Transnational environmental movement: Impacts on the green civil society in China

Journal of Contemporary China

Volumn 19, Issue 65, 2010, Pages 503-523

  Jie, Chen ^a  

^a AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CIVIL SOCIETY; ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE; ENVIRONMENTALISM; INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION; NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION;

CHINA;

EID: 77951959683     PISSN: 10670564     EISSN: 14699400     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10670561003666103     Document Type: Article

References (51)

1. For debates on Chinese civil society in light of those events, see Geoff Dyer, 'Stirrings in the suburbs', Financial Times, (20 July 2008); and Minxin Pei, 'China's repression of civil society will haunt it', Financial Times, (4 August 2008).
2. Katherine Morton, 'The emergence of NGOs in China and their transnational linkages: implications for domestic reform', Australian Journal of International Affairs 59, (2005), pp. 519-532.
3. Jie Chen, 'NGO community in China: expanding linkages with transnational civil society and their democratic implications', China Perspectives no. 68, (2006), pp. 29-40.
4. I'd like to express profound gratitude to those leaders and activists representing Chinese and international environmental organisations who kindly received me for interview during May-June 2007. However, I am solely responsible for the arguments and analysis created after interpreting their information.
5. See http://www.chinadevelopmentbrief.com/dingo/.CDB is a Beijing-based magazine on NGO affairs which also functions as an international consultancy group providing information and services to facilitate international NGOs' exchanges with Chinese groups.
6. All-China Environment Federation, ed., 2007 Green Book of Environment (Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2007), pp. 116-117.
7. Guobin Yang, 'How do Chinese civic associations respond to the Internet: findings from a survey', The China Quarterly no. 189, (2007), pp. 122-143.
8. This is from the survey by the All-China Environment Federation cited earlier. The result suggests that by the end of 2005 China had 2,768 environmental NGOs. Apart from the 202 bottom-up voluntary groups and 68 INGOs which had offices in China, there were also 1,382 government-initiated NGOs, and 1,116 student environmental groups and their coalitions. The Federation noted that the statistics were incomplete because the survey excluded NGOs which worked on the environment part time, and some of the unregistered NGOs avoided the survey for various reasons. See All-China Environment Federation, ed., 2007 Green Book of Environment, pp. 341-342.
9. For a relevant literature review, see Jie Chen, 'NGO community in China', p. 31.
10. Interview with Li Junhui, Acting Director of FON, and Mao Da, International Coordinator of GVB, Beijing, May 2007.
11. Interview with Chen Yongsong, Director of Yunnan EcoNetwork, Kunming, June 2007.
12. Ibid. Positive professional and socio-political roles of GONGOs must be acknowledged. See Fengshi Wu, 'New partners or old brothers? GONGOs in transnational environmental advocacy in China', China Environment Series 5, (2002), pp. 45-58.
13. This is based on an integrated summary of interviews with Li Junhui, Mao Da, Chen Yongsong, Yu Xiaogang (Director of GW), Yin Lun (Programme Director of CBIK), Yang Fangyi (International Coordinator, CI Yunnan Office) and Li Qing (WWF China's Programme Officer for Education and Capacity Building), in Beijing, Kunming and Lijiang, May-June 2007.
14. Interview with Li Junhui, May 2007.
15. Interviews with Li Junhui, Mao Da and Yin Lun, May-June 2007.
16. Based on interviews with: Luosang Ruiba, Director, Hamagu Center for the Protection of Indigenous Ecology and Culture; Zaxi Dengzhu, Director, Shangri-la Tibetan Cultural Protection and Development Society; Qilin Nuobu, Director, Napohai Lake Community Wetland Protection Society; and Gongbao Zaxi, Director, Wild Yak Environmental and Ecological Society, May-June 2007. The first three are based in north-western Yunnan, and the last one operates in Qinghai. Two other prominent Tibetan groups, Green Kangba (Sichuan) and Kawagebo Cultural Society (Yunnan) also received considerable international support (interviews with CI's Yang Fangyi, Kunming, June 2007).
17. Information from interviews with Li Qing, Rose Niu (Director of TNC China) and Yang Fangyi, May-June 2007.
18. Interview with Rose Niu.
19. This is a synthesis of the ideas in Guobin Yang, 'Environmental NGOs and institutional dynamics in China', The China Quarterly no. 181, (2005), pp. 46-66;
20. Caroline M. Cooper, '"This is our way in": the civil society of environmental NGOs in south-west China', Government and Opposition 41, (2006), pp. 109-136.
21. Shui-Yan Tang and Xueyong Zhan, 'Civic environmental NGOs, civil society, and democratisation in China', Journal of Development Studies 44, (2008), pp. 425-448.
22. Interview with Jill Robinson, CEO and Founder of Animals Asia Foundation, Perth, Australia, April 2005.
23. Interview with Li Junhui.
24. Interview with Yang Fangyi.
25. Andrew C. Mertha, China's Water Warriors: Citizen Action and Policy Change (London: Cornell University Press, 2008), p. 23.
26. This discussion of transnational learning is based on information from interviews with Chen Yongsong, Yu Xiaogang, Wang Yongchen (director of GEV), Li Junhui and Mao Da.
27. Based on interviews with Yu Xiaogang, Wang Yongchen, Yang Fangyi and media reports. The anti-dam campaign, once it became transnational, fits well with the notion of a transnational advocacy network as defined in Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (London: Cornell University Press, 1998), pp. 1-3, 8-9.
28. Onsite interview with He Ruanjun and Mu Jinhua, Programme Officer of TNC Lijiang Office, June 2007.
29. Onsite interview with Luosang Ruiba, Director, Hamagu Center for the Protection of Indigenous Ecology and Culture, June 2007.
30. Interview with Yang Fangyi.
31. See http://www.nature.org/partners/.
32. Interview with Rose Niu.
33. Interview with Li Qing.
34. Thomas Risse-Kappen, 'Bringing transnational relations back in: introduction', in Thomas Risse-Kappen, ed., Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Institutions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 3-36.
35. Interview with Rose Niu.
36. Interviews with Yin Lun, Yang Fangyi and Andreas Wilkes (China Natural Resource Management Programme Leader, The Mountain Institute), June 2007.
37. Interview with Mao Da.
38. Interviews with Wande Gongba, Programme Coordinator of WWF Shangri-la Office and Zaxi Dengzhu, Director, Shangri-la Tibetan Cultural Protection and Development Society, June 2007.
39. Interviews with Li Junhui and Mao Da.
40. Interview with Yin Lun.
41. For his own account of the event, see Nick Young, 'Why China cracked down on my nonprofit', The Christian Science Monitor, (4 December 2007).
42. Interview with Li Qing.
43. Interview with Andreas Wilkes.
44. See http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2008-04/24/content_8040521.htm.
45. Interview with Rose Niu. Reportedly Jiang went on to personally designate a principle for the TNC's tasks in China, along the lines of balancing development and environmental protection, and leading the community's sustainable development (interview with Gao Huaili, Director of TNC's Lijiang office, June 2007).
46. See http://www.trace.org/index.html.
47. Correspondence with Andreas Wilkes, February 2009.
48. Interview with Yang Fangyi.
49. Interview with Yu Xiaogang.
50. I appreciate the anonymous reviewer for reminding me of this fact.
51. Jie Chen, 'Burgeoning transnationalism of Taiwan's social movement NGOs', Journal of Contemporary China 10, (2001), pp. 613-644 at pp. 618-619.