China's Environmental Protection Strategy And Its Environmental Diplomacy

The concept of sustainable development as espoused by the theory of scientific development prominent in Chinese political discourse, is reflected in the establishment and execution of a long term environmental protection strategy. The strategy strongly promotes the adoption of methods of clean production including the development of energy efficiency technology and alternate energy sources. However, China's quest to balance the realization of its two goals, maintaining rapid economic growth and protecting the environment, requires substantial technological and financial support from the developed world.This thesis analyzes the manner in which China adjusts the implementation of policy in order to more efficiently attract the technology and finance needed to ensure the success of sustainable development. The Chinese government faces two main challenges, the first being the need to actively participate in international environmental protection cooperation activities, shouldering the responsibility of implementing international agreements such as the Kyoto protocol and bilateral cooperation agreements in order to increase the amount of technology and funds that can be garnered from the international society, as well as increase the efficiency of the finance, use and transfer of clean technology from foreign investment. The second challenge is to realize the importance of local government in the implementation of the environmental protection strategy, and to consider the interest of local governments when implementing environmental protection policy.The evidence from the experience of countries across the world suggests that the close relationship between the overall development strategy and the internal political structure of a country plays an important role in the successful implementation of an environmental protection strategy. This paper also examines the experience of developing countries such as Japan in the 1970s and other Asian countries that share levels of economic development and environmental policy with China, such as India. The results reveal that macroeconomic, industrial and resource policy and local government play an important role in protecting the environment.