• World
    • Africa
    • Asia Pacific
    • Central & South Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America & Caribbean
    • Middle East & North Africa
    • North America
  • Coronavirus
  • Politics
    • US Election
    • US politics
    • Joe Biden
    • Brexit
    • European Union
    • India
    • Arab world
  • Economics
    • Finance
    • Eurozone
    • International Trade
  • Business
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Startups
    • Technology
  • Culture
    • Entertainment
    • Music
    • Film
    • Books
    • Travel
  • Environment
    • Climate change
    • Smart cities
    • Green Economy
  • Global Change
    • Education
    • Refugee Crisis
    • International Aid
    • Human Rights
  • International Security
    • ISIS
    • War on Terror
    • North Korea
    • Nuclear Weapons
  • Science
    • Health
  • 360 °
  • The Interview
  • In-Depth
  • Insight
  • Quick Read
  • Video
  • Podcasts
  • Interactive
  • My Voice
  • About
  • FO Store
Sections
  • World
  • Coronavirus
  • Politics
  • Economics
  • Business
  • Culture
  • Sign Up
  • Login
  • Publish

Make Sense of the world

Unique insight from 2,000+ contributors in 80+ Countries

Close

The Precondition for Democracy in China

By Gateway House • Oct 29, 2012

Those involved with the ongoing environmental movement in China – like many of the country’s burgeoning social movements – are using various strategies to demand one of democracy’s preconditions: the rule of law.

by Spike Nowak

Social movements against the government’s practices are gathering momentum throughout China. The one-child policy is openly being questioned, frequent protests are erupting over land acquisitions, factory workers are rioting over poor working conditions, and China’s social media is giving citizens a new avenue to voice their outrage against corruption in the government.

As China’s next generation of leaders prepares to take the reins of a rapidly changing country, Beijing can no longer pursue unbridled economic growth while ignoring its environmental consequences. Across the Middle Kingdom, citizens are taking to the street and protesting – sometimes violently – for a cleaner, healthier environment. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working on environmental issues are courting influential leaders in Beijing and pushing legal and political boundaries in order take a stand against the practices that have made China the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide.

The environmental movement in China, and the people involved in it, like many of the country’s other burgeoning social movements, are not calling for democracy. They are calling for the rule of law. At the local level, people are marching in protest against injustices that would not occur if China’s laws were fully enforced by local governments. At the central level, lawyers are attempting to force Beijing to obey its own laws.

Both parts of this two-tiered movement – a highly organised network of NGOs with close government relations, and frequent and isolated citizen-led protests at the local level – are striving for the same goal: the enforcement of already existing environmental laws and regulations. The main difference between the NGOs and the local protests are the methods they use – cooperative support versus confrontational demonstration.

Tsinghua University professor Sun Liping estimates the number of “mass incidents” (party-speak for protests) in China in 2010 at more than 180,000. Many of these were sparked by environmental concerns. Most of these demonstrations involve less than a few dozen people, but many of them are much larger and have managed to garner international attention. In July 2012, thousands of protesters marched in the city of Shifang in Sichuan province against plans to build a multi-million dollar copper plant in the city. The incident was widely reported in both domestic and international media. Three days after the protests began, the local government announced that it had scrapped plans to build the plant.

The Chinese government expends an enormous effort in keeping these incidents out of the public eye and, more importantly, isolated. According to China’s finance ministry, the country will spend $111bn on internal security in 2012. A report by the US Congressional Research Service estimated that in 2005 the Chinese government had 30,000 employees working on internet censorship and at preventing collective action; that number will likely have risen since.

Even China’s well-established environmental NGOs have not found a way to get around these barriers to coordination. All NGOs in China have to register with the Ministry of Civil Affairs, which has the power to revoke an NGO’s legal status if it becomes “threatening” to the state. This severely restricts the ability of NGOs to organise their members and promote environmental causes, because in Beijing’s eyes there is a thin line between advocacy and provocation. In fact, established environmental NGOs rarely support local environmental protests even when government wrongdoing is egregiously evident, because doing so puts the organisation’s existence at stake.

However, this does not mean the NGOs working on environmental issues are powerless. The close relationship between the NGOs and the government allows the NGOs to negotiate the blurry legal and political boundary between what is acceptable and what is forbidden. This enables them to push those boundaries without stepping over the line and having their legal status revoked.

