The political economy of China's environmental law reforms

This chapter overviews China’s environmental law reforms in terms of how they connect to political economy generally and to Chinese communist ideology in particular. That they are connected there is no doubt. In fact, environmental law appears to be one area in which the nation and its leadership may be prepared to synchronize with international standards and set futuristic sustainability goals - for very good reasons. The alternatives may be rather bleak. China’s environmental law reforms seek to mitigate pollution and there will be cost implications for investment. Compliance implications for businesses and manufacturers, as well as the options of outsourcing and setting up subsidiary companies, are examined in light of the Chinese government’s ?ve-year plans, the current plan being for 2011-15. The chapter closes with a brief analysis of future and international implications. Before this, however, we examine the dominant discourses about environmental law as, until very recently, the environment has played ‘second ?ddle’ to the master discourse of economic reform. But this is changing. It has now become alarmingly apparent that the dominance of economic discourse over the environment is dangerously unsustainable. This is not lost on China’s leadership. © 2012 editorial selection and matter, John Garrick; individual chapters, the contributors.