Environmental Policy In China

During the last few decades, China has accomplished unprecedented economic growth and has emerged as the second largest economy in the world. This ‘economic miracle’ has led hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, but has also come at a high cost. Environmental degradation and the impact of environmental pollution on health are nowadays issues of the greatest concern for the Chinese public and the government. The Routledge Handbook of Environmental Policy in China focuses on the environmental challenges of China’s rapidly growing economy and provides a comprehensive overview of the policies developed to address the environmental crisis. Leading international scholars and practitioners examine China’s environmental governance efforts from an interdisciplinary perspective. Divided into five parts, the handbook covers the following key issues: Part I: Development of Environmental Policy in China - Actors and Institutions Part II: Key issues and Strategies for Solution Part III: Policy Instruments and Enforcement Part IV: Related Policy Fields – Conflicts and Synergies Part V: China’s Environmental Policy in the International Context This comprehensive handbook will be an invaluable resource to students and scholars of environmental policy and politics, development studies, Chinese studies, geography and international relations.

This book focuses on how to create an environmentally friendly society in China from the viewpoint of environmental law and policy. The authors accessed a great number of valuable sources not available in English, and interviewed various scholars and public officials, in order to analyze the environmental policies in China while comparing some of the features to Japan. The book stresses the importance of introducing a brand-new policy of central and local government, and analyses why these policies have not been executed effectively in the local society. In addition to the economy-oriented policy and spirit of the Chinese nation, which are the main causes, this book also highlights shortcomings in the inspection system, information management, and the extremely low degree of public participation as important aspects to focus on in order to tackle the current problems. The individual chapters will help readers to understand the environmental issues in China in depth, and provide guidance on resolving the issues in China and in developing countries that are now or soon will be facing the challenge of combining economic growth and environmental improvement. Air, water and soil pollution are serious challenges in China. The deterioration of the environment often leads to rioting that influences social stability, which is also a great concern to foreign investors. This book will be of interest to a professional audience such as policymakers, journalists, members of environmental NGOs, managers and employees who do business with China, as well as academic researchers and students.

Environmental Policy and Sustainable Development uses Hong Kong to explore environmental economic and social development in China, providing concepts of sustainability, contexts for environmental policymaking, and key challenges in sustainable development.

This book systematically analyzes how and why China has expectedly lost and then surprisingly gained ground in the quest to solve the complicated environmental problem of air pollution over the past two decades. Yuan Xu shines a light on how China’s sulfur dioxide emissions rose quickly in tandem with rapid economic growth but then dropped to a level not seen for at least four decades. Despite this favorable mitigation outcome, Xu details how this stemmed from a litany of policy stumbles within the Chinese context of no democracy and a lack of sound rule of law. Throughout this book, the author examines China’s environmental governance and strategy and how they shape environmental policy. The chapters weave together a goal-centered governance model that China has adopted of centralized goal setting, decentralized goal attainment, decentralized policy making and implementation. Xu concludes that this model provides compelling evidence that China’s worst environmental years reside in the past. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Chinese environmental policy and governance, air pollution, climate change and sustainable development, as well as practitioners and policy makers working in these fields. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429452154, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

In the 1980s, China established its first systems of environmental management collectively known as the three magic weapons: environmental impact assessment, pollutant discharge fees, and the three synchronizations. The authors explore the successes and failures of these systems through actual investigation of individual factories. They also examine the key agencies that implement environmental policy and their responsibilities to both leaders of local government and China's National Environmental Protection Agency. Their findings provide intriguing insights into the broader issues of environmental goals and priorities in developing countries, and the roles of both government agencies and entrepreneurs in policy implementation.

In recent years, China's leaders have started to confront the environmental, economic, and social costs of unchecked development. China's increasing reliance on foreign oil has engendered national security fears and launched a drive for more efficient transportation systems and domestic renewable energy projects. Meanwhile, pressure from a rising middle class and the international community has focused leadership attention on ways to make China's economic engine run more efficiently and with less impact upon the domestic and global environment. This profound shift in priorities has elevated environmental sustainability to the top of the national agenda. To advance this new agenda, the environmental laws that China has enacted over the past thirty years are being strengthened, and new environmental regulations and standards are being issued everyday. Entities operating in China are faced with the need to understand the impact of China's environmental law requirements upon their businesses, and to take actions to ensure that they are in compliance with those requirements. In Environmental Law in China: Managing Risk and Ensuring Compliance, Charles McElwee addresses how China's environmental regulatory and legal frameworks are structured, how to maintain operational compliance with the environmental laws and regulations, how to ensure products sold in China comply with environmental regulations, and the potential risks and liabilities that attend non-compliance. McElwee offers unique insight into how environmental law is in fact applied, setting forth a realistic account of the way companies encounter Chinese environmental regulations at both the local and national levels.

In this edited volume, leading environmental policy experts from China, USA, and Europe provide a contemporary view of Chinese environmental policy, analyzing current discussions among various actors and agencies. The book covers a wide range of topics including the gap between national policy goals and their local implementation, cultural and social factors shaping political behavior, legal and political systems affecting environmental policy creation and execution, new societal forces participating in environmental policymaking and governance, and local state strategies tasked with navigating a mix of political, legal, and societal forces. Featuring in-depth, empirically-grounded analyses with interdisciplinary approaches, the book is ideal reading for scholars interested in the complex nature of balancing Chinese environmental sustainability and economic growth.