To start from the abstract level, the rationality of development emphasises the need and the right (of a state) to develop. The underpinning knowledge is about the linear and teleological modernisation. The welfare of the population has been integrated into the primary targets of the state. When examining the rationality of development, it is crucial that the concept of ‘development’ has its own genealogy in the international arena, just as sovereignty in China does. Researchers have pointed out that this concept was brought into account while the then US President Truman defined the largest part of the world as ‘underdeveloped areas’ in 1949 (Sachs 1999, Ziai 2007). After that, the world was divided into developed and underdeveloped, or developing, parts and
‘development’ became an imperative of a new kind of worldview as well as a new type of worldwide domination (Sachs: 1999: 5). Meanwhile, the American model of society and growth was projected onto the whole world. Following the introduction of
‘development’, the category of ‘poverty’ was also discovered, which was not an issue before 1940. “When size of income is thought to indicate social perfection…one is inclined to interpret any other society that does not follow that (economic) model as
‘low-income’’’ (Sachs 1999: 7). The criterion of poverty and absolute poverty has reduced ‘whole ways of life to calorie levels’. Complex real-life problems are translated
“into numerical terms that could be broken down and analyzed” by experts (Caufield 1998: 61). Consequently, ‘poverty’ is treated as the problem and ‘growth’ as the solution in terms of development (Sachs 1999: 10-11). From the Foucauldian perspective, a new field of subject/object was formed along with the necessary knowledge and technologies. At the same time, the need for growth and development also became new directives for states around the world. The core of this development discourse is the technicality in which managerialism leads the world to define and solve the problems through technical and anti-political measures (Germond-Duret and Howe 2011).
Within this context, the emerging environmental concern in the international arena since the early 1970s had to deal with the relation between environmental protection and (economic) development, which, in the 1980s, brought the concept of ‘sustainable development’. The term ‘sustainable development’ appeared in the report of World Conservation Strategy (WCS) (IUCN 1980) by the International Union of the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and became known worldwide from the World Commission on Environment and Development report, entitled Our Common Future (Brundtland 1987). Since then, this concept has raised public concern and entered the international political agenda. In Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland Report, it states that development and environment could not be separated and issues of
‘the factors underlying world poverty and international inequality’ should be taken into account while tackling environmental issues (World Commission on Environment and Development, WCED 1987: 3). Sustainable development was defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED 1987: 8). Another key issue stated in Our
Common Future is that poverty had played an important role in causing environmental degradation in developing countries and thus by economic growth leading to poverty alleviation, environmental pressures could be relieved. Agenda 21, concluded at the Earth Summit in 1992, reaffirmed ‘the revitalisation of growth with sustainability’ as it still focused on the centrality of growth and the environment remained an object to be managed, which demonstrated the technocentric implication (Adams 2001: 88).
Meanwhile, the World Bank also contributed to enrich this concept. In its World Development Report (1992), written under the direction of its chief economist, Laurence Summers, sustainable development was defined as ‘development that lasts’. The report recognises that poverty, uncertainty and ignorance, as the key causes of environmental degradations (1992: 65) and free market mechanisms, are claimed to be capable of enhancing economic growth and gaining efficiency. The report also says that,
“liberalized trade fosters greater efficiency and higher productivity and may actually reduce pollution of cleaner technologies” (1992: 67). It is apparent that both the UN and the World Bank embrace market mechanisms as the tool to fulfil sustainable development.30 In short, the mainstream idea of sustainable development shares “the dominant industrialist and modernist ideology of the modern world-system” (Adams 2001: 102). From this perspective, climate change is integrated into this managerialism and is treated as ‘an economic issue’ (Zoellick 2008). Problems and solutions are defined in a “technical manner, social aspects are let apart, identification of problems and solutions relies on science……and institutions involved are anti-political”
(Germond-Duret and Howe 2011: 9). Consequently, market mechanisms including carbon trading are preferred as the policy tool to tackle climate change.
