This study is taken up from the question why China is not able to sort out the various environmental problems effectively, even though they already implemented 'The Environmental Protection Law' from the year of 1979 when China started to carry out th ...
This study is taken up from the question why China is not able to sort out the various environmental problems effectively, even though they already implemented 'The Environmental Protection Law' from the year of 1979 when China started to carry out the policy <Reform and Opening>.
The scholars in and around China find the cause from the obscure governmental policy, a lack of environmental awareness, the idea of 'Economy First', and a lack of capital and know-how, etc. There is, however, very rare research so far dealing with those problems from a perspective that how environmental policies are implemented.
I find the reason why there exists a wide gap between the reality and the original aim from the wrong process of policy implementation and local government's wrong act, even though it has been more than 20 years since 'The Environmental Protection Law' was first enacted.
The first basis of this assertion is found from the change of relations between the central government and the local governments after <Reform and Opening>. The central government handed control to the local governments. Therefore, the local governments' act against the central government's policy became very important factor in the process of policy implementation. The central government is unable to implement the policy directly, because the environmental issues are deeply connected with all social members. In result, the chinese local governments are in an important position to implement central government's policies and to link the government with the general public.
The second basis of the aforementioned assertion can be found from the local governments' act. Chinese local governments play the roles of implementing the central government's policy, pursuing local governments' own profit, and representing local societies' interests. The decentralization system entitled local governments to be the main body of act, not a mere representative of implementing policy.
The role of local government is tremendously important for the economic development in such a huge country like China. On the one hand many chinese scholars criticized the disutility and blindness of local governments' economic act, but on the other hand we can find one of the reasons that china could accomplish such a rapid economic growth from the local governments' active economic role. Under the circumstances, the problem arises from the fact that the local governments have the idea of 'Economy First' rather than 'Environmental Protection' and thus the environmental contamination is done with local governments' connivance in rural areas.
In consequence, a hypothesis can be formed based on understanding of the facts mentioned above on this study. The hypothesis is that the result of implementing chinese environmental policy can be different by the level of central government's financial support, local governments' act, and the relations between government and enterprises.
Because China faces with such problems as a lack of environmental awareness and a short of local governments' finance and know-how, it is extremely hard to achieve the economic development and the protection of environment at the same time. Therefore, the local governments often violate the central government's regulation to protect local enterprises, and there often exists the situation that the local environmental protection agency, local governments and local enterprises are badly in collusion.
This study will examine what results are brought about by the interaction among policy, policy making environment, and politics. Furthermore, through the field survey on the area called "Huai-He", the problems caused in the process of implementing environmental policies are analyzed and the better direction for improvements is also illustrated in this study.