China’s Effective Greens and Gaps in Climate Activism

Nowadays, many Chinese netizens, concerned about the health and wellbeing of their children and loved ones, keep a particular app on their smartphones, weilan ditu (blue map), to track live or the most updated data on air and water pollution in their neighborhood or home city. In addition, registered users can also upload pictures of wastewater dumping, smog, or any suspicious scenes of industrial pollution instantly from their phones.

What is quite extraordinary about this app, available since early 2016, is not merely the interactive and reliable nature of the data produced and shared, but the operational processes and data management mechanisms behind the screen. This app for the first time synthesizes and makes publicly available all government data on pollution (air and water) – with formal permission from China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection – and the data collected by the professional teams of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), an independent NGO based in Beijing, as well as the numerous images supplied by ordinary netizens.

In the context of strict control over information by the state and the sensitivity of environmental pollution issues, which now is the number one cause of large-scale protests (those with more than 10,000 participants) in the country, such a case of collaboration between the Chinese central government and an environmental NGO in releasing pollution data instantly calls for explanation.

Once upon a time in 1994, a group of university professors and intellectuals sat down on the grass at Linglong Park in western Beijing, and began to talk of establishing a social organization devoted to environmental issues. They named this organization Friends of Nature (FoN), and hence began a new page of state-society relations and social activism in contemporary China, with experiments in nationwide non-governmental public education programs and campaigns on wildlife conservation, sustainable development, and environmental protection.

By the late 1990s, FoN was still operating with a team of less than five full-time staff, yet had grown a broad network of volunteers and members across the country and gained increased fame after its successful campaigns to protect the snub-nosed monkey and Tibetan antelope. It was via FoN and its founding chair, the late Liang Congjie, that the now world-renowned wildlife photographer Xi Zhinong got his pictures and messages out to the state-level decision-makers. Those efforts eventually put an end to the illegal logging in southern Yunnan, which had been causing severe threats to the habitat of the native and endangered snub-nosed monkey.

International media and even important politicians such as former U.S. President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair started to pay attention to Liang and his work; nevertheless, most China experts held pessimistic views about the potential impact of such small social organizations like FoN. Many thought little of what public education programs, tree planting events, or calls for collecting garbage along trekking routes could do in the repressive Chinese politique in general. Some scholars were impatient with the non-confrontational approach FoN and other similar small environmental groups took, and caricatured them as “professing a female mildness.”

Fast forward to the mid-2010s. Not only does the environmental field have the largest number of specialized NGOs, the most continuous history of NGO development and public campaigns, and the broadest geographic spread, but it also has generated the highest level of international recognition (measured by the number of Chinese environmentalists getting international awards) and policy impact, compared with other NGO communities active in China.

FoN encouraged the first generation of environmental NGOs (e.g., Green Earth Volunteers in Beijing, Green Rivers in Sichuan, Green Stone in Nanjing) to come into being in the 1990s. These groups later incubated more grassroots NGOs and mentored many more younger environmentalists and social leaders. According the China Environmental Organization Map, there are at least 1,996 grassroots environmental NGOs operating in all provinces, including inland minority regions in Tibet, Qinghai, and Xinjiang.

More importantly, these grassroots NGOs are by one way or another connected with each other. These inter-organizational connections are nurtured by several active issue-focused nationwide networks, in addition to the commonly known provincial or regional horizontal platforms. Issue-focused networks include the China Zero Waste Alliance, targeting recycling and sustainable urban civil waste management; the pollution public monitoring network centered around IPE and its key regional NGO partners (e.g., Green Jiangnan in Suzhou); the mangrove alliance along China’s southern coastal regions; and the loose alliance of various “river guardian” groups supported by the Alibaba Foundation.

Furthermore, the environmental NGO movement is unique in the sense that Chinese greens, since FoN’s early years, have been consistently keen on self-capacity-building and creating learning and development opportunities for grassroots organizations. Both wealthy private foundations such as the SEE Foundation and specialized expert NGOs such as the Heyi Institute are now major knowledge distributors and network builders for the green activism community.

Led by the examples of Liang’s early policy advocacy efforts, other leading environmentalists and their NGOs have explored different and sometimes risky ways of “pushing the envelope” and introducing changes in environmental policymaking and implementation. Wang Yongchen, for instance – a retired radio show host, a mentee of Liang, and a veteran environmentalist – made headlines many times when she used “leaked” information from a sympathetic governmental official, gathered signatures at United Nations meetings, and almost single-handedly mobilized the campaign against damming the Nu River in 2004.

