1 Introduction
Public participation in environmental decision-making is widely considered positive for sustainability. There are a number of good reasons for this: allowing citizens to participate strengthens the legitimacy, efficacy and inclusiveness of decisional processes, as well as the accountability of legislative and government authorities. It can also empower communities and individuals who would otherwise be marginalized. It can promote environmental awareness and harness traditional knowledge of great value for sustainability. This positive outlook on participation is supported by a wealth of evidence,1 yet its rationale and application vary widely, depending on the cultural, social and political situation in which participation is embedded.2 The actual design of participation is much influenced by normative stances concerning the role citizens are allowed to play in political life and the desirability of different tradeoffs between human welfare and ecological integrity.
This chapter outlines the role of these factors in shaping public participation in environmental issues in China and shares new evidence on their potential to enable or constraint citizens’ contribution to sustainability. I focus on what is arguably China’s most carefully designed platform of citizen consultation in environmental matters, i.e. public participation in Environmental Impact Assessment (henceforth EIA PP). Section 2 illustrates the broader context and significance of public participation in Communist China’s political life. Section 3 introduces the process of institutionalisation of EIA PP since the late twentieth century, touching on its main achievements and shortcomings. Section 4 introduces implications for public participation of the EIA reform launched
2 Roots and Emergence of Public Participation in Communist China’s Political Life
China is not a place one would readily associate with impactful participation of citizens in political life. It is a country under authoritarian rule, and such has been for a very long time. Yet even in the darkest hours of Maoism, there were pathways that allowed a certain degree of interaction between citizens and decisionmakers. Twentieth-century China saw significant waves of political activism, which erupted at critical moments in the country’s social, economic and political life. Such was the case in the second half of the 1970s and the 1980s, until the bloody Tiananmen showdown on 4 June 1989 terminated prospects for regime change. In the two decades that followed, bottom-up attempts to influence the political fabric of the country became less systemic in their goals, but by no means less common. On the contrary, civil society played a fundamental role in promoting transparency and accountability of party and state authorities. Protests triggered by state failures and cadre corruption became the norm in the late 1990s.3 Most sprang from the sideeffects of China’s economic growth on people’s livelihoods and the environment: the increase in the prices of daily necessities, forced relocations to make way for infrastructure, lack of healthcare and welfare, strained labour relations, destruction of cultural heritage and natural habitats, environmental pollution – to name just the most common. When we look at individual manifestations of popular unrest, it appears that in most cases their impact was at best temporary or partial: e.g. delaying construction of a dam or a polluting factory, or managing to achieve some degree of impact mitigation, often by project relocation.4 Yet when taken as a whole, citizen participation and protests promoted a reconsideration of the role that public opinion and sustainability should have in the country’s governance.
The turbulent years of students’ protests and State repression culminating in the Tiananmen massacre of 4 June 1989 did not halt the expansion of public participation mechanisms, which in fact gained momentum in the 1990s. Local authorities experimented with new forms of involvement in areas of pressing public concern. In 1997, Guangdong province adopted a regulation on public hearings (tingzhenghui 听证会) about pricesetting. A year later, national authorities took the same path, establishing hearing requirements in the Price Law.8 The year 2000 was a watershed in establishing the political legitimacy and legal basis for the right of the people to take part in decision-making. The National People’s Congress – China’s highest legislative body – passed the Law on Legislation, requiring that Chinese citizens be given the possibility to participate through various channels in the legislative process.9 The early 2000s witnessed the nationwide institutionalization of public participation. The term itself was standardized in
