Three Essays On Chinas Political Economy Environmental Policy And Green Job Guarantee

This dissertation contributes to the study of the Chinese economy by elaborating China’s alternative economic system, examining the evolution of Chinese environmental policies, and proposing a Chinese Green Job Guarantee. Delineating China’s political economy post-1949, I challenge the Eurocentric interpretation of China’s post-1978 economic reform as an incomplete and ongoing transition and argue that the Chinese economy, instead of transitioning, has transformed into a distinct type of market economy. To understand the Chinese economy, the question to ask is not whether China today is capitalist or socialist, or whether the Chinese government is interfering too much with the market, but rather what kind of a market economy could best fulfill the developmental vision set by the Chinese state. Echoing this finding, I illustrate that the Chinese environmental policies have evolved from contradiction to synthesis since 2005, and hence the Chinese state has been and likely will be shaping China’s environmental landscape more responsibly and effectively into the future. Finally, I demonstrate that the Chinese state should and can implement a Green Job Guarantee program to coordinate economic growth, full employment, structural adjustments, and environmental sustainability. In 2019, increasing China’s fiscal deficit by 1.58% of GDP would have financed a complete Job Guarantee to eliminate China’s 24.27 million urban unemployment and elevate the country’s GDP growth rate to the 9.23% and 10.65% range.

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This path-breaking collection covers the significance of China's extreme environmental challenges for both Chinese society and the world, how these challenges are impacting domestic Chinese society and its political institutions, and how these institutions are responding in their efforts to address the environmental problems.

This book covers major advances in China’s climate policy over the past decade and presents theoretical approaches to climate justice and low-carbon transformation from a Chinese perspective. It analyzes the political economy of China’s climate policy, and subsequently addresses the following major aspects: carbon emissions and human rights, equity and carbon budgets, economic analysis of low-carbon transformation, economics of adaptation to climate change, and international climate regime building.

To understand China’s climate change policy is not easy, as the country itself is a paradox actor in global climate political economy: it used to take very suspicious stand on the scientific certainty of climate change, but recently it has become a signatory and firm supporter of the Kyoto Protocol; it stubbornly refuses to accept any emission cutting obligations, but has gradually taken the lead in developing renewable energies and carbon trading business; it accuses western countries of their hypocrisy and irresponsibility, but ironically maintains close cooperation with them on low-carbon projects; it fears climate mitigation commitments may hamper the economic growth, but meanwhile spends most lavishly on the research and development of clean energy and other green technologies. This book, unlike other researches which explain China’s climate policy from pure economics or politics/foreign policy perspectives, provides a panoramic view over China’s climate-related regulations, laws and policies as well as various government and non-government actors involved in the climate politics. Through analyzing the political and socioeconomic factors that influence the world’s largest carbon emitter’s participation into the global collective actions against climate change, the book argues that as a vast continental state with a mix of authoritarian politics and a quasi-liberalised market economy, China’s climate policy process is fragmented and self-defensive, seemingly having little room for significant compromises or changes; yet in response to the mounting international pressures and energy security concerns and attracted by lucrative carbon businesses and clean energy market, the regime shows some sort of better-than-expected flexibility and shrewdness in coping with the newly-emerged challenges. Its future climate actions, whether effective or not, are vital not only for the success of the global mitigation effort, but for China’s own economic restructure and sustainable development. The book is a unique research monograph on the evolving domestic and foreign policies taken by the Chinese government to tackle climate change challenges. It concludes that instead of being motivated by concern about its vulnerability to climate change, Chinese climate-related policies have been mainly driven by its intensive attention to energy security, business opportunities lying in emerging green industries and image consideration in the global climate politics.

As the dazzling economic and social changes in China have imposed substantial impact upon the quality of environmental governance, it is time to review the problems and progress in the politics of China's environmental protection. This book analyzes the factors in China's governance and political process that affect and restrain its capacity to handle the mounting environmental problems. It argues that solutions to China's ecological woes to a larger extent lie in the political and institutional changes rather than in engineering, technological and investment input. The book talks about new policies and reform measures in the green area taken by the government since 2007, arguing that some of them may be quite effective in the long run, as long as they alter institutional factors and the ?growth-first? mindset that obstruct the green effort.The book also includes discussion of China's climate change policy not only because global warming has come under the limelight of the international community in recent years, but also because it offers a unique dimension to analyze the country's environmental diplomacy and domestic bureaucratic structure on emissions cutting and related energy issues. China is currently at the crossroads of further political and economic reform, and the intensified public attention to environmental pollution may help the Chinese Communist Party to decisively push forward the long-sluggish political reforms.

