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

ABSTRACT

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Transboundary pollution
• central–local relations
• interjurisdictional relations
• environmental federalism
• China

Acknowledgements

We are thankful for excellent suggestions from three anonymous reviewers as well as the Environmental Politics editorial team (Sikina Jinnah and Chris Rootes) which led to a considerable sharpening of the argument. The article also benefited from feedback on previous drafts presented to the Arbeitskreis Sozialwissenschaftliche Chinaforschung, the Association for Asian Studies and the Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Comments from Elena Meyer-Clement, Sabrina Habich-Sobiegalla, Valerie Karplus and Flemming Christiansen were especially helpful. Last but not least, we are grateful to Lu Jin for her outstanding research assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For instance, Beijing’s efforts to curb soaring PM 2.5 pollution have faltered because emissions are largely blown in from household coal burners and coal-fired power plants in neighbouring provinces, principally Hebei. Likewise, a ‘pollute thy neighbour’ strategy contributes to extreme water pollution problems in China’s waterways (Cai et al. 2016).

2. We conducted 11 interviews in October 2016 and May 2017 with well-placed representatives from research institutions, central ministries, local governments as well as NGOs involved with the policy design and implementation of ecological ‘redline’ zoning. We also interviewed policy implementers in Shanxi province to get a better understanding of what factors drive cooperation or competition in local–local relations.

3. It bears noting that the GDP tournament thesis has been challenged by scholars who find that economic performance is, in fact, not decisive in promotion decisions and point to other factors, especially factional ties, as relatively more important (Shih et al. 2012). A recent paper concludes that economic performance has a positive effect on cadre promotion at lower levels of government (county level) but not at higher levels (prefectural and provincial levels) (Landry et al. 2017).

4. Under this new interjurisdictional cooperation, provincial governments pledged to share environmental protection resources and jointly investigate and address transboundary pollution incidents (Kahn and Zheng 2016).

5. This initiative started in the early 2000s in connection with the ‘Open up the West’ Development Program. In the planning process, the state premier at the time, Zhu Rongji, is reported to have asked bureaucrats in the environment bureaucracy ‘where should China protect land and where can it be developed and urbanized?’ (P. Li, personal communication, 13 October 2016). The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) was then tasked with providing the answer and SEPA leaders, in turn, enlisted the help of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in conducting research on the topic. SEPA, which later became the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), and CAS initially worked together closely on, first, developing the principles of ecological function zoning and then carrying out early stage zoning exercises. Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, the zoning strategy has risen quickly up the national policymaking agenda (P. Li, personal communication, 13 October 2016). Early in Xi’s tenure, the Third Plenum’s ‘Decision on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform’ called for the ‘strictest possible rules to protect the ecological system’, and a wide range of concrete initiatives in support of zoning were introduced under the 13th Five Year Plan (2016–2020) (P. Li, personal communication, 13 October 2016).

6. Names have been changed to ensure the anonymity of our informants.

7. A large number of central government ministries are involved with ecological red zone planning and implementation, including MEP, NDRC, the Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR), the Ministry of Water Resources (MWR) and the Ministry of Finance (MoF) (P. Shi, personal communication, 13 November 2016). As the zoning initiative gained prominence in national policymaking, interviewees reported that different ministries tended to work in isolation from each other, developing their own concepts and maps. For instance, while MEP developed the idea of ‘integrated ecosystem management’, MWR promoted the concept of ‘integrated watershed management’ approaches that share a basic conceptual framework but were seen as rivals vying to become the official conceptual basis for zoning (T. Gao, personal communication, 14 November 2016). The development of these contending approaches generated disagreements about which is ultimately authoritative, considerably slowing the policy process, which took a full 10 years to develop from first discussions to concrete plan (T. Gao, personal communication, 14 November 2016).

8. ‘Eco-compensation’ is a catch-all term that refers to a wide variety of programmes in China including top-down fiscal transfers interjurisdictional payment systems, payments for ecosystem services (applying to forests, grasslands etc.), payments for ecological functions (linked, e.g., to water source conservation) and payments for exploitation of natural sources (Liang 2012, p. 65).

9. These include pilots in the Xijiang River Basin (western tributary of the Pearl River), the Chishui River basin (tributary of upper Yangtze) as well as in Qianjiangyuan (Zhejiang). Gansu province and Shaanxi province have also established an eco-compensation pilot among local governments along the Weihe River which was reported to be a success (P. Wang, personal communication, 14 November 2016).

10. As Ang (2016, p. 106) points out, elite officials in the pool of candidates for lateral transfer (rotation) or upward promotion account for only 1% of the government bureaucracy nationwide; the remaining 99% of officials are stationed permanently in the same location.

11. While China’s most senior central-level leaders in the running for appointment to the Standing Committee of the Politburo are typically considered eligible for promotion until age 67, local leaders usually retire much earlier. City leaders, for example, under ordinary circumstances must retire at 60 (Yu et al. 2016).

12. Central authorities in China see periodic rotation of local officials (typically every 3–4 years) as a tool to enhance control and monitoring. Auxiliary justifications include cadre training, diffusion of local policy innovation and bridging administrative gaps (Eaton and Kostka 2014).

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) [Projektnummer 401822232].