Until recently, these innovations generated widespread optimism about the prospects for public participation and its role in addressing sustainability challenges. This optimism was damped in recent years by concerns over changes in the country’s political climate. Indeed, the leadership has embraced a more controlling attitude towards civil and political rights. The very same technologies that enabled more transparent and participatory politics are now being employed to monitor individual and collective behaviour of Chinese citizens, targeting dissent and activism. Recent evidence also shows that the technocratic rationale underlying much Chinese decision-making may be gaining ground, impacting on processes once designed to allow wider participation of the public.17 Overall, the emergence of institutionalised public participation
Timeline and overarching rationales of institutionalised public participation in Communist China18
3 Institutionalization of Public Participation in China’s Environmental Planning
China’s environmental governance has long epitomized the sustainability challenges faced by the country and the political motifs behind the adoption of participatory pathways. Already at the outset of the reform era – initiated in
The establishment of China’s environmental governance apparatus was thus favoured by endogenous and exogenous factors: increasing awareness of the negative sideeffects of industrial development, also sustained by emergent activism; preoccupations about PartyState legitimacy and social stability; exposure to the theory and practice of environmental governance developed in industrialized countries. It was against this background that in the 1980s, the Chinese government piloted its first Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedures, translating into practice the provisions contained in the 1978 EPL. Despite the early introduction of impact assessment, the first regulation containing detailed provisions for EIA was not adopted until 1998, when the Regulations on Environmental Management of Construction Projects
The early 2000s were a fundamental time in the establishment of the practice of EIA in China. The process was not unchallenged: ensuring compliance by project proponents and local governments proved quite arduous. This was due to a number of factors, including the predominance attributed to economic over environmental goals, bureaucratic incentive systems skewed towards the attainment of short-term growth, widespread local protectionism tying developers to local leaders, and the weakness of environmental authorities, which did not attain full ministerial status until 2008.24 Such were the difficulties, that in 2005 SEPA launched a nationwide campaign for the enforcement of the EIA Law, which would later become known as the “EIA Storm”.25 Meanwhile, the legal basis of EIA PP was strengthened by adoption of the Provisional Measures for Public Participation in EIA in 2006.26 The measures were of great importance for the institutionalization of EIA PP, in that they clarified both its guiding principles (openness, equality, inclusiveness and convenience) and its mechanisms (timing, information provision, and consultation arrangements). More specifics were provided in the Technical Guidelines for Environmental Impact Assessment Public Participation (EIA PP) (2011),27 which became a benchmark for EIA practitioners. The Guidelines further specified the goals of PP as: a) protecting the people’s environmental rights as guaranteed by law; b) providing a more thorough understanding of the environmental problems that may arise from projects; and c) improving the effectiveness of environmental protection and
Sustainability scholars and advocates placed much faith in the potential of these developments to empower communities and activists in their fight against environmental destruction. However, results were at best mixed and to some extent counterintuitive from a political standpoint. Mandatory EIA PP proved virtually unable to make a positive, sustainabilitydriven impact on decision-making. This was due to the technical features of the PP process itself and to the wider cultural and political context. In the 2010s, a number of procedural shortcomings in China’s EIA PP became evident, including the following:29,30
- –the timing of PP was too narrow and too late with respect to project approval procedures;
- –the information was incomplete and/or unintelligible to the average citizen due to the use of technical jargon;
- –the scope of consultation was narrow and essentially concerned with mitigation measures and economic compensation;
- –consultation arrangements and methods were unsuited to promoting collaborative decision-making, let alone empowering individuals and communities;
- –inclusiveness was limited and certain categories of stakeholders, such as technical experts, were given priority over others;
- –incorporation of results in documents informing decision-making (i.e. the EIA Report) was partial, and no feedback regarding people’s demands was provided.
