The People vs. Pollution: understanding citizen action against pollution in China

Abstract

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.

Notes

^1. W. P. Alford and B. L. Liebman, ‘Clean air, clean processes? The struggle over air pollution law in the People's Republic of China’, Hastings Law Journal 52, (2001), pp. 703–748; X. Ma and L. Ortolano, Environmental Regulation in China (Landham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2000); B. Van Rooij, Regulating Land and Pollution in China, Lawmaking, Compliance, and Enforcement; Theory and Cases (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2006).

^2. Carlos W. H. Lo et al., ‘Effective regulations with little effect? The antecedents of the perceptions of environmental officials on enforcement effectiveness in China’, Environmental Management 38, (2006), pp. 388–410; Ma and Ortolano, Environmental Regulation in China; OECD, Environmental Compliance and Enforcement in China, An Assessment of Current Practices and Ways Forward (Paris: OECD, 2006); Van Rooij, Regulating Land and Pollution in China.

^3. A. R. Jahiel, ‘The organization of environmental protection in China’, China Quarterly 156, (1998), pp. 757–787; Carlos W. H. Lo and Gerald E. Fryxell, ‘Governmental and societal support for environmental enforcement in China: an empirical study in Guangzhou’, Journal of Development Studies 41, (2005), pp. 558–588; Ma and Ortolano, Environmental Regulation in China; Van Rooij, Regulating Land and Pollution in China.

^4. S. Dasgupta and D. Wheeler, Citizen Complaints as Environmental Indicators: Evidence from China (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1997); Van Rooij, Regulating Land and Pollution in China; Wang Hua, ‘Pollution charges, community pressure and abatement cost: an analysis of Chinese industries’, World Bank policy research working paper, (2000); Mara Warwick and Leonardo Ortolano, ‘Benefits and costs of Shanghai's environmental citizen complaints system’, China Information XXI, (2007), pp. 237–269.

^5. Peter Ho, ‘Greening without conflict? Environmentalism, NGOs and civil society in China’, Development and Change 32, (2001), pp. 893–921; Peter Ho and Richard L. Edmonds, eds, China's Embedded Activism: Opportunities and Constraints of a Social Movement (London and New York: Routledge, 2008); Yang Guobin, ‘Environmental NGOs and institutional dynamics in China’, China Quarterly 181, (2005), pp. 46–66.

^6. W. P. Alford et al., ‘The human dimensions of pollution policy implementation: air quality in rural China’, Journal of Contemporary China 11, (2002), pp. 495–512; Anna M. Brettell, The Politics of Public Participation and the Emergence of Environmental Proto-Movements in China, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Maryland, 2003; Elizabeth C. Economy, The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China's Future (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004); Jun Jing, ‘Environmental protests in China’, in E. Perry and M. Selden, eds, Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance (London: Routledge Curzon, 2004); Van Rooij, Regulating Land and Pollution in China.

^*Benjamin van Rooij is Professor of Law at Amsterdam Law School, University of Amsterdam. He holds degrees in law and sinology, and researches and publishes about issues related to Chinese law and regulation, law and development, and the politics of law enforcement.

^7. Julia Black, ‘Critical reflections on regulation’, LSE, CARR Discussion Paper Series (2002), pp. 1–27; John Braithwaite et al., ‘Can regulation and governance make a difference?’, Regulation and Governance 1, (2007), pp. 1–17.

^8. Neil Gunningham et al., Shades of Green, Business Regulation and Environment (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003); Bridget M. Hutter, ‘The role of non-state actors in regulation’, LSE, CARR Discussion Paper Series (2006), pp. 1–19; Bridget M. Hutter and Clive J. Jones, ‘From government to governance: external influences on business risk management’, Regulation and Governance 1, (2007), pp. 27–45.

^9. Gunningham et al., Shades of Green; Noga Morag Levin, ‘Between choice and sacrifice: constructions of community consent in reactive air pollution regulation’, Law & Society Review 28, (1994), pp. 1035–1077; World Bank, Greening Industry, New Roles for Communities, Markets and Governments (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

^10. Maria Carmen de Mello Lemos, ‘The politics of pollution control in Brazil: state actors and social movements cleaning up Cubatao’, World Development 26, (1998), pp. 75–87; Gunningham et al., Shades of Green; Robert A. Kagan, ‘Regulatory enforcement’, in D. H. Rosenbloom and R. D. Schwartz, eds, Handbook of Regulation and Administrative Law (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1994).

