The political economy of Chinese environmental protection: Lessons of the Mao and Deng years

Third World Quarterly

Volumn 20, Issue 6, 1999, Pages 1201-1214

  Sanders, Richard ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NORTHAMPTON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ECONOMIC CONDITIONS; ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION; ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION; POLITICAL ECONOMY;

CHINA;

EID: 0033394064     PISSN: 01436597     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01436599913361     Document Type: Article

References (75)

1. China Statistical Yearbook, Beijing: China Statistical Publishing House, 1998, p 105.
2. See B Brugger & S Reglar, Politics, Economy and Society in Contemporary China, London: Macmillan, 1994. The authors suggest (p 96) that between 400 000 and 800 000 landlords lost their lives, one in six landlord families.
3. On 13 November 1957, the Chinese People's Daily published an editorial entitled 'Start a new upsurge in agricultural production calling on people to make "a Great Leap Forward" on the production front'. This was the first time that the slogan 'Great Leap Forward' emerged, one to be repeated many times in the following year as Mao determined that China should catch up with the UK, then the second largest producer of steel in the world, within 15 years.
4. For a powerful account of the felt experience of the impact of the Great Leap Forward, see Jung Chang, Wild Swans, London: Flamingo, 1993, ch 12.
5. China Statistical Yearbook, Beijing: China Statistical Publishing House, 1998, p 37.
6. Peter Nolan, The Political Economy of Collective Farms, Cambridge: Polity Press, p 49.
7. William Hinton, The Great Reversal 1978-89, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1990, p 25.
8. China Statistical Yearbook, 1992, p 312. The consumption of chemical fertiliser rose from 78000 tons in 1952 to 8 840 000 tons in 1978.
9. For a full account of the dangers of chemical pesticides see Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1963.
10. C Catton, Tears of the Dragon, China's Environmental Crisis, London: Broadcasting Support Services, Channel Four Television, 1992, p 9.
11. China Statistical Yearbook, 1997, p 69.
12. B Glaiser, 'The environmental impact of economic development', in T Cannon (ed), The Geography of Contemporary China: The Impact of Deng Xiaoping's Decade, London: Routledge, 1990, p 253.
13. The major contributors to that debate were D Meadows, J Randers & W Rehrens, The Limits to Growth, New York: Universe Books, 1972. The debate centred around the prospect of resource depletion consequent upon economic growth.
14. Glaiser, The Environmental Impact of Economic Development, p 250.
15. Vaclav Smil, The Bad Earth, New York: ME Sharps, 1984.
16. Ibid, p 198.
17. 'The Gang of Four' was a term used to refer Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenjuan and Wang Hongwen, a group of so-called 'ultra-leftist' CP leaders who were arrested and imprisoned after Mao's death in 1976 and who have been subsiquently blamed for many of the traumas associated with the Cultural Revolution.
18. Smil, The Bad Earth.
19. Jurgen Delman, 'Projecting agriculture towards the year 2000: projecting the unprojectable', in J Delman et al (eds), Remaking Peasant China, Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1990, p 42.
20. Constitution of the People's Republic of China, Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1988, p 22.
21. Qu Geping, Environmental Management in China, Beijing: China Environmental Science Press, 1991, p 226.
22. Glaiser, The Environmental Impact of Economic Development, p 253.
23. Abigail Jahiel, 'The contradictory impact of reform on environmental protection in China', China Quarterly, 149, 1997, p 81.
24. State Council, Environmental Protection in China, Beijing: Information Office of the State Council of the PRC, 1996, p 13.
25. NEPA, National Report of the PRC on Environment and Development, submission to the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio De Janeiro (China Environmental Science Press, 1992), pp 52-54.
26. State Council, Environmental Protection in China, p 6.
27. China Statistical Yearbook, 1997, p 757.
28. Ibid, p 757.
29. Vaclav Smil, China's Environmental Crisis: An Inquiry into the Limits of National Development, London: ME Sharpe, 1993, p 201.
30. NEPA, National Report of the PRC on Environment and Development, p 23.
31. Richard Louis Edmonds, 'China's environment: problems and prospects', in D Dwyer (ed), China: the Next Decades, Harlow: Longmant, 1994, p 158.
32. Ibid, p 159.
33. Smil, China's Environmental Crisis, p 59.
34. Ibid, p 62.
35. He Baochan, China on the Edge: The Crisis of Ecology and the Environment, San Fransisco, CA: China Books and Periodicals, 1991, p 27.
36. Vaclav Smil, 'China's environment in the 1980s: some critical changes', Ambio, 21(6), 1992, p 435.
37. China Statistical Yearbook, 1997, p 758.
