Algunas conceptualizaciones y definiciones

At the fifth plenary session of the 16th Party Congress, in 2005, premier Wen Jiabao put forward his vision of a “two-oriented” society – one that conserves resources and is environmentally friendly, pointing the direction for local development. The central government also provided support for trial reforms towards that goal. In 2007, at the 17th Party Congress, Hu Jintao 胡锦涛 proposed his own ideological contribution to socialism with Chinese characteristics; the establishment of a “moderately well-off

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society” (xiaokang shehui 小康社会). While this program entailed four basic goals (Chinese-style socialist economic development, political development, cultural development and social development), attached to the four goals were five comments – one for each goal, plus the proposal to “build an ecological civilization.” (jianshe shengtai wenming 建设生态文明). At the 18th Party Congress in November 2012, Hu Jintao’s talk of building an ecological civilization put environmental issues higher up the agenda than ever before. Early this year, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the Ministry for Environmental Protection (MEP) investigated progress on the ecological civilization in more than 10 provinces. By August, there were 53 trial projects under way. But what drew most attention were Hu's words: “Resource consumption, environmental damage and ecological efficiency shall be included in systems for evaluating economic and social development, in order to establish a system of targets, evaluation and rewards and punishments that reflects the requirements of an ecological civilization.” With the ecological civilization shaking up the existing mechanisms for evaluating official performance, the 18th Party Congress has shown the determination of China’s high- level leaders.

A lengthy editorial briefly after the 18th _{Party Congress, published December 24}th

2007 in People’s Daily and penned by the head of Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), Zhou Shengxian周生贤, laid out the meaning of the new concept. What is most noticeable is the fact that Zhou’s defining statements establish “Ecological Civilization” within the wider context of the modernization narrative of the CCP, as indeed Dynon remarks that “[w]ithin propaganda, the meaning of wenming is linked intrinsically with the CCP's modernization narrative.” (Dynon 2008: 83 (fn1))

Ecological Civilization is a form (xingtai 形态) of human civilization. It is based on the premise to respect and protect nature; its purpose is so that people, people and nature, people and society can live together harmoniously. It contains the establishment of a sustainable mode of production and consumption, and to guide people towards a sustainable and harmonious path of development. […] One could say that Ecological Civilization is the result of humankind’s in-depth reflection on the

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traditional forms of civilization, especially industrial civilization, and it constitutes a significant progress of the developmental stage of human civilization in terms of philosophy, path, and model. [my emphasis]

The last sentence especially has a strong teleological (one could say Marxist- historicist) implication that characterizes Marxist-Leninist understandings of social development. The concept juxtaposes a new, “green”, “harmonious” and progressive future with the old, “black”, “destructive” societies of the industrial and post- industrial age. It is alleged that the construction of Ecological Civilization will allow China to jump ahead of the West in terms of economic progress. Thus, the concept allows for the combining of developmentalism, environmentalism, and (cultural) nationalism, making it highly appealing to a broader Chinese audience.

In this framework, the creation of Ecological Civilization is merely the next step in the long process of Chinese modernization. This reading become even stronger when further on, the editorial describes the historical relationship between mankind and nature through the lens of historic materialism, which is perfectly in line with standard interpretations of historic development in the People’s Republic:

In primitive society, due to the very low level of productivity of human society, man lived in harmony with nature, but this harmony was merely characterized by fearful reverence (jingwei 敬畏) and passive obedience, the dominating factor in this harmonious relationship was nature. Once there was agricultural civilization, while the relationship between man and nature remained largely harmonious, there were periodic and regional instances of discord. With the increase in population and gradual increase in productivity levels, humankind began to feel uneasy under nature's shelter and reign, and while it used nature for its own benefit also tried to change and shape nature, and these changes were often accompanied by blindness, recklessness and destruction. The emergence of industrial civilization constituted a qualitative leap in the productive forces of society, and humankind's ability to use nature to its own advantage increased dramatically. In this period, the attitude of humankind towards nature also underwent a fundamental change, from “use” to “subdue”, and [slogans such as] “man is nature's master”

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became the dominant line of thought. Under the domination of this ideology, the conquest and domination of nature manifested itself in exploitation and destruction, uncontrolled mass consumption of natural resources led to large-scale pollution, eventually leading to rapid depletion of natural resources, environmental destruction, [...] and other catastrophic consequences. [ibid]

The protection of nature hence is merely a prerequisite for the continued survival and prospering of the human race:

The developmental practice of human societies has proven that if the ecosystem cannot continue to provide resources and energy, clean air, water, and other elements, the continued development of material civilization will lose its carrier and foundation, and then the whole of human civilization will be threatened. Therefore, the construction of Ecological Civilization is an inherent need to achieve the goal of building a moderately prosperous society, it is important to thoroughly implement the scientific concept of development. [ibid]

Such re-assessments of its developmental path, indeed of its own political and ideological history, are not uncommon in the history of the CCP. Major course- corrections have indeed occurred several times within the CCP’s history, often after internal struggles and major calamities, and the outcome is then ideologically codified in shared writings.114 _{Pan Yue 潘岳, outspoken vice-minister of the Ministry}

114 _{Examples for such codified re-assessments include: The 1981 “Resolution Concerning Several}

Issues Regarding the History of the Party Since the founding of the PRC” (Guanyu jianguo yilai dang

de ruogan lishi wenti de jueyi 关于建国以来党的若干历史问题的决议), which judged the Cultural

Revolution to have been an “ultra-leftist” deviation, thus paving the way for the Dengist reform era. Another: In his political report to the Thirteenth National Party Congress on October 5th _{1987, Zhao}