^11. W. Felstiner et al., ‘The emergence and transformation of disputes: naming, blaming, claiming’, Law & Society Review 16, (1980–1981), p. 631.

^12. Richard E. Miller and Austin Sarat, ‘Grievances, claims, and disputes: assessing the adversary culture’, Law & Society Review 15, (1980–1981), pp. 525–566.

^13. Ethan Michelson, ‘Climbing the dispute pagoda: grievances and appeals to the official justice system in rural China’, American Sociological Review 72, (2006), pp. 459–485.

^14. Cf. Henry Brown and Arthur Marriott, ADR Principles and Practice (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1999); A. V. Horwitz, The Logic of Social Control (New York: Plenum Press, 1990); Martin Shapiro, Courts, A Comparative and Political Analysis (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1981).

^15. Miller and Sarat, ‘Grievances, claims, and disputes’.

^16. Michelson, ‘Climbing the dispute pagoda’.

^17. Summarized in Michael R. Anderson, ‘Access to justice and legal process: making legal institutions responsive to poor people in LDCs’, IDS Working Papers 178, (2003); B. Van Rooij, ‘Bringing justice to the poor, bottom-up approaches to legal development cooperation’, paper presented at the Law and Society Conference, Berlin, Germany, 26 July 2007.

^18. These cases are referred to by their case number which has been assigned to them by the author. All cases are available on file with the author.

^19. Felstiner et al., ‘The emergence and transformation of disputes’.

^20. Felstiner et al., ‘The emergence and transformation of disputes’, p. 635.

^21. Jing, ‘Environmental protests in China’, p. 209; for similar findings from Kenya and the US see Evanson Chege Kamau, ‘Environmental law and self-management by industries in Kenya', Journal of Environmental Law 17, (2005), pp. 229–44; Kenneth A. Gould et al., Local Environmental Struggles, Citizen Activism in the Treadmill of Production (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

^22. Cf. Alford et al., ‘The human dimensions of pollution policy implementation’, pp. 495–512.

^23. See for instance Cases 44, 45, 47, 50, 51, 52, 53, 56, and 57.

^24. See Case 8.

^25. Case 169.

^26. Case 29.

^27. See Case 34.

^28. See Case 10.

^29. A. Lora-Wainwright, ‘An anthropology of “cancer villages”: villagers’ perspectives and the politics of responsibility', Journal of Contemporary China 19(63) (2010).

^30. SEPA, Zhongguo Huanjing Tongji Nianbao 2005 [China Environment Statistical Report 2005] (Beijing: Zhongguo Huanjing Kexue Chubanshe, 2006).

^31. Exceptions are Cases 5, 6, and 12.

^32. Cf. Miller and Sarat, ‘Grievances, claims, and disputes’; Michelson, ‘Climbing the dispute pagoda’.

^33. See: http://news.xinhuanet.com/misc/2008-03/08/content_7746377.htm.

^34. For examples see Cases 7 (collective action with more than 1,000 plaintiffs), 31 (civil suit for psychological damages related to a suicide following noise pollution), and 29 (civil suit for health related damages related to eight cancer cases in an old people's home also used for car repairs and painting).

^35. For examples see Cases 5, 14, and 20.

^36. See Case 14.

^37. Case 5.

^38. SEPA, Zhongguo Huanjing Tongji Nianbao 2006 [China Environment Statistical Report 2006] (Beijing: Zhongguo Huanjing Kexue Chubanshe, 2007).

^39. SEPA, Zhongguo Huanjing Tongji Nianbao 2005.

^40. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese/simp/low/newsid_4920000/newsid_4923800/4923810.stm.

^41. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese/simp/low/newsid_4920000/newsid_4923800/4923810.stm.

^42. See Case 169.

^43. Kevin J. O'Brien and Lianjing Li, Rightful Resistance in Rural China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

^44. See for instances Cases 1, 2, 3, 6, and 8.