These problems affected even those cases considered to be exemplary of best “practices”: in a detailed analysis of the EIA for the new Beijing Airport, the author of this chapter, with colleagues Moriggi and Marcomini, identified major issues across all criteria mentioned above,31 indicating an instrumental
4 Recent Developments in EIA PP and Likely Implications for Sustainability
4.1 Changes in EIA Regulation
The mixed picture we have just outlined also applies to EIA impacts on promoting environmental sustainability. While the introduction of impact assessment was a positive development in advancing the country’s environmental agenda, in practice its enforcement has been piecemeal. The very mild penalties for noncompliance have certainly played a role in this respect.38 But there have been other causes as well. First, the potential for sustainability has been jeopardized by the conflict of interest inherent in the EIA system, whereby the assessment is conducted by licensed entities hired by the developer. While this issue is common to many EIA regimes, in China it has been exacerbated by the fact that many entities licenced to produce EIA reports frequently employed staff from government agencies responsible for EIA authorization. This generated a situation where the controller and the controlled were often identical, or at least shared an affiliation with the same organisation.39 In this context, decisions were unlikely to be based solely on bonafide professional judgement, creating an ideal habitat for corruption. Against this background, EIA has long
After approval of the new EPL in 2014, the Chinese government embarked on a thorough reform of EIA regulations, revising the EIA Law (2016, 2018), the Regulations on Environmental Management of Construction Projects (REMCP) in 2017 and the EIA PP Guidelines (2019).40,41,42 Another fundamental change was the revision of the Catalogue for the Administration of EIA for Construction Projects (henceforth the Catalogue, 2018).43 The declared goals of the reform were to promote better environmental outcomes and improve the efficiency of the EIA process. Five interrelated areas of reform are of particular interest:
- –a change in screening criteria, to define which projects should be subject to EIA;
- –a broader range of EIA-related responsibilities and liabilities entrusted to the project proponent;
- –decentralisation of EIA approval;
- –revised provisions regulating consultation arrangements in EIA PP;
- –higher penalties for violations of EIA requirements.44,45
With reference to the first of these reform areas, the revision of the Catalogue led to the downgrading of 30 categories of projects, which now no longer need to undergo a full EIA, but are subject to a simpler procedure, i.e. submitting an Environmental Impact Form (EIF) or filing an Environmental Impact Registration Form, neither of which requires PP.46 Data from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) indicates that 80% of all projects can now undergo a simplified EIA process, a result praised by the MEE as a significant reduction of workload for environmental bureaucracies.47 The same logic appears to apply to recent modifications in EIA timing and approval responsibilities. Under the
Overall, these measures make the process easier for proponents, while lowering the workload for environmental authorities, especially those at central level. However, at the same time, their environmental rationale is unclear. Indeed, many of these measures undermine the preventive nature of EIA, transforming it from an environmental planning instrument to a management tool of much narrower scope and time horizon. The decentralization of approval may heighten local protectionism, with local authorities and powerful economic actors complying selectively with regulations, in order to preserve economic interests. Finally, lifting the requirement of hiring a licensed entity to prepare an EIA looks pretty much as if the legislator threw out the baby with the bathwater: in order to curb corruption, it created an incentive to get rid of what could potentially have been if not a third party oversight – EIA entities are paid by proponents anyway – at least a collaborative process engaging practitioners trained to design sustainable solutions. All of this has clear implications for EIA PP. Under the new regulatory scenario, the capacity of the public to scrutinize harmful projects and contribute to environmental sustainability is curtailed, since fewer projects now have to undergo a full EIA process, the only case in which PP is mandatory. Moreover, the fact that EIA can now take place after the feasibility study stage makes the cost of stopping project implementation even higher than in the past, encouraging proponents to design EIA PP in ways instrumental to the smooth implementation of projects, which was precisely the main problem with the previous regulatory environment.
| Regulatory Source | Change | Implications for EIA PP |
|---|---|---|
| EIA Project Catalogue | Fewer projects now subject to full EIA process | Limited scope and capacity to influence decision-making |
| EIA Law 2018 | EIA report can now be submitted before start of construction instead of at feasibility study stage | Participation loses its capacity to influence project alternatives. Incentive to instrumental participation |
| EIA Law 2018 | EIA process can now be entirely conducted by project proponents | Lack of a third party – the EIA-licensed entity – who can mediate collaboration between the public and project proponents. |
| EIA Law 2018 | Higher penalties for misconduct in carrying out the EIA process and in reporting | This may prompt the developer and/or the EIA entity to be more careful in incorporating consultation results in EIA reporting |
| EIA Law 2018 | Decentralization of approval procedures | Ambivalent: it may make it easier for the public to reach out to authorities when things go wrong; on the other hand, it may strengthen local protectionism |
4.2 New EIA PP Guidelines
4.2.1 Overall Principles
The rationale guiding the revision of the EIA PP guidelines was to streamline procedures. The outcome is more clarity in legal provisions, along with a higher degree of rigidity that could actually constrain participation, rather than enabling it. The overall tenor of the regulation is skewed towards a more restrictive interpretation of what the goals and boundaries of participation should be. In the following subsections, changes in the EIA PP regulation are analysed, based on five criteria: a) timing; b) information provision; c) consultation arrangements;
4.2.2 Timing
The time-window allowed for public consultation remains limited, although more space is now provided for ex-post participation. The Guidelines envisage the possibility of additional consultation after acceptance of the EIA report (art. 24–25) should the authorities find any evidence or be informed of insufficient public participation. The Guidelines specifically provide that members of the public may report violations of the EIA regulation.