38. Ibid.
39. Richard Lotspeich & Aimin Chen, 'Environmental protection in the People's Republic of China', Journal of Contemporary China, 6(14), 1997, p 55.
40. NEPA, National Report of the PRC on Environment and Development, pp 31-34.
41. See Smil, The Bad Earth; Smil, 'Land degradation in China: an ancient problem getting worse', in P Blaikie & H Brookfield (eds). Land Degradation and Society, London: Methuen, 1987; Smil, 'China's environment in the 1980s', pp 431-436; Smil, China's Environmental Crisis; He Baochan, China on the Edge; Eduard Vermeer, 'Management of environmental pollution in China: problems and abatement policies', China Information, 5(1), 1990, pp 34-55; Vermeer, 'An inventory of losses due to environmental pollution: problems in the sustainability of China's economic growth', China Information, 10(1), 1995, pp 19-50; and R Smith, 'Creative destruction: capitalist development and China's environment', New Left Review, 222, 1997, pp 3-40.
42. See Smil, The Bad Earth; Smil, 'Land degradation in China: an ancient problem getting worse', in P Blaikie & H Brookfield (eds). Land Degradation and Society, London: Methuen, 1987; Smil, 'China's environment in the 1980s', pp 431-436; Smil, China's Environmental Crisis; He Baochan, China on the Edge; Eduard Vermeer, 'Management of environmental pollution in China: problems and abatement policies', China Information, 5(1), 1990, pp 34-55; Vermeer, 'An inventory of losses due to environmental pollution: problems in the sustainability of China's economic growth', China Information, 10(1), 1995, pp 19-50; and R Smith, 'Creative destruction: capitalist development and China's environment', New Left Review, 222, 1997, pp 3-40.
43. See Smil, The Bad Earth; Smil, 'Land degradation in China: an ancient problem getting worse', in P Blaikie & H Brookfield (eds). Land Degradation and Society, London: Methuen, 1987; Smil, 'China's environment in the 1980s', pp 431-436; Smil, China's Environmental Crisis; He Baochan, China on the Edge; Eduard Vermeer, 'Management of environmental pollution in China: problems and abatement policies', China Information, 5(1), 1990, pp 34-55; Vermeer, 'An inventory of losses due to environmental pollution: problems in the sustainability of China's economic growth', China Information, 10(1), 1995, pp 19-50; and R Smith, 'Creative destruction: capitalist development and China's environment', New Left Review, 222, 1997, pp 3-40.
44. See Smil, The Bad Earth; Smil, 'Land degradation in China: an ancient problem getting worse', in P Blaikie & H Brookfield (eds). Land Degradation and Society, London: Methuen, 1987; Smil, 'China's environment in the 1980s', pp 431-436; Smil, China's Environmental Crisis; He Baochan, China on the Edge; Eduard Vermeer, 'Management of environmental pollution in China: problems and abatement policies', China Information, 5(1), 1990, pp 34-55; Vermeer, 'An inventory of losses due to environmental pollution: problems in the sustainability of China's economic growth', China Information, 10(1), 1995, pp 19-50; and R Smith, 'Creative destruction: capitalist development and China's environment', New Left Review, 222, 1997, pp 3-40.
45. See Smil, The Bad Earth; Smil, 'Land degradation in China: an ancient problem getting worse', in P Blaikie & H Brookfield (eds). Land Degradation and Society, London: Methuen, 1987; Smil, 'China's environment in the 1980s', pp 431-436; Smil, China's Environmental Crisis; He Baochan, China on the Edge; Eduard Vermeer, 'Management of environmental pollution in China: problems and abatement policies', China Information, 5(1), 1990, pp 34-55; Vermeer, 'An inventory of losses due to environmental pollution: problems in the sustainability of China's economic growth', China Information, 10(1), 1995, pp 19-50; and R Smith, 'Creative destruction: capitalist development and China's environment', New Left Review, 222, 1997, pp 3-40.
46. See Smil, The Bad Earth; Smil, 'Land degradation in China: an ancient problem getting worse', in P Blaikie & H Brookfield (eds). Land Degradation and Society, London: Methuen, 1987; Smil, 'China's environment in the 1980s', pp 431-436; Smil, China's Environmental Crisis; He Baochan, China on the Edge; Eduard Vermeer, 'Management of environmental pollution in China: problems and abatement policies', China Information, 5(1), 1990, pp 34-55; Vermeer, 'An inventory of losses due to environmental pollution: problems in the sustainability of China's economic growth', China Information, 10(1), 1995, pp 19-50; and R Smith, 'Creative destruction: capitalist development and China's environment', New Left Review, 222, 1997, pp 3-40.
