Circular economy in China – the environmental dimension of the harmonious society

Abstract

This paper discusses China’s policy of developing an ecologically based circular economy (CE). In this paper, CE is understood as the environmental dimension of the wider vision of China as a ‘harmonious society’, formulated by the 16th Party Congress in 2002 in response to the social and environmental problems following in the wake of the unfettered economic growth policy of China after Mao Zedong’s death in 1976. The 18th Party Congress of CCP in 2012 further strengthened the official resolve to develop China as an ‘ecological civilization’ characterized by harmony between man and nature under the epitome ‘Beautiful China’. The paper discusses CE in this wider context. It is based on a review of literature on CE available in English. The aim is to present a more comprehensive understanding and critique of the Chinese version of CE as part of a wider policy for socioeconomic transformation and development of an ecologically based society, than has so far been done. The paper concludes by discussing bottlenecks and challenges confronting the implementation of CE in this wider socioeconomic context. The main problems are claimed to be the challenge of implementing CE as a top-down social engineering process and the lack of civil society involvement.

Keywords:

• circular economy
• environment
• China
• development
• harmonious society

Acknowledgments

The research on which this paper is based has been funded by the Research Council of Norway, grant no. 209687/E40. Thanks to my colleague, Geir Orderud, for comments and to Helena Dell’Ara for assistance with language editing.

Notes

1. Deng Xiaoping’s famous statement: ‘It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice’.

2. Others have added a fourth R: ‘rethink’ pointing to the need for and role of innovation and development of new – and up to now – unknown technologies (Ji 2006) In a recent article, Wenbo Li adds even a fifth R, ‘repair’ (Wenbo 2011).

3. For a comprehensive presentation and overview of ecological economics, see Costanza (1991).

4. Their discussion is inspired by Lester Brown’s book ‘Plan B’, where he argues for the necessity of decoupling economic growth from resource depletion and pollution. His book is also published in China (Brown 2003).