4.2.3 Provision of Information to the Public
With reference to completeness of information, the Guidelines foresee disclosure of the entire EIA Report, whereas previously only the abridged version was to be disclosed during the PP process (art. 20). The developer and/or the entity conducting the EIA are now required to disclose more thorough information about the contents, results, and outcomes of public consultations, including the reasons why suggestions made by the public were not accepted (art. 19). Finally, the project proponent is invited to conduct awarenessraising campaigns among affected communities, publicizing scientific knowledge (xuanchuan … kexue zhishi 宣传科学知识) about project impacts (art. 12).50
4.2.4 Consultation Arrangements
The Guidelines now foresee in-person forms of consultation only when the public provides many “doubting opinions” (zhiyixing yijian duo 质疑性意见多) about project impacts (art. 14). While this is not substantially different from the previous guidelines, which gave EIA entities discretionary power to decide whether or not to hold these consultations, it is nonetheless highly problematic, especially when it comes to defining a tolerable level of doubt or criticism. Another problematic aspect concerns the way the Guidelines discriminate between cases where criticism is directed at “environmental predictions” (huanjing yuce jielun 环境预测结论) contained in the EIA – in which case the general public is allowed to take part in additional in-person consultations – and cases regarding professional and technical methods (zhuanye jishu fangfa
4.2.5 Public Targeted
The public is now defined in a narrower way than in the old guidelines. Art. 5 of the new measures specifies that the public to be consulted only includes citizens, legal persons and organizations falling within the scope of the area of the EIA assessment (pingjia fanwei nei 评价范围内), while inclusion of a broader audience is discretionary. This is likely to limit the inclusion of organizations such as NGO s and research institutions that are not located in the geographical area directly impacted by the project, but which could nonetheless provide meaningful input to enhance project sustainability. This is of great importance in the Chinese context, where successful cases of public participation, i.e. cases in which the public managed to influence the outcomes of decision-making, were often based on coalitions of actors at different scales, local and national.51 The Guidelines introduce principles that are hardly inspired by broad and inclusive participation. In the guiding principles, reference to equality (pingdeng 平等) and extensiveness (guangfan 广泛) has been removed, while principles of legality (yifa 依法) and orderliness (youxu 有序) are now made explicit. (art. 4; art. 3). This tone is echoed by the reference to social stability (shehui wending 社会稳定) as an important objective to consider when designing participation and implementing information disclosure (art. 8).
