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China’s Approach to Environmental Governance and the Role of the EU in Market-Induced Reforms

  • Original Article
  • Published:
East Asian Community Review

Abstract

The Chinese central authorities have officially started to promote a “national ecological accounting and auditing scheme” (NEAS) to fight against domestic environmental degradation since 2013. Nevertheless, as a global issue, the conservation of ecological environment inevitably involves cooperation among nations in the context of global environmental governance. Through a comparative case study on the NEAS and the sustainability-related trade imperatives, this article investigates how the policy-based and the market-based mechanisms are perceived by some key institutions in the Chinese society, and to what extent they are expected to offer adequate solutions to China’s environmental challenges. Further, this study offers an analysis of the strategic partnership formed between China and the European Union in tackling environmental challenges, and thus seeks to contribute to a better understanding of how to shape sustainability through a collaborative way for “our common future” in a global agenda.

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Notes

  1. In this article, the term “China” and “Chinese” refers to the PRC, and to the mainland China in particular.

  2. Policy documents and transcriptions of leadership speeches available on the official website of the Central People’s Government of PRC (http://www.gov.cn/), a “government-run” website specialised in providing governmental information and services “administered by the State Council of PRC” (english.gov.cn, last consulted on 13/1/2018).

  3. In general, the issuing of this document (though might carry different titles each time) at the Third Plenums have historically been the events at which Chinese leaders have presented their long-term visions for the country’s economy and for the development of society (Phillips 2013).

  4. Originally in Chinese: “建设生态文明, 必须建立系统完整的生态文明制度体系……用制度保护生态环境。”.

  5. Originally in Chinese: “对……等自然生态空间进行统一确权登记” “空间规划” “资源税”.

  6. Originally in Chinese: “资源有偿使用和生态补偿” “自然资源及其产品价格改革” “推行节能量、碳排放权、排污权、水权交易制度”.

  7. Originally in Chinese: “及时公布企业环境信息”.

  8. Originally in Chinese: “健全举报制度,加强社会监督”.

  9. Originally in Chinese: “生态环境损害”.

  10. Originally in Chinese: “建立生态环境损害责任终身追究制”.

  11. Originally in Chinese: “生态” “环境” “核算” “审计”.

  12. http://www.cnki.net/. As described on its “Introduction” page, the CNKI is “the most comprehensive gateway of knowledge of China” that endowed with a “monopolist status” (Zhao and Qiu 2005). This database is mostly used to acquire academic papers of domestic researchers and to access the full archive of major news outlets in the PRC.

  13. 210 articles have been included in this research after several searches with different combination of the keywords and a manual screening from the original search results, in order to take full account of relevant articles. The search for academic papers in the next section follows the same principles.

  14. Originally in Chinese: “对限制开发区域和生态脆弱的国家扶贫开发工作重点县取消地区生产总值考核”.

  15. Originally in Chinese: “合理的经济增长率一定要有”.

  16. See notably China’s several carbon trading pilot projects on provincial level and its plan for starting up the national carbon-trading programme in 2017 (available at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-22/china-plans-to-include-eight-industries-in-carbon-trading-market, last consulted on 2/3/2018).

  17. See, for instance, Laine’s (2009) investigation on environmental disclosures of a leading Finnish chemical company, and Aznar-Márquez and Ruiz-Tamarit’s (2017) study on the socially “optimal” equilibrium when it comes to conceiving an action plan for sustainability (and thus the prevention of catastrophes) for any organisation.

  18. The literature under review includes relevant laws and regulations, reports from a variety of news outlets, the Corporate Social Responsibility reports of agribusinesses and so on.

  19. Superseded by the “Ministry of Ecology and Environment” in 2018, when a new “Ministry of Natural Resources” was established.

  20. Information available at https://www.globalgap.org/ (last consulted on 04/08/2018).

  21. More details regarding these certifications are available at https://www.worldwildlife.org/ (last consulted on 06/08/2018).

  22. Information available at http://blogs.worldbank.org/trade/green-belt-and-road-feasible-how-mitigate-environmental-risk-bri-infrastructure-project (last consulted on 13/2/2019).

  23. Information available at https://ec.europa.eu/clima/news/eu-and-china-step-cooperation-climate-change-and-clean-energy_en (last consulted on 13/11/2018).

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Funding

Funding was provided by Huaqiao University (Grant No. 600005-Z17X0118).

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  1. Xiaorui Wang

    Present address: School of Politics and Public Administration, Huaqiao University, 269 Chenghuabei Road, Quanzhou, 362000, Fujian, China

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    Wang, X. China’s Approach to Environmental Governance and the Role of the EU in Market-Induced Reforms. East Asian Community Rev 2, 57–74 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1057/s42215-019-00019-z

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s42215-019-00019-z

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