"China's spectacular economic growth over the past two decades has dramatically depleted the country's natural resources and produced skyrocketing rates of pollution. Environmental degradation in China has also contributed to significant public health problems, mass migration, economic loss, and social unrest. In The River Runs Black, Elizabeth C. Economy examines China's growing environmental crisis and its implications for the country's future development." "Drawing on historical research, case studies, and interviews with officials, scholars, and activists in China, Economy traces the economic and political roots of China's environmental challenge and the evolution of the leadership's response. She argues that China's current approach to environmental protection mirrors the one embraced for economic development: devolving authority to local officials, opening the door to private actors, and inviting participation from the international community, while retaining only weak central control. The result has been a patchwork of environmental protection in which a few wealthy regions with strong leaders and international ties improve their local environments, while most of the country continues to deteriorate, sometimes suffering irrevocable damage. Economy compares China's response with the experience of other societies and sketches out several possible futures for the country."--BOOK JACKET.

The first essay focuses on the role of the hukou (i.e. Household Registration System) with full awareness of the economic system it operates under, and the development model it assists. I find that hukou's main role in the planned economy was to assist socialist industrialization while averting the Lewis development model, a development strategy based on unlimited supply of labors from the rural sector, largely adopted in developing countries. In the market reform period, hukou performed exactly the opposite function, which is to assist the Lewis model based on the unlimited supply of rural surplus labor "released" from the rural de-collectivization. Based on these results, I argue that the interacting effects of the hukou and the economic system, rather than hukou alone, should be the analytical focus to address important development topics such as industrialization, urbanization, spatial and social inequality. The second essay compares the different agricultural investment patterns when agricultural credit is borrowed on a collective basis versus on an individual basis. I find that on the same income level, a one percent increase in the IC ratio (i.e. the ratio of loan made on individual base relative to on a collective base) leads to of a two percentage point decline on irrigation investment. On the other hand, a one percent increase in the IC ratio leads to about 10 percentage point increase in fertilizer use. Based on these results, I argue that the form of agricultural lending matters significantly in decisions regarding agricultural investments. Collective-based agricultural lending tends to be channeled to investment that contributes to more sustainable agricultural development yet with returns only in the intermediate or long run (such as irrigation). The third essay addresses the employment issue through estimating the relative employment impacts of renewable energy investments versus spending within the traditional fossil fuel sectors. I find that spending within three segments of the renewable energy sectors - solar, wind and bioenergy, will produce in combination about twice as many jobs per dollar of expenditure than an equal amount of spending on fossil fuels. I also find that, more than 70% of jobs from renewable energy sectors are created in the informal economy. Overall, the results of my estimates demonstrate that, for the case of China, the project of building a clean energy economy does not face the prospect of a massive obstacle in terms of negative employment effects.

Catastrophic climate change overshadows the present and the future. Wrenching economic transformations have devastated workers and hollowed out communities. However, those fighting for jobs and those fighting for the planet have often been at odds. Does the world face two separate crises, environmental and economic? The promise of the Green New Deal is to tackle the threat of climate change through the empowerment of working people and the strengthening of democracy. In this view, the crisis of nature and the crisis of work must be addressed together—or they will not be addressed at all. This book brings together leading experts to explore the possibilities of the Green New Deal, emphasizing the future of work. Together, they examine transformations that are already underway and put forth bold new proposals that can provide jobs while reducing carbon consumption—building a world that is sustainable both economically and ecologically. Contributors also debate urgent questions: What is the value of a federal jobs program, or even a jobs guarantee? How do we alleviate the miseries and precarity of work? In key economic sectors, including energy, transportation, housing, agriculture, and care work, what kind of work is needed today? How does the New Deal provide guidance in addressing these questions, and how can a Green New Deal revive democracy? Above all, this book shows, the Green New Deal offers hope for a better tomorrow—but only if it accounts for work’s past transformations and shapes its future.