In this thought-provoking book, Yifei Li and Judith Shapiro probe the concrete mechanisms of China’s coercive environmentalism to show how ‘going green’ helps the state to further other agendas such as citizen surveillance and geopolitical influence. Through top-down initiatives, regulations, and campaigns to mitigate pollution and environmental degradation, the Chinese authorities also promote control over the behavior of individuals and enterprises, pacification of borderlands, and expansion of Chinese power and influence along the Belt and Road and even into the global commons. Given the limited time that remains to mitigate climate change and protect millions of species from extinction, we need to consider whether a green authoritarianism can show us the way. This book explores both its promises and risks.
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Rise of Authoritarian EnvironmentalismEcological Civilization as Political Philosophy
A Global Call to Action
What is State-led Environmentalism?
Authoritarianism in Green Clothing
Towards Mutually Agreed-upon Coercion
1 Asserting “Green” Control: The State and its Subjects
Campaigns and Crackdowns
Environmental Campaigns
Justifications and Risks
Target-setting
Targets Gone Awry
Behavior Modification
Environmentalism at a Price
Notes
2 “Green” China Pacifies its Borders
One-size-fits-all Policymaking
Afforestation by Monoculture
The Loess Plateau as an Unscalable Success
The Industrialized Forest of Uxin Banner
Green Grabbing: Hydropower as Ecological Civilization and Modernization
Green Grabbing as a Tool of Government Control
Citizen Resistance: The Nu River and Tiger Leaping Gorge
Ecological Migration: Sedentarizing Nomads and Building Parks
Protected Areas and National Parks
Pacifying Borderlands in the Name of the Environment
3 The State on the “Green” Belt and Road
The Belt and Road Initiative and the Environment
Win-win Green Development
The Quest for Soft Power
Green Technocracy
A Morass of Contradictions
4 Global China Goes “Green”
Mastering the Trade Game
Banning Global Waste Imports
Withholding Rare Earths
Curbing the Endangered Species Trade
Engineering China’s Atmosphere
Blue Skies or Bust
Constructing “Sky River”: Weather Modification on the Tibetan Plateau
Outer Space Environmentalism: The Digital Belt and Road
Geoengineering the Earth’s Climate
Mining the Moon
The Sleeping Lion Awakes
5 Environmental Authoritarianism on a Troubled Planet
Environmental Fix
Authoritarian Resilience
Techno-political Underpinnings
Transactional Logic
Indispensable Civil Society
Consultation under State Leadership
References
Index
