Khoday, Kishan --- "Constitutionalism and the Environment: The Evolution of Environmental Governance in China’s Socialist Market Economy" [2012] ELECD 267; in Martin, Paul; Zhiping, Li; Tianbao, Qin; Du Plessis, Anel; Le Bouthillier, Yves; Williams, Angela (eds), "Environmental Governance and Sustainability" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Environmental Governance and Sustainability

Editor(s): Martin, Paul; Zhiping, Li; Tianbao, Qin; Du Plessis, Anel; Le Bouthillier, Yves; Williams, Angela

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781000472

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: Constitutionalism and the Environment: The Evolution of Environmental Governance in China’s Socialist Market Economy

Author(s): Khoday, Kishan

Number of pages: 23

Extract:

4. Constitutionalism and the
environment: the evolution of
environmental governance in China's
Socialist Market Economy
Kishan Khoday1

4.1 INTRODUCTION: ECOLOGICAL CHANGE AND
CONSTITUTIONALISM
The launch of China's new Socialist Market Economy policy in 1992 turned
out to be a historic event for China and the world. The dramatic shift from a
centrally planned, inward-looking state to a globally expansive market-based
super power unleashed a new era of development. It has opened up an
expanded role for the private sector and set the stage for China's re-emergence
at the center of the world economy (Hart-Landsberg and Burkett, 2005, p. 52).
Almost twenty years later, China stands as the world's second-largest econ-
omy with annual per capita GDP nearing US$7,000 and a foreign currency
reserve upwards of US$2 trillion, the world's largest. In the coming decades
China is also expected to surpass the US to become the world's largest econ-
omy, with the implications of China's rise going well beyond the economic
realm and already "opening the way for a multi-polar era in world politics"
(Drezner, 2007, p. 1).
China's growth rate already accounts for almost 20% of world GDP growth,
second only to the US contribution. It is also the world's leading destination for
foreign direct investment (WEF, 2006). Along with its increasingly important
role as a manufacturing base for the world, China has also become a major
consumer, in terms of ...