4.2.6 Incorporation of Participation Results in Decision-making
The new Guidelines mandate inclusion of a higher level of detail of information on participation results in the EIA report. This information now also has to include an explanation of the reasons for non-acceptance of suggestions made by the consulted public (art. 19)
| Criterion | Change | Impacts |
|---|---|---|
| Timing | Additional window for ex-post consultation | Enabling |
| Information provision | More complete information on project impacts and participation | Enabling |
| Outreach ‘scientific’ information campaigns for the wider public | Ambivalent | |
| Consultation arrangements | Discretionary power to decide whether to carry out in-person consultation with the general public, based on the level of ‘doubt’ and the issues to be discussed | Constraining |
| Public targeted | Narrower and more rigid definition of public | Constraining |
| Incorporation of PP results in EIA | Review of consultation results | Enabling |
5 Discussion: Implications for Sustainability
Since the 1980s, public participation has played an important role in pushing forward China’s sustainability agenda, fostering state accountability and transparency, and broadening environmental awareness. The role of the public became particularly important in the early 2000s, also thanks to an increasing commitment to public participation by parts of the country’s leadership.53 Mechanisms of formal participation in environmental planning have played an important role in this respect, establishing pathways of consultation and enabling citizens to make their voice heard in a system lacking other formal representation mechanisms, and where the judiciary is hardly independent. To quite a few observers – mostly foreign – the establishment of such pathways
When interpreting developments in EIA PP and their impacts on wider issues of participation and sustainability, we must be mindful that these phenomena unfold over a long period of time, and implications for the political and environmental situation of the country may therefore be hard to ascertain over a short period. Nevertheless, we can venture a few hypotheses about the likely impacts of recent legislation. Overall, EIA reforms appear to be shaped by the need to provide a clear blueprint to companies and state organs for conducting the EIA process in a cost-effective way. Many recent changes point in this direction, most notably the decision to limit the categories of projects that have to undergo a full EIA. The same applies to the new EIA PP Guidelines: while easier to implement, they introduce elements of rigidity that are likely to constrain meaningful and creative participation, of the kind needed to trigger lasting change for sustainability. The approach taken by Chinese authorities is not enabling the public in finding sustainable alternatives to proposed projects. Quite to the contrary, it appears oriented towards streamlining the procedure in such a way as to favour smooth project implementation, reinforcing instrumental trends that have long beset PP architecture in EIA.
Clearly, the way the new regulatory framework will impact sustainability outcomes will also depend on its interaction with the broader political and socioeconomic environment. In this respect, small but significant changes in the terminology used in the EIA PP Guidelines seem influenced by the dominant ideological imprint of today’s China, with citizens’ democratic empowerment pretty low on the Party agenda. In fact, the legal goal of ‘orderly’ (youxu 有序) participation procedures resonates with the overarching goal of ‘social stability’ (shehui wending 社会稳定), often used instrumentally to curtail possibilities for meaningful public participation. Implementation of the new regulatory framework may also be influenced by the need to sustain economic recovery after the COVID pandemic.54 While China has not suffered as much as other industrialized countries, its growth rate has slackened considerably and recovery has been slower than expected.55 Seen in this light, decentralising
What is happening in China resonates with wider trends unfolding globally. Activists, civil servants and common citizens in Europe are increasingly concerned by ongoing and proposed procedural simplifications of environmental planning, which are often justified by lawmakers on the pretext of economic growth.56 The apparently schizophrenic swing between environmental commitments and the inertia of social and economic policies – testified at the COP 26 of Glasgow – is simply the real-life application of weak sustainability, whereby infinite growth is pursued on a finite planet. Against this background, technology – not participation – is seen as the ultimate saviour. Due to the political culture and power structure of the Party-State, China today reflects and magnifies the global appreciation of technology and technocratic modes of dealing with human-nature relations, with active participation in decisionmaking relegated to a marginal role.
6 Conclusion: Notes for Future Studies
To conclude, let me briefly mention three possible pathways for future research on participation and sustainability in the Chinese context. The first is strictly legal and relates to what happens when ‘things go wrong.’ While the role of the Chinese judiciary is often downplayed,57 an accurate analysis of court pronouncements on cases of public interest linked to EIA procedures would be useful to understand whether the judiciary is playing a part in promoting sustainable decision-making outcomes. It could also provide a basis to understand more about how court pronouncements could impact EIA practice beyond the single case. The second possibility for research relates to the impact of social, political and economic factors on the capacity of EIA PP to promote sustainability goals. A study of these aspects would be of great societal relevance for the times ahead, with governments in China and elsewhere at work to offset the economic damage caused by the COVID pandemic, quite possibly at the expense of the environment. The third area for research would be to develop new metrics to benchmark EIA and related PP procedures against goals of harm avoidance and regeneration, going beyond reductionist approaches that consider mitigation as the only possible outcome of environmental planning.