30The World Bank publishes another World Development Report and admits the win-win policies of sustainable development were “much harder to implement than initially thought” (2003: 34), however, it still insists on the role of a neo-liberal market mechanism that “experiences suggest, however, that regulations are sometimes less efficient and effective than market-based instruments-and costly in the institutional capacity they require for implementation” (2003: 32).
As discussed above, the concept of development was raised by the rich and industrialised North, especially the US, after the Second World War, and the emergence of sustainable development was initially a North reaction to the growing environmental movements. However, the South has accepted the language of development generally and placed economic growth as a primary policy. After environmental issues were raised on the international agenda by the North, the South reacted by demanding a deeper realisation of development. The Beijing Declaration of the G-77 in 1991, one year before the Earth Summit at Rio, claimed:
Environmental problems cannot be dealt with separately, they must be linked to the development process, bring the environmental concerns in line with the imperatives of economic growth and development. In this context, the right to development for the developing countries must be fully recognized (Beijing Ministerial Declaration on Environment and Development 1991).
This firm attitude also provided the South with an opportunity to use “environmental concessions as diplomatic weapons” (Sachs 1999: 31). A ‘double contradictory’ emerges that on the one hand, the standardised and normalised development discourse has prevailed to the South. On the other hand, developing countries are to be blamed because they pursuit economic development prior to the environmental concerns (Germond-Duret and Howe 2011). This contradiction has led to antagonisms between the North and the South. To sum up, the dominance of the managerial and technological rationality of development has influenced the North-South divide in international environmental and climate change politics, and has created the discursive space for developing countries to claim and maintain their particular, if not united, interests in
battles of international climate negotiations.
Regarding China, it is clear that the obsession of development, sustainable or not, has been infused into China as one of the core rationalities of government. The ideology of development has fitted China’s need since Mao’s period. Partly due to the need to demonstrate the superiority of socialism over capitalism and partly due to the international rivalries of anti-imperialism and anti-hegemonism, economic development, which focused on productivity, had been the priority of China’s policy.
‘Surpassing Great Britain and Catching up with the United States’, and a ‘Great Leap Forward’, proposed by Mao in the late 1950s, had demonstrated this obsession for development. After China started its economic reform in the late 1970s, economic development gradually became the only legitimacy of the Communist Party, which strengthened this obsession. While facing environmental challenges and the threat from climate change, China has also learnt to integrate the discourse and rationality of development into its measures. ‘Sustainable development’ and relevant concepts such as a ‘cyclic economy’ and a ‘low carbon economy’ are raised as the guideline to tackle climate change without sacrificing economic growth.31
Meanwhile, the separation between the developed and developing worlds, which was due to the introduction of the concept and relevant categories of ‘development’, had accidentally created the space for international cooperation among developing countries, especially as many members of this alliance were forced to accept the rules and norms of an international society consisting of sovereign states. The rationalities of sovereignty
31The concept of a ‘harmonious society’ was proposed by President Hu in 2004. It is a strategic goal of social development aimed at pursuing harmony and balance among different social dimensions. This concept soon became the core philosophical basis of various Chinese policies. While environmental issues are taken into account, the aim is to solve the contradiction between human society and nature. It is clear that the ‘harmonious society’ has borrowed the traditional perception of nature and of the relationship between humans and nature, which was based on cosmetic resonance. The concepts of
‘sustainable development’ and the ‘cyclic economy’ were integrated into this philosophy (State Council 2005). In the 11th Five-Year Plan (FYP), the development of a cyclic economy and the establishment of energy-savings and an environmentally-friendly society have become the primary goals. These concepts have provided the philosophical grounds, which also reflect the traditional perception of nature, for China’s climate governance.
and development become powerful discourses among developing countries which co-exist in an international category created by the industrial countries. The concern of historical responsibility brought the concept of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ to international climate negotiations, and this concept had become the powerful discursive tool in an artificially divided world between developed and developing parties. As a result, both at international and domestic levels, the rationality of development has become one of the crucial governmentalities for China in terms of politics and governance of climate change.