^45. See Case 42.

^46. Sheoli Pargal et al., ‘Formal and informal regulation of industrial pollution: comparative evidence from Indonesia and the United States’, The World Bank Economic Review 11, (1997), pp. 433–450.

^47. Sheoli Pargal and David Wheeler, ‘Informal regulation of industrial pollution in developing countries: evidence from Indonesia’, The Journal of Political Economy 104, (1996), pp. 1325–1326.

^48. SEPA, Zhongguo Huanjing Tongji Nianbao 2006; SEPA, Zhongguo Huanjing Tongji Nianbao 2001 [China Environment Statistical Report 2001] (Beijing: SEPA, 2002); SEPA, Zhongguo Huanjing Tongji Nianbao 2003 [China Environment Statistical Report 2003] (Beijing: SEPA, 2004).

^49. Cases 169, 185, 190, and 191.

^50. For example, Zhiping Li, ‘Protection of peasants’ environmental rights during social transition: rural regions in Guangdong province', Vermont Journal of Environmental Law 8, (2006–2007), pp. 338–361.

^51. Kathinka Fürst, Access to Justice in Environmental Disputes: Opportunities and Obstacles for Chinese Pollution Victims, unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Oslo, 2008.

^52. Phil Brown and Edwin J. Mikkelsen, No Safe Place, Toxic Waste Leukemia, and Community Action (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990), p. 50; Gould et al., Local Environmental Struggles, p. 86; Mainul Huq and David Wheeler, ‘Pollution reduction without formal regulation: evidence from Bangladesh’, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 1993–39 (1993); Robert A. Kagan et al., ‘Explaining corporate environmental performance: how does regulation matter?’, Law & Society Review 37, (2003), p. 69; Richard Kazis and Richard L. Grossman, Fear at Work, Job Blackmail, Labor and the Environment (New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1982), p. 4.

^53. A clear case is Case 43 where citizens protested against local iron mine pollution especially because they found that they were not allowed to share in the wealth created by the local iron deposits.

^54. Gould et al., Local Environmental Struggles.

^55. Case 7.

^56. See for instance Cases 7, 20, and 21.

^57. Based on interviews with a lawyer involved in the case during April and May 2008.

^58. Fürst, Access to Justice in Environmental Disputes, p. 82.

^59. Gould et al., Local Environmental Struggles.

^60. Ethan Michelson, ‘Connected contention: social resources and petitioning the state in rural China’, unpublished paper, available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id = 922104 (2006).

^61. Michelson, ‘Climbing the dispute pagoda’.

^62. Cf. Anderson, ‘Access to justice and legal process’.

^63. K. Lieberthal, ‘Introduction: the “fragmented authoritarianism” model and its limitations’, in K. G. Lieberthal and D. M. Lampton, eds, Bureaucracy, Politics, and Decision Making in Post-Mao China (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992); K. Lieberthal, Governing China, From Revolution through Reform (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1995).

^64. See for instance Cases 13, 14, 18, 19, 22, 25, and 29.

^65. Cases 44–86.

^66. See for instance Case 180.

^67. Kevin J. O'Brien and Lianjiang Li, ‘Suing the local state: administrative litigation in rural China’, in N. J. Diamant, S. B. Lubman and K. J. O'Brien, eds, Engaging the Law in China, State, Society, and Possibilities for Justice (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005).

^68. See for instance Case 29.

^69. Benjamin L. Liebman, ‘China's courts: restricted reform’, China Quarterly 191, (2007), pp. 619–638; R. Peerenboom, China's Long March toward the Rule of Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

^70. Case 1.

^71. Case 2.

^72. See for instance Cases 9 and 34. For more about this see Human Rights Watch ‘ “We could disappear at any time” Retaliation and abuses against Chinese petitioners', Human Rights Watch 17(11c), (2005).

^73. Case 20.

^74. Case 34.

^75. Case 183.

^76. Cases 8, 183, and 182; see http://news.xinhuanet.com/environment/2008-02/15/content_7609366.htm, http://news.xinhuanet.com/environment/2006-01/18/content_4065924.htm, and http://news.xinhuanet.com/comments/2006-08/23/content_4992517.htm.

