This week Vishal and I gave presentations on the readings. Vishal focused on streamlining the information in Environmental Regulation in China (Ma Xiaoying and Leonard Ortolano), I took on the Benjamin van Rooj article ("Implementation of Chinese Environmental Law: Regular Enforcement and Political Campaigns") as well as chapters from The Struggle for Sustainability in Rural China (Bryan Tilt). Devon also presented on an article about subsidies for clean energy in China that are being contested by the United Steel Workers Union.
I found it interesting how our discussion drifted time and again during this class to questions of uniqueness. First in terms of China's possibly unique position in terms of the enforcement of environmental laws and regulations. Does the fact that the State has such great power in China give China a potential for widespread and consistent enforcement that a country like the United States would never have? Some of our readings seemed to suggest that the answer is no - Tilt in particular seemed to contest the notion of the central Chinese government as a monolithic entity, and argue that continual (across history) and ineradicable tensions between the periphery and centre are what need to be taken into account in order to enact environmental law. While most of us agreed with the idea that using solely a top down approach to sustaining and enriching China's landscape would be to ignore the conflicting interests present in different pockets of power in China (and thus likely fail), we also thought that central government's power in China could be exploited to administer "sustainability" on a scale that has never been seen before (as Cecilia put it, if the Chinese government decided they wanted hybrid cars at a certain number of Environmental Protection Bureaus tomorrow, it is easy to imagine it happening in China).
Second, we also honed in on how the authors of our readings seemed to highlight how "special" every environmental enforcement situation in China is, how it seems from the books and articles that no one solution will apply to any particular case. The question of how to find a workable, effective balance between adaptability and stringency in Chinese environmental law (and the law of most other countries?) should be a big one throughout the course.
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