Chapter 9: Building a Green Civil Society in China

Jennifer L. Turner and Lü Zhi

Over the past 20 years, China’s economic explosion has created an ecological implosion. Environmental degradation is costing the country nearly 9 percent of its annual gross domestic product (GDP). Chinese urbanites are suffering from air pollution caused by the burning of coal and a growing army of cars. Overdevelopment and poor management of rivers, forests, grasslands, and land threaten the livelihood of rural residents as well as the nation’s rich but fast disappearing animal and plant biodiversity. All this ecological destruction has been linked to the political dynamics behind China’s recent successful— in GDP terms—economic reforms.

In reaction to these daunting environmental problems, in the 1980s the Chinese government began introducing environmental laws and welcoming assistance from international NGOs as well as from bilateral and multilateral aid agencies. By the early 1990s it became clear to China’s top leaders that, given the downsizing of the central government, they needed help to address a broad range of emerging social and environmental ills and to keep local governments in check. In 1994 the National People’s Congress passed the Rules for Registering Social Organizations, which for the first time granted legal status to independent NGOs. Environmental groups were the first to register and now form the largest sector of civil society groups in China. (See Box 9-1, p. 160.)

Since that time, environmental NGOs have been broadening the scope of their activities and increasing their impact on policy by generally working with—or not against—the government. Ultimately, though, for Chinese NGOs to successfully gain greater political voice they will need not only government acquiescence but also stronger internal organizational and technical capacity and solutions to chronic funding problems.

Jennifer L. Turner is Coordinator of the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C. Lü Zhi is head of Conservation International’s China office in Beijing.