^77. Alford and Liebman, ‘Clean air, clean processes?’; Asian Development Bank, Reform of Environmental and Land Legislation in the People's Republic of China (Manilla: ADB, 2000); Peerenboom, China's Long March toward the Rule of Law; Van Rooij, Regulating Land and Pollution in China.

^78. See for instance Cases 29, 4, and 42.

^79. Cases 37 and 31.

^80. See The Explanation on Several Issues of Psychological Damage Compensation in Civil Tort Cases made by the Supreme People's Court in 2001, and The Explanation on Several Issues of Personal Damage Compensation Cases made by the Supreme People's Court in 2003, which provided detailed rules on immaterial and psychological damages.

^81. See Case 18 which is about the technical challenges of measuring certain kinds of pollution.

^82. Case 34.

^83. Case 29.

^84. See SPC Opinion on Several Issues concerning the Application of Civil Procedure Law of People's Republic of China, art. 74/77.

^85. For examples see Cases 131 and 29.

^86. Alex Wang, ‘The role of law in environmental protection in China: recent developments’, Vermont Journal of Environmental Law 8, (2006–2007), pp. 192–220.

^87. Alex Wang, ‘The role of law in environmental protection in China: recent developments’, Vermont Journal of Environmental Law 8, (2006–2007)

^88. Cf. Randall Peerenboom and Xin He, Dispute Resolution in China: Patterns, Causes and Prognosis, Rule of Law in China: Chinese Law and Business (Oxford: The Foundation for Law, Justice and Society and The Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford, 2008); Fürst, Access to Justice in Environmental Disputes.

^89. Fürst, Access to Justice in Environmental Disputes.

^90. For an overview see Rachel Stern, ‘Towards environmental public interest litigation? Proposals for legislative change’, paper prepared for Natural Defense Council, Beijing, April 2008.

^91. Based on interviews with scholars and officials involved in the drafting and deliberations of this new law, May 2008, Beijing.

^92. Cf. Anderson, ‘Access to justice and legal process’.

^93. Ethan Michelson, ‘The practice of law as an obstacle to justice: Chinese lawyers at work’, Law & Society Review 40, (2006), pp. 1–38.

^94. Based on an interview, May 2008.

^95. Peerenboom and He, Dispute Resolution in China.

^96. See Case 5.

^97. For examples see Cases 8, 20, 21, 34, and 169.

^98. Case 8.

^99. Van Rooij, Regulating Land and Pollution.

^100. See http://news.ifeng.com/phoenixtv/73020766223859712/20070530/908176.shtml.

^101. Case 169.

^102. See Cases 20, 21, 28, and 29.

^103. Case 20.

^104. Case 21.

^105. Fürst, Access to Justice in Environmental Disputes; Cf. B. L. Liebman, ‘Watchdog or demagogue? The media in the Chinese legal system’, Columbia Law Review 105, (2005), pp. 1–154.

^106. See http://www.clapv.org/new/show.php?id = 1709&catename = mtbd.

^107. Peter Ho, ‘Embedded activism and political change in a semiauthoritarian context’, China Information XXI, (2007), pp. 187–209.

^108. Ho and Edmonds, eds, China's Embedded Activism, p. 11.

^109. Based on interviews with environmental NGOs conducted in May 2008.

^110. See for instance Cases 20, 34, and 29.

^111. Case 43.

^112. Case 42.

^113. B. Van Rooij and Carlos W. H. Lo, ‘A fragile convergence, understanding variation in the enforcement of China's industrial pollution law’, unpublished paper, available on file with the author, 2008.

^114. See www.chinalawinfo.com.cn.

^115. Cases 5, 14, 20, and 21.

^116. Cases 2, 3, 6, 8, and 169.

^117. Cf. O'Brien and Li, ‘Suing the local state’; O'Brien and Li, Rightful Resistance in Rural China; Ching Kwan Lee, Against the Law, Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and Sunbelt (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007); Carl F. Minzer, ‘Xinfang, an alternative to formal Chinese legal institutions’, Stanford Journal of International Law 42, (2006), pp. 103–179.

^118. Case 169.