Jin Jiaman – another core member of FoN in the mid-1990s, and an environmental specialist – resigned from her governmental post in the early 2000s and founded the Global Environmental Institute (GEI), the first environmental NGO in China with a strong component of policy research and advocacy. GEI even experimented with track-two diplomacy and coordinated informal bilateral discussions on climate cooperation between China and the United States.

Nowadays, it’s not only the most famous environmentalists such as Wang, Jin, and Ma Jun (founder of the IPE) who participate in state-level policy consultation and advocacy. The younger generation, with much lower profiles but a much better sense of how to be trendy, is also drafting policy recommendations, organizing public monitoring, and raising policy criticism in their own cities, villages, and communities.

Besides individual environmentalists’ perseverance, a rising public awareness of environmental issues worldwide, and the revolutionary impact on social mobilization by Web 2.0 technologies, what are the main supporting factors that sustained the growth of environmental activism and advocacy community in China? With similarly humble beginnings, what did the greens, unlike some activist communities in other fields in China, get right that helped them to become more publicly visible and accountable, and therefore, more effective in policy advocacy?

There is a consistent comment responding to the above questions: the environmental field is not politically sensitive. However, this is only partially true. The nature of an authoritarian regime is that any policy topic and area can be potentially politically lethal, regardless of what it deals with, either toxic dumping or freedom of speech. Parts of the environmental movement in contemporary China heavily involve local communities’ sometimes violent resistance to state policies (e.g., forced relocation to make way for dam construction) and criticism of regime characteristics (e.g., state control of pollution data and the criminalization of data sharing). These aspects are in fact just as sensitive as reviving faith-based organizations for social service deliveries, or human rights subjects.

Consciously or unconsciously, most Chinese greens seem to converge on a pragmatic tactic, or a non-contentious approach, that they envision as the best way to advance the environmental agenda and make real changes on the ground. It’s not that environmental activism is inherently apolitical; rather, in a sense, activists have depoliticized the processes of environmental activism.

Analysis of interviews with 311 NGO staff across over 13 fields and 21 provinces shows that the greens hold distinctive views on social activism and politics in general in China, compared with peers from other fields. The working experience of environmental protection for the interviewed NGO practitioners is positively associated with the belief in the value of the “non-contentious strategy” in the context of Chinese politics.

The Chinese greens seem to share a particular kind of pragmatism that is both epistemological and political. They are activists – who push the boundaries – and pragmatists – who are “scientists” of the boundaries – at the same time, and throughout their learning, deliberation, and action. They learn by doing, and do based on what has been learned. They are aware of and even more of experts than scholars on the kinds of political risks they would undertake due to the work and environmental goals they are committed to. It is by choice and accumulated political knowledge that many Chinese greens decide to take up the non-contentious approach.

To go back to the story of IPE and its impressive achievement in nudging the government to improve its releasing of pollution information, this non-contentious approach has not led to compromising the principles upon which IPE was founded. IPE, initially only dependent on open source and first-hand data, was ahead of all state agencies in sharing pollution information and putting it on the internet, which urged large corporations such as Apple and Foxconn to change their supply chains and practices in industrial waste management. Such an approach and observable outcomes gradually convinced state and provincial level agencies to knock on the door of IPE and inspired a willingness to cooperate on the terms laid down by IPE. So, non-confrontation for IPE does not mean non-objection, nor non-criticism, but rather “leading by example.”

All of the above is not to overlook the structural constraints that bottom-up environmental and any other types of social activism face in today’s China. There are still limited institutionalized channels for regular policy advocacy and public consultation, and therefore successful cases of such still depend a lot on particular social leaders’ personal networks, opportune timing, and accidental favorable conditions. Moreover, the impact of the knowledge barrier is more evident in techno-laden policy fields (such as energy efficiency) versus norm-laden ones (such as humanitarian support to the families left behind by prisoners of conscience). The knowledge production process has directly affected the underdevelopment of environmental activism on certain topics.

For example, climate-related groups occupy a minor portion of the highly vibrant environmental NGO community in China. The central state, gradually joined by relevant corporations and local state agencies, is the main and to a great extent sole producer of climate change related narratives and practices in the country, particularly in the fields of renewable energy and energy technology innovation. In these fields, Chinese officials can boast their commitment and policy success at UN conferences and in front of most other country delegations; however, Chinese greens and environmental NGOs are still hard to find at international rallies of climate social activism.

The China Civil Climate Action Network (CCCAN) – a broad network of non-state actors in the climate change field – has in fact only a dozen NGO members. The China Youth Climate Action Network (CYCAN), first started in 2007 with funding from the Ford Foundation as an ad hoc group for young Chinese environmental enthusiasts to attend COP15 in Copenhagen, remains the only NGO devoted to youth participation in direct climate action. Both of these NGOs work on topics that are highly in line with the Chinese state’s main policies on climate change, such as raising public awareness, educating about energy efficiency and clean energy, and advocating for China’s official position in international negotiations.

