The ‘Troubled Modernizer’: Three Decades of Chinese Environmental Policy and Diplomacy
Abstract
In Chapter 6, Yuka Kobayashi looks at China’s environmental policies and diplomacy over the last three decades. While China has become more active in environmental protection regimes during recent years, some observers criticize it as a laggard and as an obstructive, uncooperative actor in these regimes. However, Kobayashi argues that we should consider the extensive domestic implementation efforts that China has been making in order to comply with international environmental agreements. Criticizing China as a recalcitrant actor in international environmental regimes risks being simplistic. China has many impediments that keep it from being more proactive in environmental protection. Kobayashi shows that constraints at both the international and domestic levels, and their interplay, explain Chinese behaviour on environmental issues. Domestic factors, such as geography, demography and history, constrain and shape China’s environmental policies. Its role as a leader of the developing world also influences its policies. These constraints are made worse by top-level leaders who still focus on economic growth. Thus, Kobayashi argues, considering these and other constraints, China looks more like a ‘troubled modernizer’ than a recalcitrant participant in international environmental regimes.