Asia Shorts. New York: Columbia University Press, 2020. 170 pp. (B&W photos, illustrations.) US$16.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-924304-92-7.
Cambridge; New York; Port Melbourne; New Delhi, Singapore: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Xvii, 264 pp. (Tables, graphs, figures.) US$33.95, paper. ISBN 978-1-108-81528-4.
The Great Smog of China offers a concise history of air pollution in China, addressing both the country’s perception of the problem and response to it. The book provides an informative account of two thousand years of pollution history. Modern environmental science started to creep into China after the 1840s but remained largely the affair of foreigners. During Chairman Mao’s rule, according to the authors, there was a “total ideologization of the air pollution issue” (77). Although China’s reform and opening-up after 1978 has allowed for a more scientific approach, and the general public has demonstrated greater concern with environmental issues, air pollution in China continues to be a highly politicized issue. The 2008 Beijing Olympics marked a new era for China in its prioritization of the problem of air pollution.
The authors introduce readers to the major trends that have dominated China’s air pollution issue. Nevertheless, with more information and data several key conclusions of the book might have been amended or even rewritten. For instance the authors’ slim findings regarding perceptions of air pollution in ancient China (the authors’ searches on key words such as air, air quality, or air pollution returned few results) may be the result of an incomplete search of the country’s vast historical records. Wumai 雾霾 (smog) is mentioned as a modern term (1), but the authors do not sufficiently explore its historical origins. Indeed, there are many records from ancient China on mai 霾 (haze), wu 雾 (fog), and meng 蒙 (blur) that are related to air pollution, such as records found in China’s twenty-five official dynastic histories (T. Wang, Fengmai yu wumai: shilun Zhongguo lishi shiqi de “mai” [Fengmai and wumai: a tentative analysis of “mai” in Chinese history], Tianjin: Tianjin Normal University, 2016).
The authors further explain China’s lack of concern about air pollution as an outcome of its epistemological traditions, notably the fact that “air” is not one of the traditional five elements (wuxing 五行) (9). However, this analysis misses a very important theory that has played a crucial role in shaping how Chinese society and the imperial court viewed nature. Traditionally, the Chinese emperor was regarded as the Son of Heaven (tianzi 天子), yet Heaven had no written rulebook to guide and control the power of the emperor. Dong Zhongshu (179–104 BCE) developed a theory of Heaven-human induction to legitimize the emperor’s authority as the representative of Heaven, but the theory also stated that Heaven expressed its endorsement and, more importantly, its discontent with the rule of the emperor or his officials through natural events—such as earthquakes, floods, droughts, and contagions. Mai 霾, mainly heavy sandstorms in ancient China, were also often read as signifying heavenly discontent (W. Jin, “Handai kao chengzhi tanfu yingdui wumai” [Punishing corruption for responding to wumai in the Han dynasty], Renmin luntan, 7 [2013]).
Additional sources, to include Chinese academic journals published in the 1920s and 1930s, such as the Qixiang Jikan Quarterly Meteorological Bulletin (see also, J. Zhang, “Minguo shiqi guoren dui wumai de renzhi” [People’s cognition of haze during the Republican Period in China], Hebei guangbo dianshi daxue xuebao, 23, no. 2 [2018]), may also subvert the notion that China had negligible concerns about air pollution in the period from 1900 to 1949, indeed, Chinese concerns were at least no less than the occasionally expressed concerns by foreigners in Japan-occupied Manchuria and the international settlement in Shanghai, as discussed in the book.
Further, the book divides China’s air pollution history into five time periods to more closely align with a foreign perspective; a domestic perspective would have allowed for a different set of milestones, and thus different divisions. The authors oddly demark “China’s Age of Smoke and Air Hygiene” from the earlier period of ancient China by the year 1900. That year was certainly an important one in Chinese history due to its association with the eight-nation alliance that occupied Beijing and the Boxer Protocol that was signed the following year. However, it can hardly be regarded as a key year in the history of air pollution, nor does the book hold such a view. Alternatively, 1839 may have been a better demarcating year, as it was that year that the Opium War cracked open the closed doors of traditional China, exposing the country to Western science and technology, including that related to air pollution. The year 1912 would also have been a better choice since the establishment of the Republic of China that year marked the end of imperial China and the beginning of the Republican era.
The milestone offered by the authors to divide the post-reform era is the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which attracted significant international attention and exposed China’s air pollution to a global audience. However, arguments could be made whether international or domestic factors were more important in shaping the country’s recent air pollution trajectory. China did make substantial efforts to clean up Beijing’s air during the Olympics, including suspending the production lines of many polluting factories in neighbouring provinces. Similar actions were taken to create the APEC “blue” and the G20 “blue” (temporary emission control measures to allow for blue skies during the respective summits), as the book well documents. However, these were simply short-term measures without an accompanying paradigm shift in China’s air pollution basics. For a large country like China, domestic factors are generally more important than foreign ones in deciding largely domestic affairs like air pollution, so 2003 or 2013 could be considered more important years from the domestic perspective. SARS hit China in 2003, and led to the formation of the “Scientific Outlook on Development” (93). Many crucial, long-lasting environmental governance institutions were established during the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006–2010), including the “goal-centred governance” to hold various levels of governmental officials accountable for the achievement of various quantitative environmental goals (Y. Xu, Environmental Policy and Air Pollution in China: Governance and Strategy, Routledge, 2021), while the “airpocalypse” in 2013 significantly raised the priority level of air pollution, and led to much more stringent goals.