CYCAN’s flagship activity is the annual International Youth Summit on Energy and Climate Change, and in 2015 the main topics included “energy revolution in China,” “smarter campus,” and “how to write articles to track the climate negotiation,” all of which are highlighted in the state’s main agenda on climate. While CYCAN targets college youth, CCCAN focuses on training opportunities of basic knowledge about climate change, treaties, and negotiations for NGOs and tertiary school teachers and students.

There are a very small number of NGOs with a higher level of research capacity that have started working on climate policy advocacy, such as GEI and Greenovation Hub (GHUB). Since 2004, GEI has pioneered non-governmental policy advocacy in sustainable forestry, climate financing, and rural energy innovation. GEI succeeded in persuading and working together with the state authorities to formulate a guidebook of sustainable practices for all Chinese wood-processing companies with overseas operations, particularly in the forested regions along China-Myanmar borders.

Like GEI, GHUB has called much needed attention to China’s global eco-footprints and the socio-ecological responsibilities of Chinese businesses beyond the country’s borders, which often is absent from Chinese officials’ speeches on the topic of climate change. Since 2012, GHUB, together with partner NGOs, has been tracking “green financing” (i.e., financing practices for renewable energy, mining, dam building, forestation, and basic infrastructures) by major Chinese commercial banks and produced a “guideline of responsible renewable financing.” After the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) came into shape, GHUB started to advocate for mainstreaming sustainability in all BRI projects.

Moreover, GHUB published the first and probably the only report devoted to the topic of climate justice in the Chinese language by a Chinese NGO in early 2014. Despite low visibility, the report introduced the concepts, theories, and practical principles related to climate justice most commonly used at the global level.

Compared to the widely reported Nu River anti-dam campaign and IPE’s public access to pollution data, Chinese NGOs’ climate activities remain under the radar. More importantly, they have not been able to articulate an alternative narrative on climate change in China that differs significantly from the state’s main rhetoric. Neither have the scholars. When examining climate justice, the majority of scholarship produced after 2008 only refers to equity between states and across the divide of developing and developed countries, rather than environmental rights of citizens, which by and large mirrors the Chinese state’s position on the very issue.

Professor Wang Canfa’s writings are rare exceptions in this regard. Wang, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law, and the 2014 Magsaysay Awardee, is also a prominent environmentalist and the founder of the first legal assistance center for pollution victims in China, the Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims (CLAPV). Wang and his co-authors have ardently argued for a unified stance on climate justice by the Chinese state in both domestic and international settings, and for the principle that whatever China bargains for at the global level shall be applicable to the domestic context as well. He is among the very few that are pushing for further modifications of China’s policies on climate change toward the direction of going beyond mitigation and industrial pollution and including more social justice discussions.

The Chinese government has modified its core principles for climate policymaking since 2013. Two important state-level policy papers – the first National Climate Change Adaptation Plan and a new State Policy Paper (or National Plan) on Climate Change – released in 2013 and 2014 respectively pronounced a “new thinking” over climate politics. Not only did these state level policy documents drop the line “climate change is ultimately a developmental issue,” but they also accepted the urgency of climate adaptation and relevance of climate-related social vulnerabilities and potential harm.

Judging by the evidence from the field and media, such a significant mentality shift on climate change at China’s top decision-making level results more from the pressure generated at the international level than from the domestic grassroots level. In other words, Chinese leaders crafted new policies to match the overall narrative change used in global negotiations, rather than to respond to the calls made by domestic environmental NGOs.

Against the background of environmental NGOs taking a clear lead in public education of environmental issues, public access to pollution information, environmental litigation, zero-waste management in cities, and public consultation on the location of large development projects, there are, however, gaps of social activism and public participation in climate-related policy areas. The effective synergy among environmental technocrats, NGOs, community leaders, and pollution victims that pushed for policy and institutional changes after the large-scale anti-PX protests seems to have not emerged in climate-related fields.

To change the current situation, in which the state plays the predominant role in deciding the country’s climate agenda and little attention is paid to climate justice and climate vulnerable populations, a lot more needs to be done in regards to public awareness and direct public participation by Chinese greens. This also puts the non-contentious, pragmatic approach preferred by environmental activists and the NGO community so far to the test. Whether the shared political knowledge and visions that have helped Chinese greens in navigating the political system, spreading organizational webs, and winning tough campaigns can also lead to the closing of the gaps in climate social mobilization remains to be seen.