This study was supported by the fellowship program of the European Institute for Chinese Studies (EURICS) in Paris. I wish to thank Dr. Jing Bian (University of Greenwich, EURICS fellow 2021) for meaningful comments and discussion. I would also like to share my appreciation for the volume editors Dr. Eva Julia Lohse and Dr. Birgit Peters who have done an amazing job in pulling this volume project through at a very difficult time for collaborative projects in academia.
Anne. N Glucker, Peter PJ Driessen, Arend Kolhoff and Hens AC Runhaar, ‘Public participation in environmental impact assessment: why, who and how?’ (2013) 43 Environmental Impact Assessment Review 104.
Dang Wenqi, ‘How culture shapes environmental public participation: case studies of China, the Netherlands and Italy’ (2020) 5:3 Journal of Chinese Governance 390.
Christian Göbel, Lynette H Ong, ‘Social Unrest In China’ (2013) Europe China Research and Advise Network (ECRAN) <www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Asia/1012ecran_gobelong.pdf> accessed 6 December 2021.
See e.g. Andrew Mertha, ‘“Fragmented Authoritarianism 2.0”: Political Pluralization in the Chinese Policy Process’ (2009) 200 The China Quarterly 995.
Wen-hui Tsai, ‘Mass Mobilization Campaigns in Mao’s China’ (1999) 6 1 American Journal of Chinese Studies 21.
Constitution of the People’s Republic of China 1982, art 27.
In fact, most village elections remained controlled or heavily influenced by the Party.
Jamie P. Horsley, ‘Public Participation in the People’s Republic: Developing a More Participatory Governance Model in China’ (2009) Yale Law <https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/Intellectual_Life/CL-PP-PP_in_the__PRC_FINAL_91609.pdf>, accessed 14 December 2021.
Legislation Law of the People’s Republic of China 2000.
Horsley (no. 8).
Ibid.
Daniele Brombal, Angela Moriggi and Antonio Marcomini, ‘Evaluating Public Participation in Chinese EIA. An Integrated Public Participation Index and its Application to the Case of the New Beijing Airport’ (2017) 62 Environmental Impact Assessment Review 49.
Jasper Becker, ‘Public Consultations in China’ (2012) Short Term Policy Brief 56, Europe China Research and Advice Network (ECRAN).
Daniele Brombal, ‘Private Interests in Chinese Politics. A Case Study on Health Care Sector Reforms’, In Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard (ed), Chinese Politics as Fragmented Authoritarianism: Earthquakes, Energy and Environment (Routledge 2017) 98–119.
Horsley (no. 8).
Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information 2008.
Xiangbai He, ‘In the Name of Legitimacy and Efficiency: Evaluating China’s Legal Reform on EIA’ (2020) Journal of Environmental Law 1. Similar evidence can be found in unpublished research notes shared on the Researchgate portal by Dr. Ceren Ergenc (Xi’An Jiaotong-Liverpool University), indicating that participatory urban planning has been shifting towards wider use of expert meetings (lunzhenghui 论证会), rather than allowing wider citizen participation. See <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353793328_From_representation_to_expertise_in_participatory_policymaking_in_urban_China> accessed 15 December 2021.
Original figure, sketched by the author on the basis of various sources, for his course in Chinese politics and society. For an updated list of references used to draw this figure, see: <https://www.unive.it/data/course/348546/programma> accessed 15 December 2021.
Constitution of the People’s Republic of China 1978, art. 11.
Environmental Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China (for Trial Implementation) 1979.
Susan Greenhalgh, Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng’s China (University of California Press, 2008).
Richard Sanders, ‘The Political Economy of Chinese Environmental Protection: Lessons for the Mao and Deng Years’ (1999) 20, 6 Third World Quarterly 1201.
Regulations on Environmental Management of Construction Projects of the People’s Republic of China 1998.
That year SEPA was transformed into the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), which would become the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) in 2018.
He (no. 17).
Provisional Measures for Public Participation in Environmental Impact Assessment, State Environmental Protection Administration of the People’s Republic of China 2006.
