Partnerships for sustainable development in China: Adaptation of a global governance instrument

European Journal of East Asian Studies

Volumn 8, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 121-134

  Chan, Sander ^a,b  

^a VU UNIVERSITY AMSTERDAM   (Netherlands)

^b Beijing College of Political Science and Law   (China)

Author keywords

China; Governance; Institutions; Partnerships; Sustainable development; United Nations

Indexed keywords

EID: 72449195823     PISSN: 15680584     EISSN: 15700615     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/156805809X439912     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. Kara, Jan, and Diane Quarless. 'Guiding Principles for Partnerships for SustainableDevelopment ('type 2 outcomes') to be Elaborated by Interested Parties in the Context ofthe World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)', paper read at Fourth Summit Preparatory Committee (PREPCOM 4), Bali, Indonesia (27 May-7 June, 2002), pp. 1-2.
2. SDIN, Sustainable Development Issues Network, 'Taking issue: questioning partnerships. In SDIN Paper No. 1: Sustainable Development Issues Network (SDIN)'. Availableonline: http://www.sdissues.net/SDIN/docs/TakingIssue-N01.pdf (2002). Date retrieved:12 January 2009.
3. See Biermann, Frank, Sander Chan, Aysem Men: and Philipp Pattberg, Multi-StakeholderPartnerships for Sustainability: Does the Promise hold?, in: P Glasbergen, F. Biermann, A. Mol(eds.) Partnerships, Governance And Sustainable Development. Reflections on Theory and Practice (Cheltenham: Elgar, 2007), pp. 239-260;
4. and Andonova, Liliana B. and Marc A. Levy, Franchising Global Governance: Making Sense of the Johannesburg Type Two Partnership, in: Stokke, Olav Schram and Øystein B. Thommessen (eds.) Yearbook of International Cooperation on Environment and Development 2003 104 (London: Earthscan, 2003).
5. Available online at: http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/partnerships/bali- guiding-principles .htm, retrieved 12 January 2009.
6. For an analysis of the Partnerships for Sustainable Development discourse, see Men, Aysem, 'Partnerships for sustainable development as discursive practice: Shifts in discourses of environment and democracy', Forest Policy and Economics, vol. n, is. 2 (2009), pp. 108-122.
7. Or convenient political formulation.
8. Interview with Ms. Zehra Aydin, senior program officer at United Nations Environment Programme, member of the WSSD bureau. UN HQNew York, 1 5 May 2008.
9. The large non-governmental representation from China may seem remarkable; China's restrictions on social organization are notorious. Even in the preparatory phase of the WSSD, China successfully resisted the accreditation of the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT 2002). A WSSD bureau member recalled that the Chinese government delegation was very informed about all the Chinese NGO's present in the WSSD process. The level of oversight and organization is a result of longstanding domestic governance links between government and social organizations. For instance, the Ministry for Civil Affairs officially supervises one of the largest Chinese NGOs present at the WSSD, the China Association of NGOs (CANGO). Official state or government agency support is a requirement for any NGO to be officially registered in China. Therefore every Chinese NGO is in fact a governmentally organized NGO or GONGO.
10. Even when CANGO does not regularly employ 'partnership' as a discourse for inter sectoral and inter organisational collaboration, in a personal interview d.d. 9 December 2008, a CANGO spokesman clearly presented CANGO as a partnerships broker.
11. Formally, Partnerships for Sustainable Development are not an international regime. However, as a set of closely linked initiatives relating to the implementation of international regimes, 'regime' can be used to describe the PFSD process.
12. personal interview with Jan Pronk, Special UN Envoy to the WSSD, 29 April 2008,Institute for Social Studies (ISS), The Hague, Netherlands.
13. Interview with Ms. Aydin.
14. Kara and Quarless, 2002.
15. Mwanza, D.D., 'Water for Sustainable Development in Africa', in: L. Hens and B. Nath(eds.) The WSSD-The Johannesburg Conference, (Dordrecht: Springer, 2005), pp. 91-112.
16. Turner, J.L., 'Cultivating evironmental NGO-business partnerships in China', China Business Review (2003), available online: http://www. chinabusinessreview.com/public/0311 /04.html. Date retrieved: 9 January 2009.
17. Adams, J., A. Young, et al., 'Public private partnerships in China: System, constraint sand future prospects', International Journal of Public Sector Management, vol.19, no.4(2006), pp. 384-396.
18. Adams, J. e.a., p. 388.
19. Brown, A., A. Orr, et al. (2006). The suitability of Public Private Partnerships in the provision of sustainable housing in China. World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development 2(1-2): 101-125.
20. Wong, A.S.H., D. Tjosvold, et al. 'Organizational partnerships in China: Self-interest, goal interdependence, and opportunism'. Journal of Applied Psychology, vol.90, no.4 (2005),pp. 782-791, p. 783.
21. Wank, D.L., 'The Institutional Process of Market Clientelism: Guanxi and Private Business in a South China City', The China Quarterly, vol.147 (1996), pp. 820-838.
22. Adams, J. e.a., p. 395.
23. Koehn, PH., 'Peaceful and Sustainable Development? Middle-Management Entrepreneurship and Transnational Competence in China', East Asia, vol.24, no.3 (2007),pp. 251-263, p. 262.
24. Unger, J., 'Bridges: Private business, the Chinese government, and the rise of new association', The China Quarterly, vol.147 (1996), pp. 795-819.
25. Adams J. e.a. (2006), p. 393.
26. UN, UN Partnership in China-Balancing development to achieve Xiaokang and Millennium Development Goals. (Beijing: Office of the United Nations Resident Coordinator in China, 2006), pp. 14, 19.
27. UN, p. 20.
28. Interview by Kacper Szulecki, member of our research project team, with Binu Parthan, Deputy Director-Programme co-ordinaton for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership. REEEP secretariat, Vienna, 2 April 2008.