China's environmental condition and practices today are overwhelmingly shaped by its history. Firstly, Mao's war against nature (1949-1976) saw nature as requiring mastery to achieve the ideal socialist paradise. This was taken to the extreme during the Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) during which there was much environmental destruction through farming impossible areas and the setting up of back-yard smelters. Mao's downfall was that he and his economic plans did not take into account China's huge diversity and heterogeneous topography (Lora-Wainwright, 2014). Secondly, looking to the more recent past, it has been noted by many scholars (e.g. Economy, 2004; Liu & Diamond, 2005; Sun & Dingxin, 2008; Lora-Wainwright, 2014) that the dramatic process of political and economic reform, occurring since the late 1970s, have resulted in China being home to some of the worst environmental problems across the world today. Through growth rates of over 8% per annum and the integration of the Chinese economy into the global system, hundreds of millions of people were elevated out of poverty. However, to encourage rapid development, natural resources for a long time remained priced well below the replacement cost, and little effort was made to account for the environmental costs of reform. China is now paying the price. In 2002, six of the world's ten worst polluting cities were located in China, acid rain affects more than a third of China, 27% of the country is now covered by desert, over 75% of China's urban river water is too polluted to fish or drink from, and grassland degradation along with deforestation have continued, resulting in, for example, less than 10% of Sichuan Province's (home to the pandas) original forests remaining (Economy, 2004). Of concern to the Chinese state are the economic costs that result from environmental degradation and pollution, which have been estimated at 8-12% of its annual GDP. Also concerning the state is the social unrest caused by the state of environment with protests increasing in recent decades over damaged crops, polluted air and water and forced resettlement. The Chinese government itself recognises environmental protest as one of four central causes of social unrest in the country (Economy, 2004; Schwartz, 2004; van-Rooij, 2010). Of concern to China's citizens is that illness related to pollution is on the rise - it has been estimated for example that air pollution alone is responsible for more than 300,000 premature births yearly. Thus, one could argue that the present environmental state in China is the result of two important errors made by its leadership throughout the 20th century: Mao not taking into account China's topographical diversity when formulating his economic plans, and the leadership since the reform period in the 1970s putting far more emphasis on economic growth than environmental protection. In the following three sections, this essay will examine how these errors are still being made by China's leadership today and what effect this is having on environmental protection.
Environmental protection is not simply achieved by an environmentally conscious state. Instead, it is achieved through the work of multiple and interrelated actors. The literature on China's environment foregrounds the work of four actors in particular; the state (Economy, 2004; Beyer, 2006; Johnson, 2008; Gilley 2012), NGOs and the media (Schwartz, 2004; Yang, 2005; Ho & Edmonds, 2008; Holdaway, 2010), and the public (O'Brien, 1996; Lora-Wainwright et al., 2012; Deng & Yang, 2013). Therefore, in order to provide a comprehensive answer to the question 'Why is China's environmental protection still limited', this essay will adopt an actor orientated framework. Section one will examine the work of the Chinese state arguing that despite a relatively comprehensive environmental legal framework being developed since the mid-1970s, many deficiencies still exist, which I categorise as statutory, and enforcement deficiencies. While deficiencies inherent with the state do exist, and are important in explaining China's lack of environmental protection, the state's effect on the other actors involved in China's environmental protection also stand out. In this way, section two will examine the work of NGOs and the media working on environmental issues, and, through the use of Ho's (2008) concept of 'embedded activism', will pay particular attention to how the Chinese state limits the agency of NGOs and the media, and what effect this has on the country's environmental protection. In a similar way, section three, through employing O'Brien's (1996) concept of rightful resistance, will examine how and to what effect the state limits the agency of its citizens in protecting the environment. Additionally, through the application of the concept of environmentality, section three will also examine how widespread feelings of pollution inevitability among the Chinese public is hindering efforts to afford China's environment adequate protection (Agrawal, 2005). Section four will conclude this essay, summarising the factors that have resulted in China's environmental protection still being limited today.