Toxic Politics focuses mainly on modern China’s environmental health crises. After carefully examining China’s daunting environmental pollution and associated public health impacts from scientific, economic, and social-political perspectives, the author, Yanzhong Huang, explores in great depth environmental health policy-making, implementation, and effectiveness. The analysis is balanced to account for China’s progress, as well as its problems. The author emphasizes that the government will “likely” (19) fail to effectively address the country’s mounting environmental health problems, which could lead to a crisis of legitimacy for the Chinese state. The arguments are framed around the China model to conclude that the political system is “remarkably resilient but fundamentally flawed” (192), and thus it cannot become “a viable alternative to liberal democracy” (190).
Despite the insightful analysis, the judgment that China is likely to fail in cleaning up the environment may have been reached hastily. More time-series data will provide a better comprehensive picture of the current status and past trajectories of China’s multi-faceted environmental health challenges. The book’s documentation of water, soil, climate change, and other pollution needs better longitudinal analysis. Though China surely faces daunting challenges in conventional environmental pollution as well as greenhouse gas emissions, Huang lists many positive and increasingly prolific signs of progress. Nevertheless, the author points out that these measures have had “mixed results” (56) and are still far from being fundamental and sustainable solutions. One prominent feature of China’s economic reform is its emphasis on incremental improvement. China’s successively rolling and dynamically evolving environmental goals in Five-Year Plans reflect such a mindset, but the short-term results will be genuinely “mixed.” More time is needed before any conclusions can be drawn on whether China’s environmental clean-up has failed or succeeded.
While the China model is a key focus of this book, the author does not adequately trace the root causes of the various problems in environmental health policy-making and implementation, especially how these problems are related to the authoritarian nature of the Chinese state as well as other influential factors. Some of China’s problems are indeed rooted in its authoritarian governance, a stark contrast from liberal democracies. The author thoroughly investigates how the Chinese government resorts to drastic measures, such as shutting down even those enterprises that are complying with existing environmental laws, in order to achieve short-term pollution mitigation and fulfill public campaign benchmarks. Such gains may be easily reversed after the campaigns, leaving few long-term positive impacts. Public participation is generally much weaker, resulting in gaps between what the people really want and what the government intends to supply. Courts play at best a limited role in environmental protection in China, as evidenced in the book’s discussion of administrative, criminal, and environmental public interest litigation. The unsatisfactory policy coordination is also partially affected by China’s “decentralized and crisscrossing policy structure” (14) in the context of the country’s weak rule of law.
However, many other remaining problems in environmental health policy-making and implementation are associated more with China’s development status and other factors. With its per capita GDP only just catching up with the global average in 2021, China is still a developing country, although its status is evolving more towards that of a developed country. As is the case for many developing countries, much of China’s policy-making, especially historically, has shown a weak research foundation. The problems in policy implementation are also closely related to the country’s development status, with constrained resources and expertise. These problems, nevertheless, are rapidly being addressed, aided by increasing economic prosperity. With a larger pool of capable scientists and policy researchers, science is playing an increasingly important role in policy-making, but the gap with developed countries has yet to be closed. Although some policies may read as if they are generated by decision-makers alone, the “goal-centred governance” encourages sound research, because eventually what matters most is whether an assigned goal can be achieved. Since the goals are not just one-time events but are in place regularly and with escalating stringency, the campaign-style policy implementation must be accompanied by long-term institutional reform.
Accordingly, not all features of China’s environmental health policy-making and implementation can be placed into the authoritarian China model, in contrast to liberal democracy. Another important point that is not discussed by the author of this book is the relationship between authoritarian governance and central planning. China is an authoritarian state, while the book’s discussion of “decentralized and crisscrossing policy structure” (14) only implicitly indicates that China’s environmental protection, or lack thereof, may not have been following a centrally planned trajectory. In addition, the relationship between authoritarian governance and rule of law requires more analysis. As observed in countries around the world, these two do not necessarily always go hand-in-hand despite their strong mutual influences. The lack of such crucial discussion raises questions on what exactly the China model is and how it is reflected in environmental health crises.
Furthermore, the book posits performance-based legitimacy to be another crucial aspect of the China model. Therefore, Huang argues, despite recent progress on environment issues, if desirable outcomes—such as environmental health—fail to materialize, this legitimacy foundation will be undermined (becoming the “Achilles heel of modern China” [193]), whereas an election-based legitimacy would better cope with such a scenario. However, this contrast requires more in-depth validation and justification because environmental health is just one among many public goods that the Chinese people demand, and not even all liberal democracies can maintain political stability with persistent performance failures.
Regardless whether China can fundamentally solve its environmental health crises, no advocacy should be readily made on whether a China model exists or whether it is superior or inferior without justifying its applicability beyond China. No country can contemplate its governance strategy without considering its individualized context. Blindly following any model leads to unintended consequences and it is by learning and adapting from a variety of models that a country becomes better able to supply its own basket of desired public goods with effectiveness, efficiency, and legitimacy.
Yuan Xu
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong,