intensity. This essay argues that China is missing its targets because of a number of factors which stem from the fragmented nature of China's authoritarian system. First, environmental policies are too broad and complicated, making it difficult for regulators to enforce the laws. Second, the current incentive structures of promotion and salary cause local officials to give higher priority to economic development than to environmental issues. Third, environmental regulators, such as the judiciary and environmental agencies, remain weak and impeded by enforcement obstacles. While positive changes have occurred, such as the emergence of NGOs and the media as environmental watchdogs and a burgeoning clean technology sector, much remains to be done to improve the long-term viability of climate change policies in China. Based on the preceding analysis, this essay recommends ways by which the government could improve the process of enacting and implementing climate change policies. It also urges the international community to sympathize with the Chinese government and, by leading the way, help the government gain greater compliance with climate change policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human society faces a growing number of risks, including both natural disasters and risks that stem from human behavior. This is particularly true in China, which is experiencing rapid social, economic and political transitions. Since the 1970s, China's modernization process has been accompanied by the emergence of an increasing number of man-made risks, in particular environmental pollution, but until very recently, a risk management system did not exist in China. Society was woken up by a series of disasters and accidents, including SARS in 2003, followed by the explosion of avian flu and the chemical spill in the Songhua River in 2005. The last incident in particular finally kicked off the development of a national risk management system (specifically an emergency response system) in China. This paper analyses the status quo of the legislation, institutions and mechanisms for risk management in China and identifies opportunities and strategies for prioritizing and integrating environmental and health risks into the emerging system. The study concludes that although a series of alarming incidents have succeeded in putting risk management issues at the top of the public and political agenda, currently risk management in China can be characterized as reactive and compartmentalized, with a lack of prioritization and integration of policy efforts and resources. There is also a danger that the traditional state-centered approach may fail to create an effective risk management system, which requires improved transparency, accountability, and cross-sectoral coordination. The paper concludes with the proposal of strategies that might enable the environmental authorities to be more effective and reduce their marginalization and isolation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identifies four types of issue entrepreneurs in the creation of public issues about the environment and health in China. They are media professionals, environmental and health NGOs, villagers, and netizens. Because of the different resources of issue entrepreneurs and the constraints of China's political context, politically safe and innocuous issues and issues of concern to the urban population are more likely to enter the public sphere. Contentious issues linked to the interests of powerful business and political actors may become publicized under extraordinary circumstances such as emergencies, disasters, or epidemics, suggesting that external shocks may have a galvanizing effect. Some environment-related health issues, such as pollution-related cancer, are high-stake issues. They often affect the most disadvantaged segments of the Chinese population, yet despite their gravity, their chances of entering the public sphere are small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese pollution victims have increasingly started to resort to political and legal action to protect their interests. This paper analyzes such activism by studying how citizens identify the necessity to initiate action against pollution and by investigating the obstacles they meet when attempting to take action. The paper highlights the importance of state and intermediary institutions to aid citizens in understanding the seriousness of pollution and overcoming the obstacles they face. It shows, however, that often such aid is not available, and that state institutions when aligned with industrial interests restrict rather than support citizen action. When this occurs, citizen activism becomes an isolated affair, resulting in adversarial relations with state and industry, sometimes escalating to violence and repression of activists. The paper concludes that isolated activism forces a new look at concepts such as 'embeddedness' and 'rightful resistance' to capture citizen activism and contentious politics in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's most serious ecological crisis seems to be in its western region where the ecological environment is the weakest. This paper analyzes the population growth, underdevelopment and ecological degradation in western China hosed on a conceptual framework of population, development and ecological system. The existing problems of underdevelopment and ecological degradation are examined. The on-going ecological construction projects in western China are used to illustrate how the state has attempted to mediate the conflict between survival and ecological conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The People's Republic of China is experiencing severe air pollution with very serious public health and economic consequences. Over the past decade, the Chinese government has sought to utilize bureaucratic, political, legal and educational vehicles to address these problems. This paper examines the ways in which those policy measures have been communicated to, understood by, and acted upon by the citizenry, drawing in important part on household and epidemiological surveys conducted in Anhui. Our study suggests that the central government's message has yet to be absorbed to the degree intended and then considers both why this has been the case and how the effectiveness of policy mechanisms might be enhanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]