Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2020. ix, 333 pp. (Tables, figures, maps, illustrations.) US$30.00, paper. ISBN 978-0-295-74791-0.
East Asia is known for its rapid economic growth and dramatic scenes of environmental degradation. Yet, as the editors of Greening East Asia note, the region has displayed remarkable environmental improvement, signalling a broader shift in the nature of East Asian developmental states. Instead of simply growing the economy to secure political legitimacy, these states are becoming more “eco-developmental,” that is, increasingly treating environmental sustainability as a critical component of economic development.
As one of the world’s most populous regions, East Asia’s planetary impact is undoubtedly immense. Any serious calls to save the planet must therefore pay heed to the environmental challenges and opportunities facing the region. Indeed, this is an analytical mission that the edited volume readily takes on, as it unravels the historical patterns and contemporary dynamics underpinning East Asia’s embrace of eco-developmentalism. Backed by empirically rich case studies from China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, the volume offers valuable lessons and cautionary tales for anyone interested in building a sustainability solution for East Asia and the world. With contributions from scholars of various disciplines, it also marks a truly interdisciplinary endeavour that contributes to environmental and Asian studies. Given the relative paucity of edited materials that explicitly apply a comparative lens to East Asia’s environment, this is a much-welcomed scholarly intervention. Besides the impressive breadth of topics, this brilliantly edited collection ensures that the chapters are not only in conversation with each other, but also consistently engaged with the eco-developmentalism concept. Such strong cohesion enhances a reader’s sense of being able to piece together a fascinating yet complex picture of environmental governance and advocacy in East Asia.
In “Overview,” part 1 of the book, Mary Alice Haddad and Stevan Harrell set the scene in their introductory chapter with a historical and comparative overview of environmentalism and developmentalism in East Asia. They lay out their analytical framework for a state’s shift to eco-developmentalism, identifying three main drivers: industry support, state capacity, and party incentive. Haddad then surveys the causes and advocacy strategies of ENGOs within and without the region. She concludes that their differences in strategies are often overstated, suggesting possibilities for emulation elsewhere.
The book’s part 2 revolves around “Policy and Law.” It starts with Joanna I. Lewis’s discussion of how China evolved from a reluctant participant to a more confident player in international environmental diplomacy. Eunjung Lim then brings attention to Japan and Korea, as she compares the trajectory of their energy and climate change policies. Next, Iza Ding analyzes the politics of the carbon cap-and-trade system in China, showing that emissions trading remains plagued with major implementation problems, rendering it into a “policy theatre.” Simon Avenell meanwhile demonstrates how legal experts have powerfully stimulated eco-developmentalism in Japan by propagating the discourse of “environmental rights.”
Part 3 is about “Local Action,” which examines changes to human-environment relations, for better or worse, through various bottom-up and/or top-down local initiatives. Noriko Sakamoto reviews the empowering consequences of two emerging cases of community power initiatives in Japan that began partly in response to the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima disaster. However, she finds that the appeal of these local power projects was ultimately due to their ability to integrate environmental and non-environmental concerns (in this case, community revitalization). The following chapter by Sasala Taiban, Hui-nien Lin, Kurtis Jia-chyi Pei, Dau-jye Lu, and Hwa-sheng Gau addresses the significance of the traditional ecological knowledge approach toward natural resource management by drawing on two illustrative examples of indigenous-led habitat conservation in Taiwan. Rob Efird explores the growth of non-school-based nature education in China, whose popularity is mainly thanks to parents’ perceptions that it improves children’s health and well-being. Chung Ho Kim then zeroes in on the First Saemaul Village in Korea, a showcase developmentalist project to modernize traditional villages, and to generate insights for sustainable rural development. Daniel Benjamin Abramson by contrast looks into the organic community-supported agriculture initiatives launched by ENGOs in the Chengdu Plain, China. Like the Korean villagers studied by Kim, Abramson finds that the Chinese rural inhabitants have similarly suffered from socioeconomic disruptions caused by blunt bureaucratic eco-developmentalist management.
Part 4 focuses on “Environmental NGOs and Coalitions.” Hua-mei Chiu and Hsi-wen Chang each contribute a chapter on Taiwanese environmental activism. While Chiu presents an intriguing account of how environmental activists accrued influence in Kaohsiung city, Chang’s comparative analysis highlights community characteristics as a crucial variable shaping indigenous peoples’ relationship with their environment, which in turn molds their attitudes toward nuclear waste. Yves Tiberghien tackles the question of when costly regulatory shifts happen. Using the case of the regulation of genetically modified organisms in Japan and Korea, he argues that the civil society coalitions’ savvy use of their framing power, political linkages, and international platforms is the catalyst. Jingyun Dai and Anthony J. Spires then catalogue the boundary-pushing ENGO strategies that aim to influence local government policy, which include cultivating ties with government, using formal channels to articulate concerns, careful framing, and mobilizing the media.
Under part 5, “Outcomes,” Harrell reconsiders the utility of the environmental Kuznets curve, which suggests that environmental quality would improve as the economy grows, for explaining the environmental outcomes in East Asia. He convincingly points out that while this may be true for particular types of environmental degradation such as air pollution and deforestation, it is less so for others such as soil contamination and greenhouse gas emissions.
While the editors have successfully shown the analytical payoffs of eco-developmentalism in East Asia, I thought that there were missed opportunities for engagement with theories of institutional change to characterize the transformation from a developmental state into an eco-developmental state. Further deconstruction of the developmental state concept should also help readers better appreciate the various developmental legacies that facilitate and hinder environmentalism.
That said, I would recommend this highly readable volume to anyone eager to learn or teach about the environment in contemporary East Asia. Given its relevance to the ongoing climate emergency, this book should interest scholars, activists, and policy makers of the region and beyond.
Wei Lit Yew
Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong