Environmental Protection Bureau Leadership at the Provincial Level in China: Examining Diverging Career Backgrounds and Appointment Patterns

This paper analyses the career backgrounds of local government officials in provincial Environmental Protection Bureaus (EPBs) in China and explains the appointment patterns of Chinese EPB bureaucrats. Using biographical information of provincial EPB heads and drawing on fieldwork conducted in Shanxi Province and Inner Mongolia, this paper finds that only one-fourth of the provincial EPB heads were promoted through the bureau ranks within the EPBs, while the remaining three-fourths were appointed from positions outside the environment field. Further, nearly all EPB heads' professional backgrounds and associated networks can be clearly categorized as environmental, business, provincial government, or local government oriented. This paper delineates these four types of Chinese EPB leaders and explains why an awareness of the different professional orientations is critical to understanding environmental regulation and protection in China. These findings have implications for inferring the unique characteristics of a province's EPB leadership, the implementation capacities of provincial EPBs, and the appointment preferences of provincial leaders.     

Implementation and Participation in China's Local Environmental Politics: Challenges and Innovations

With its recently published 12th Five-Year Plan (FYP, 2011–2015) China's leaders have set ambitious national environmental targets and goals for developing a more sustainable economy and society. Past records, however, show that ambitious goals and regulations too often fail due to shortcomings in local implementation and civil society participation. At the sub-national level, economic, political, and social interests continue to dictate the political agenda and the participation of non-state actors remains limited. This article analyses these implementation and participation gaps and reviews recent innovations and experiments to address these gaps in local environmental politics in China. Although many ongoing experiments and new institutional arrangements can be identified, these projects and initiatives remain limited in scope and geographical spread. Further advances in policy enforcement and in opening up policy design to citizens and other non-state actors at the local level are needed in order to turn the article ambitions of the 12th FYP into reality.     

What makes for good and bad neighbours? An emerging research agenda in the study of Chinese environmental politics

Tackling China’s grave environmental problems increasingly turns on questions of sub-national interjurisdictional relations. What are the conditions under which neighbouring localities cooperate in stewardship of the natural environment? What factors give rise to interjurisdictional conflict such as pollution spillovers? Through a combination of empirical and theoretical reflections, a research agenda to better understand these issues is outlined. First, China’s recent innovative approaches to the promotion of interjurisdictional cooperation are examined. An in-depth case study of interjurisdictional ecological protection ‘redline’ zones underscores the difficulties of inculcating environmental neighbourliness between local governments. Yet, a precise diagnosis of the problem remains elusive because too little is known about the underlying drivers of interjurisdictional relations in China. An analytical framework that draws insight from contemporary China studies and comparative environmental governance scholarship is offered for the study of interjurisdictional environmental relations in China.     

Tightening the grip: environmental governance under Xi Jinping

In the space of a few years, China’s global image with regard to environmental matters has significantly improved. Particularly since Xi Jinping’s coming-to-power in 2012 China’s reputation in the global climate change regime has improved markedly and it has gained accolades for a new determination to reverse environmental degradation at home. China’s incipient green transformation is partly due to a new actor constellation in environmental governance, a striking feature of which is the prominence of ad hoc campaigns that offer quick results but that may undermine the creation of law-based enforcement mechanisms in the long term. Another development – China’s increasing use of emerging technologies and big data analytics – has given rise to new forms of government-business alliances. These new players and innovative approaches have injected momentum into China’s environmental governance system and suggest that, contrary to conventional wisdom, authoritarian regimes can be responsive to citizen demands under certain circumstances. Yet it remains to be seen whether long-term environmental goals can be met, due to a pervasive lack of accountability, the weakening of civil society and heavy constraints on public participation.