Environmental Issues in Contemporary China
- LAST REVIEWED: 08 June 2017
- LAST MODIFIED: 22 April 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199920082-0044
- LAST REVIEWED: 08 June 2017
- LAST MODIFIED: 22 April 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199920082-0044
Introduction
The environment is a broad category, which at its widest includes virtually everything in our lives. In addition, what has gone on before as well as, increasingly, what is going on outside China affects the environment in contemporary China. Moreover, study of the environment involves input both from natural science and social studies, as well as humanities. Past land use patterns and forms of social structure affect China’s contemporary environment. This makes it extremely difficult to put together an article on environmental issues in China. Here the context will be limited to developments in post-1949 China. While both social and scientific literature will be covered, there will be more emphasis on the social implications over the whole period, whereas the scientific material will aim to present more-recent comprehensive material where available. Over the period covered, the data and research techniques have improved greatly, although problems still remain due to the politicized nature of most environmental issues. Until recently, most work on the environment in China was undertaken by research institutes—many in the Chinese Academy of Sciences and, since 1978, the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences. Implementation of policy was undertaken by environmental-protection organs, which at the national level moved up the bureaucracy, beginning in the early 1970s, to become Ministry of Environmental Protection in 2008. Prior to the 1990s, China’s environmental matters were in some ways a national affair. The scale of problems was not greatly affecting the world. Resources to fuel China’s economy were largely domestic, and foreign input into China’s environment was limited. Since the early 1990s, the situation has changed dramatically. Cooperation with foreign countries, particularly developed countries, increased greatly. With that, the impact of foreign production on China’s environment, and China’s economy on the rest of the world’s environment, has grown exponentially. Thus, today, China’s environment and its environmental policy are of great importance to all of us.
General Overviews
General overviews of China’s environment can take different positions on problems, and issues and methods of amelioration have evolved. Overall, however, politics and policy dominate in environmental matters just as they do in most aspects of Chinese life. No doubt this is because the state is the main player in most activities. This section has been divided into contributions that predate the 21st century (Late-20th-Century Contributions), and those that have appeared since 2000 (21st-Century Overviews), along with a small section on Textbooks and another on Anthologies.
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- 1989 People's Movement
- Aesthetics
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- Historical Archaeology (Qin and Han)
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- Human Origins in China
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- Law, Traditional Chinese
- Legalism
- Li Bai and Du Fu
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- Liu, Zongzhou
- Local Elites in Ming-Qing China
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- Macroregions
- Management Style in "Chinese Capitalism"
- Manchukuo
- Mao Zedong
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- Marxist Thought in China
- Material Culture
- May Fourth Movement
- Media Representation of Contemporary China, International
- Medicine, Traditional Chinese
- Medieval Economic Revolution
- Mencius
- Middle-Period China
- Migration Under Economic Reform
- Ming Dynasty
- Ming Poetry 1368–1521: Era of Archaism
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- Ming-Qing Fiction
- Modern Chinese Drama
- Modernism and Postmodernism in Chinese Literature
- Mohism
- Museums
- Music in China
- Needham Question, The
- Neo-Confucianism
- Neolithic Cultures in China
- New Social Classes, 1895–1949
- One Country, Two Systems
- Opium Trade
- Orientalism, China and
- Palace Architecture in Premodern China (Ming-Qing)
- Paleography
- People’s Liberation Army (PLA), The
- Philology and Science in Imperial China
- Poetics, Chinese-Western Comparative
- Poetry, Early Medieval
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- Political Art and Posters
- Political Dissent
- Political Thought, Modern Chinese
- Polo, Marco
- Popular Music in the Sinophone World
- Population Dynamics in Pre-Modern China
- Population Structure and Dynamics since 1949
- Porcelain Production
- Post-Collective Agriculture
- Poverty and Living Standards since 1949
- Printing and Book Culture
- Prose, Traditional
- Qi Baishi
- Qing Dynasty up to 1840
- Regional and Global Security, China and
- Religion, Ancient Chinese
- Renminbi, The
- Republican China, 1911-1949
- Revolutionary Literature under Mao
- Rural Society in Contemporary China
- School of Names
- Shanghai
- Silk Roads, The
- Sino-Hellenic Studies, Comparative Studies of Early China ...
- Sino-Japanese Relations Since 1945
- Social Welfare in China
- Sociolinguistic Aspects of the Chinese Language
- Su Shi (Su Dongpo)
- Sun Yat-sen and the 1911 Revolution
- Taiping Civil War
- Taiwanese Democracy
- Technology Transfer in China
- Television, Chinese
- Terracotta Warriors, The
- Tertiary Education in Contemporary China
- Texts in Pre-Modern East and South-East Asia, Chinese
- The Economy, 1949–1978
- The Shijing詩經 (Classic of Poetry; Book of Odes)
- Township and Village Enterprises
- Traditional Historiography
- Transnational Chinese Cinemas
- Tribute System, The
- Unequal Treaties and the Treaty Ports, The
- United States-China Relations, 1949-present
- Urban Change and Modernity
- Uyghurs
- Vernacular Language Movement
- Village Society in the Early Twentieth Century
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- Water Management
- Women Poets and Authors in Late Imperial China
- Xi, Jinping
- Xunzi
- Yan'an and the Revolutionary Base Areas
- Yuan Dynasty
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- Zhu Xi