47. See Smil, The Bad Earth; Smil, 'Land degradation in China: an ancient problem getting worse', in P Blaikie & H Brookfield (eds). Land Degradation and Society, London: Methuen, 1987; Smil, 'China's environment in the 1980s', pp 431-436; Smil, China's Environmental Crisis; He Baochan, China on the Edge; Eduard Vermeer, 'Management of environmental pollution in China: problems and abatement policies', China Information, 5(1), 1990, pp 34-55; Vermeer, 'An inventory of losses due to environmental pollution: problems in the sustainability of China's economic growth', China Information, 10(1), 1995, pp 19-50; and R Smith, 'Creative destruction: capitalist development and China's environment', New Left Review, 222, 1997, pp 3-40.
48. See Smil, The Bad Earth; Smil, 'Land degradation in China: an ancient problem getting worse', in P Blaikie & H Brookfield (eds). Land Degradation and Society, London: Methuen, 1987; Smil, 'China's environment in the 1980s', pp 431-436; Smil, China's Environmental Crisis; He Baochan, China on the Edge; Eduard Vermeer, 'Management of environmental pollution in China: problems and abatement policies', China Information, 5(1), 1990, pp 34-55; Vermeer, 'An inventory of losses due to environmental pollution: problems in the sustainability of China's economic growth', China Information, 10(1), 1995, pp 19-50; and R Smith, 'Creative destruction: capitalist development and China's environment', New Left Review, 222, 1997, pp 3-40.
49. Smil, The Bad Earth, p 199.
50. See He Baochan, China on the Edge.
51. Lester Ross, Environmental Policy in China, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1988, p 1.
52. See Garret Harding, 'The tragedy of the commons', reprinted in H Daly (ed), Economics, Ecology, Ethics: Essays Towards a Steady-State Economy, San Fransisco: Freeman, 1980 (first printed in Science, 162, 1968. pp 1234-1248).
53. 'To get rich is glorious' became a common slogan popularised in the Deng years. It was designed to countet the anti-incentivist 'iron ricebowl' mentality of the Mao years.
54. Jahiel, The Contradictory Impact of Environmental Reform in China, p 86.
55. Scott Rorelle, Xiaoming Ma & Leonard Ortolano, 'Industrial wastewater control in Chinese cities: determinants of success in environmental policy', Nantral Resource Modelling, 4, 1993, pp 32-37.
56. In 1978 the gross output value of TVES was 49.3 billion yuan, while total industrial output across China was 423.7 billion yuan, representing 11.6% of that total. By 1995 the gross output value of TVFS was 6891.5 billion yuan, while China's total industrial output was 9189.4 billion yuan, representing 75% of that total. See China Statistical Yearbook, 1996, pp 389, 401.
57. The consumption of chemical fertilisers in the Chinese countryside increased from 8.8 million tons in 1978 to 38.3 million tons in 1996. See China Statistical Yearbook, 1997. p 373.
58. Edmonds, China's Environment: Problems and Prospects, p 159.
59. Interview, August 1995.
60. I visited seven eeo-villages between 1992 and 1997. They were Liu Min Ying, in Daxing County, Beijing Municipality; Xiao Zhang Zhuang, in Yingshang County, Anhui Province; He Heng, in Jiangyan City, Jiangsu Province; Teng Tou in Fenghua County, Zhejiang Province; Qian Wei, in Chongming Dao, Shanghai Municipality; Dou Dian, in Fangshan District, Beijing Municipality; and Tie Xi, Mishan County, Heilongjiang Province. The first four villages won the UNEP 'Global 500' award for environmentally friendly economic development in 1987, 1990, 1991 and 1993. respectively. Additionally, I visited the Environmental Protection Bureaux (EPBS) in Dazu County, Sichuan Province and Simao County. Yunnan Province, both designated eco-counties by NEPA in 1993.
61. J S S Muldavin, 'Agrarian reform in China', in R Peet & M Watts (eds), Liberation Ecologies, London: Routledge, 1996, p 229.
62. Hinton, The Great Reversal, p 21.
63. J S S Muldavin, 'Impact of reform on environnienal sustainability in rural China', Journal of Contemporary Asia, 6(3), 1996, p 289.
64. Richard Sanders, Prospects for Sustainable Development in the Chinese Countryside: The Political Economy of Chinese Ecological Agriculture, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999.
65. Bernard Glaser, Environment, Development and Agriculture, Integrated Policy through Human Ecology, London: University College of London Press, 1995, p 100.
66. Life expectancy at birth in China fell from 70.1 years in 1990 to 68.6 years in 1993. See UNDP, Human Development Reports, 1993, pp 128 and 1996, p 136.
67. Abigail Jahiel, 'The organization of environmental protection in China', China Quarterly, 156, 1998, p 781.
68. Translated from Jiefang Daily, 12 July 1997.
69. Jahiel, The Organization of Environmental Protection in China, p 784.
70. Ma Zhengang, Chinese Ambassador to the UK, lecture at Chinese Economics Association (CEA) (UK) annual conference, Middlesex Business School, March 1999.
71. Quarterly Chronicle and Documentation, China Quarterly, 152, 1997, p 910.
72. Richard Louis Edmonds, 'China's environment, problems and prospects', in Dwyer, China: the Next Decades, p 257.
73. Lotspeich & Chen, Environmental Protection in the PR of China, p 59,
74. Jahiel, The Organization of Environmental Protection in China, p 785.
75. Ibid, p 784.