These close ties also allow the leaders of environmental NGOs to form alliances with government officials, which is of crucial importance in a county where knowing the right people makes all the difference. For example, Green Earth Volunteers (GEV) was able to use its contacts with the State Environmental Protection Agency to obtain environmental reports on a proposed project to build 13 hydroelectric dams on the Nu River in Yunnan province in south-west China. Another NGO, Friends of Nature, used its connections to convey GEV’s reports to influential government officials. In 2004 Premier Wen Jiabao temporarily halted work on the dams pending further research (however, plans to build the dams are part of China’s 12th five-year plan).

Close relationships with the central government also allow NGOs to confront and monitor local governments. The founder of the Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims, Wang Canfa, believes that only 10% of China’s environmental laws and regulations are actually enforced.

With the state’s insufficient ability to oversee and enforce these laws, NGOs perform a watchdog-like function for officials in Beijing. When a Beijing-based NGO, the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, provided consumers with a list of known polluters and their products, a State Environmental Protection Agency official went so far as to say, “This is a brilliant boost to the enforcement of environmental laws.”

While NGOs work with the central government to help enforce China’s environmental regulations, protesters work against local governments and polluters to achieve similar ends. By pushing the state at two different levels, China’s environmental movement has joined China’s civil rights lawyers and dissidents, and China’s journalists and social media, in holding the government accountable.

Some China-watchers believe these various forms of discontent spell the end for the party’s autocratic reign and signal the beginning of a democratic China. But these beliefs are most likely misplaced. The end result of activism such as the two-tiered environmental movement will not be democracy. Instead, expect a more open society as Chinese citizens increase their demands for Beijing to actually implement laws.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer's editorial policy.

Share Story
Categories360° Analysis, Central & South Asia, Culture
Join our network of more than 2,000 contributors to publish your perspective, share your story and shape the global conversation. Become a Fair Observer and help us make sense of the world.

READ MORE IN THIS 360° SERIES

Youth Unemployment and the Rise of Neo-Nazism in Europe
By Catherine Lefèvre • Feb 26, 2014
Gun Control in the US: The “Cohen Act”?
By Leonard Weinberg & Matthew Feldman • Feb 05, 2013
Playing the Name Game: Populist Politics in Macedonia
By Paul Walsh • Dec 21, 2012
Nationalism and the Extreme Right in Southern Europe: A Greek – Spanish Comparison
By Avi Astor • Dec 19, 2012
When Ignorance was Bliss: Domestic Extremism in Europe
By Tamas Berecz • Dec 16, 2012
Russia's White Revolution
By Andreas Umland • Nov 13, 2012
Populism in Europe
By Ulrich Brueckner • Oct 29, 2012
The "Patriot" Movement Explodes (Part 1)
By Mark Potok • Oct 23, 2012
An Orwellian Hong Kong
By Ka Ho Wong • Oct 18, 2012
Populism, Nationalism and Globalisation: The New Far Right?
By Fair Observer • Oct 09, 2012
Happily Together…Not?
By Eric Lowe • Mar 20, 2012
“Russia for Russians” or Russian Nationalism
By Evgeniya Khilji • Mar 24, 2011

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Post navigation

Previous PostPrevious Silicon Valley: Where is the Love?
Next PostNext Is QE2 a good idea?
Subscribe
Register for $9.99 per month and become a member today.
Publish
Join our community of more than 2,500 contributors to publish your perspective, share your narrative and shape the global discourse.
Donate
We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate. Your donation is tax-deductible.

Explore

  • About
  • Authors
  • FO Store
  • FAQs
  • Republish
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Contact

Regions

  • Africa
  • Asia Pacific
  • Central & South Asia
  • Europe
  • Latin America & Caribbean
  • Middle East & North Africa
  • North America

Topics

  • Politics
  • Economics
  • Business
  • Culture
  • Environment
  • Global Change
  • International Security
  • Science

Sections

  • 360°
  • The Interview
  • In-Depth
  • Insight
  • Quick Read
  • Video
  • Podcasts
  • Interactive
  • My Voice

Daily Dispatch


© Fair Observer All rights reserved
We Need Your Consent
We use cookies to give you the best possible experience. Learn more about how we use cookies or edit your cookie preferences. Privacy Policy. My Options I Accept
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Edit Cookie Preferences

The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.

As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media.

 
Necessary
Always Enabled

These cookies essential for the website to function.

Analytics

These cookies track our website’s performance and also help us to continuously improve the experience we provide to you.

Performance
Uncategorized

This cookie consists of the word “yes” to enable us to remember your acceptance of the site cookie notification, and prevents it from displaying to you in future.

Preferences
Save & Accept