Ziyang 赵紫阳, then general secretary of the CCP, proposed a theory “Concerning the primary stage of socialism” (shehui zhuyi chuji jieduan lun 社会主义初级阶段论), essentially arguing that Maoist utopianism had misread the historic stage China found itself in by assuming China would soon enter the golden age of Communism. Instead, Zhao argued, China had barely started its Socialist stage, and hence required a vigorous development of its productive forces which were the prerequisite to further stages in socialist development. Also, excessive class struggle would hem such development and hence was to be avoided. This theory offered important ideological support to the economic reforms initiated by Deng since it justified the increased reliance on market mechanisms and rising inequality in the PRC’s economic trajectory. (see also: Zhao 2004: 225f.)

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of Environmental Protection has indeed argued that China’s environmental calamities are in part to be blamed of a certain interpretation of Marxism itself.

China’s environmental problems, complex as the causes may be, can ultimately be attributed to our understanding of Marxism. For most of our recent history, we saw in Marxism only a philosophy of class struggle. We believed that economic development would solve all our problems. In the reform period, this misreading of Marx morphed into an unrestrained pursuit of material gain devoid of morality. Traditional Chinese culture, with its emphasis on harmony between human beings and nature, was thrown aside. [...]

Making matters worse, while we discarded the finer elements of our traditional culture, we failed to absorb the better aspects of modern civilization. The concept of a “social contract” based on rights and obligations – the essential values that constitute the most important precondition for effective environmental protection – goes largely ignored. As a result, environmental protection projects often fail to be included in calculating production costs. Scarcely anyone bothers to consider the environmental costs to – or rights of – the country’s poor and powerless. (Pan Yue: 2006)

Pan Yue’s diagnosis offers a two-pronged critique: China’s environmental problems can be understood as a consequence of firstly a “misreading” of Marxism’s modernizing strategy, which refers both to the “philosophy of class struggle”, the Maoist era, as well as the Reform period under Deng, both of which witnessed great environmental destruction. Secondly, the “discarding” of China’s traditional culture. In terms of remedy, this reading of China’s environmental situation implies that both a correct application of scientific principles combined with a return to culture are the way for Chinese society to go forward. “Wenming discourse is a discourse of lack”, Anagnost reminds us, “referring to the failure of the Chinese people to embody international standards of modernity, civility, and discipline. All these translate into a construction of the Chinese people as being of ‘low quality’ (suzhi cha), which has perhaps become the reigning explanation for all manner of contradictions encountered in the flow of everyday life.” (Anagnost 1997: 76)

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It is noteworthy that there is a considerable overlap between the position held by certain officials such as Pan Yue and environmental activists such as Tang Xiyang who also often blame China’s dire environmental situation on a disregard of China’s traditional culture.

Chinese culture nowadays is confronted by serious challenges: Either to perish amidst today’s world’s currents (or maybe one should say to equally decline and fade into the realm of archeology); or it will continue with China’s splendid cultural traditions and incorporate the best achievements from Western cultures, making it even the more alive and vigorous. I do not think that I am overly dramatic in this assessment: Today, Chinese culture is under attack from within, as well as from outside: From within, it has been under attack from the revolutions of the last years, especially the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution”. We revolutionized this, we revolutionized that, we did away with Zhuangzi, Laozi, Confucius, Qu Yuan, Sima Qian, Yue Fei, Tan Sitong, Sun Yat-sen, and others. As for the threat from outside: Following the economic reforms, commercial culture has swept into China like a force of nature, and whatever still existed in terms of humanity, idealism, professionalism and integrity, it all was transformed into a big “money” sign in the eyes of too many people. Chinese culture will be hard-pressed to fend off the combined attack from these two directions. (CCC: 100)

At first glance, this diagnosis seems entirely plausible, as especially the era of Maoism has often been identified as a period of excessive environmental destruction, fueled by ideologically induced mass hysteria. Shapiro (2008) sees “Mao’s war against nature” as being fundamentally built against the same notion: “Maoism rejected both Chinese tradition and Western science. The effort to conquer nature was highly concentrated and oppositional, motivated by utopianism [...]. The articulation of Mao's war against nature is striking for its overtly adversarial expression and disregard of objective scientific principles, while its implementation stands out for focused destructiveness and mass coordination.” (Shapiro 2001: 8)

Yet at the same time, any position that invokes “Mr. Science” and “Mr. Culture” as the remedy of China’s environment will have to confront several serious caveats: It

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is undeniable that while the environmental excesses under Chinese socialism relied not on scientific but ideological justification, Socialism itself based its legitimacy on its scientific “correctness”, and many of the mass campaigns that proved to be disastrous for China’s environment explicitly pitted scientific progress against backward superstition and tradition.

At the same time, several strains of China’s cultural tradition itself offered ample foundation for Maoism to built upon when it came to its antagonistic stance against nature: As Shapiro (2008) acknowledges herself briefly later in the same paragraph quoted above, Maoism showed significant overlap with Confucianism when it came to its critical, even hostile attitude against the natural world: “Maoism strengthened problematic aspects of Chinese tradition, such as the tendency to see nature through a purely utilitarian lens. At the same time, through suppression of local knowledge, it undermined aspects of traditional practice that fostered sustainable relations with nature.” (Shapiro 2001: 8)