Technical Guideline for Environmental Impact Assessment Public Consultation - Solicit Opinions Draft, Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People’s Republic of China 2011.
Ibid.
Yang Yang, ‘Reformed Environmental Impact Assessment in China: An Evaluation of its Effectiveness’ (2020) 11 Journal of Environmental Protection 889.
Brombal, Moriggi and Marcomini (no. 12).
Brombal, Moriggi and Marcomini (no. 12). Results were based on the application of an original multicriteria Public Participation Index (PPI), which we developed in 2016. Criteria include timing, information provision, consultation arrangements, consulted public, and incorporation of consultation results in documents informing decision making.
Greenhalgh (no. 21). For another take on this matter issue, cf. Yongmu Liu, ‘The Benefits of Technocracy in China’ (2016) XXXIII 1 Issues in Science and Technology <https://issues.org/perspective-the-benefits-of-technocracy-in-china/> accessed 20 December 2021.
Tamara Jacka, ‘Cultivating citizens: suzhi (quality) discourse in the PRC‘ (2009) 17, 3 Positions 523.
Interviews #141001, 141211, 151015a, in Brombal, Moriggi and Marcomini (12).
Thomas Johnson, ‘Public Participation in China’s EIA Process and the Regulation of Environmental Disputes’ (2020) 81 Environmental Impact Assessment Review 106359.
This has been a common trend in China for the most part of the last two decades, in some cases yielding victories and impacting for good on decision-making. In one notorious case – the 2008 Xiamen anti-paraxylene (PX) plant protests – these processes resulted in project relocations, rather contentious from an environmental justice standpoint. On the PX case, see: Environmental Justice Atlas, ‘Controversy over planned paraxylene (PX) plant in Xiamen, Fujian, China’ 2017 <https://ejatlas.org/conflict/controversy-over-planned-paraxylene-px-plant-in-xiamen-fujian-china> accessed 20 December 2021.
Daniele Brombal, ‘Public Participation in China’s EIA. Potential and Limits in Fostering Sustainability’ (2020). Presentation delivered during the SUSTAINET conference Sustainability Through Participation? Legal Perspectives, University of Trier, 04 December.
Yang (no. 29).
Daniele Brombal, ‘Accuracy of Environmental Monitoring in China: Exploring the Influence of Institutional, Political and Ideological Factors‘ (2017) 9 3 Sustainability 324.
Environmental Impact Assessment Law of the People’s Republic of China 2002, 2016, 2018.
Regulations on Environmental Management of Construction Projects of the People’s Republic of China 2017.
Measures for Public Participation in Environmental Impact Assessment, Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People’s Republic of China 2019.
He (no. 17).
Ibid.
Yang (no. 29).
As a matter of fact, the Environmental Impact Registration Form does not even require approval by the environmental authorities.
Xinhua News, ‘Ministry of Ecology and Environment: Out of 10 projects, 8 Do Not Need Approval. A Further Enhancement of Approval Efficiency‘ (生态环境部 : 八成项目环评无需审批将进一步提高审批效率) 23 September 2018 <http://www.xinhuanet.com/2018-09/02/c_1123368507.htm> accessed 20 December 2021.
He (no.17).
Sources: He (no. 17), Yang (no. 29), Brombal Moriggi and Marcomini (no. 12), Environmental Impact Assessment Law 2002, 2018 (no. 40).
In the Chinese context, where phenomena of politicization of science are widely documented, this may result in political propaganda campaigns.
Mertha (no. 4).
Sources consulted: Measures for Public Participation in Environmental Impact Assessment, Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People’s Republic of China 2002, 2019.
Pan Yue, ‘The Environment Needs Public Participation’ (2006) China Dialogue <https://chinadialogue.net/en/pollution/604-the-environment-needs-public-participation/> accessed 20 December 2021.
As this chapter was being finalized (November 2021), a new outbreak of COVID has prompted severe restrictions in Beijing.
The World Bank, GDP growth (annual%) - China <https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locations=CN> accessed 20 December 2021.
Personal communication #21080 Environmental Activist a,b; #211115. Civil Servant.
He (no. 17).
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