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“The rich consume and the poor suffer the pollution”

Pan Yue, deputy director of China's State Environmental Protection Administration, sparked debate with his recent essay On Socialist Ecological Civilisation. Here, he tells Zhou Jigang about the global inequalities that threaten China's environment.

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Zhou Jigang: We all know the global environmental crisis is worsening. What is the cause of this change?

Pan Yue: The fundamental cause is the capitalist system. The environmental crisis has become a new means of transferring the economic crisis.

ZJ: You met with representatives of the German Green Party in April and discussed, among other things, ecological socialism and sustainable development. What is the purpose of studying eco-socialism?

PY: Actually, the Green Party does not represent eco-socialism.

I study eco-socialism, but that is not to say I am in full support of it. It is too idealistic and lacks ways of solving actual problems, particularly for developing countries. However, it does provide political reference for China’s scientific view of development, and gives socialist ideology room to expand. More importantly, it gives a theoretical basis for the establishment of fair international rules.

ZJ: How did eco-socialism come into being. What does it consist of?

PY: The green movement arose out of a re-evaluation of western industrial civilisation. Although the Reformation, the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution were all contributing factors to the birth of western industrial civilisation, the root cause was colonialism, which permitted the large-scale relocation of developed countries’ economic and social contradictions. To ensure this relocation could proceed smoothly, capitalism created a set of international rules to protect its own interests, and environmental issues are a case in point. Developed countries account for 15% of the world’s population, yet use over 85% of its resources. They raise their own environmental standards and transfer resource-intensive and polluting industries to developing nations; they establish a series of green barriers and bear as little environmental responsibility as is possible. In the end, the green movement found that any problem can be relocated, except pollution, because we all live on the same planet.

Green activists believe that although capitalism and socialism are political opposites, they are identical in the way in which they industrialise and are both products of Western industrial economics. Some of them believe that the intrinsic aims of socialism are more suited to an ecological society. In comparison with capitalism – and excluding productive forces – socialism is fairer, puts more emphasis on morality and honesty, and is more able to provide people with fully-rounded development. In particular, green activists and socialists are able to agree on balancing economic growth and the environment, equality of distribution and grassroots democracy.

After the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, new Marxist thinkers found that ecological issues presented a heaven-sent opportunity to expose the capitalist system and unite socialists. They sought out ecological viewpoints in the works of Marx and Engels, in statements such as: “naturalism is humanism, and humanism is socialism;” “the relationship between man and nature is that between man and man, just as the relationship between man and man is that between man and nature;” and “our world faces two revolutions – reconciliation between man and nature, and between men themselves.” They laid the blame for the global environmental crisis at the feet of the capitalist system, and proposed using Marxist dialectics to repudiate a purely economic rationality.

In this way, environmental activists and socialists started to unite, with many former Communist Party members and leftists participating. Politically, this union became known as the “red-green alliance”, ideologically as eco-socialism.

ZJ: China, a socialist country, apart from facing the environmental colonialism of developed capitalist nations, is also seeing its own rapid economic development exacerbate the environmental crisis. How should China’s current environmental crisis be viewed?

PY: “Sustainable development” is commonly defined as economic growth, environmental protection and social justice. “Social justice” is a core concept of “sustainable development” and also a core aim of socialism. So, in theory, socialism is more suited to the realisation of sustainable development than capitalism. But China's environmental crisis has arisen, basically, because our mode of economic modernisation has been copied from western, developed nations.  

In 20 years, China has achieved economic results that took a century to attain in the west. But we have also concentrated a century’s worth of environmental issues into those 20 years. While becoming the world leader in GDP growth and foreign investment, we have also become the world’s number one consumer of coal, oil and steel – and the largest producer of CO2 and chemical oxygen demand (COD) emissions.

With the rise of globalisation, developed countries have transferred their industry to developing nations as a form of environmental colonialism. In China, pollution has been moved from east to west and from the city to the rural areas. The rich consume and the poor suffer the pollution. The economic and environmental inequalities caused by a flawed understanding of growth and political achievement, held by some officials, have gone against the basic aims of socialism and abandoned the achievements of Chinese socialism.

As a socialist country, China should unite with other developing countries to oppose an international economic order which causes environmental inequality. Domestically, it should establish systems to prevent unbalanced development from causing environmental risks. From this we can see the wisdom and correctness of the political ideals put forward by the Communist Party Central Committee: the scientific view of development and the construction of a harmonious, resource-conserving and environmentally-friendly society – and how urgent and necessary it is to promote an entirely new type of industrialisation.

ZJ: You once said that an ecological civilisation is the fourth stage of human civilisation, and an advance on the previous stage of industrial civilisation. What problems and strengths does China face in achieving this stage?

PY: Western countries are currently replacing traditional industrial civilisation with eco-industrial civilisation. This involves the three main ideals of sustainable development (environmental protection, preservation of resources and ecological balance), some aspects of Protestant ethics and the main points of eco-socialism, along with new production and lifestyle concepts such as circular economies, new energy sources and green consumption.

China’s circumstances, in particular the imbalance between its population, resources and environment, mean that traditional western industrial civilisation is not an option. China is a socialist country and cannot engage in environmental colonialism, nor act as a hegemony, so it must move towards a new type of civilisation. Ideas such as the scientific view of development and building a harmonious, resource-saving and environmentally-friendly society, as put forward by the Central Committee in recent years, have laid the foundation for doing so.

A significant number of people see a scientific view of development as simply a change in the mode of economic growth, even believing that establishing a resource-saving and environmentally-friendly society is merely a matter of technology. But that is only one aspect. The scientific view of development seeks a comprehensive and sustainable change of politics, economics, society, culture and theory – a transformation of civilisation. And so, the period between now and 2020 will be crucial in determining whether China can complete this transformation from traditional to eco-industrial civilisation.


Our strengths lie in the rich historical, cultural and theoretical resources we can carry forward. We are in east Asia, we can learn from the experience of combining Confucianism with industrial civilisation, and also draw upon the successful combination of European socialism with western civilisation. Our socialist political theory contains within it the core concept of eco-industrial civilisation – social justice. We are already working tirelessly to make the construction of a socialist environmental culture and ecological civilisation our duty and mission.

Pan Yue is deputy director of China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA). Part of a new generation of outspoken Chinese senior officials, Pan has given rise to a tide of environmental debate, attracting enormous attention and controversy. On Socialist Environmentalism was published in China Economic Times on September 26, 2006.

Zhou Jigang, formerly of Economics magazine and Hong Kong’s Phoenix Weekly, has focuses on in-depth reporting about macroeconomics and current affairs. His investigations into radioactive pollution in Baotou and China’s underground industries both caused great controversy in China.

Also by Pan Yue on chinadialogue: The environment needs public participation

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Default avatar
匿名 | Anonymous



The key point is the institutional system

It is good to have more officials like him, but the key point is that healthy institutional system enables them survive and prosper in the government, and this is where the hope lies.

Default avatar
匿名 | Anonymous



Eco civilization

After reading a few pages of comments, I would like to bring in my opinion.
The fundamental issue there is not even capitalism, but more generally speaking, political economy. Even under a socialistic regime, consumption and economic growth are still pillars of the society. We are driven to consume through the representations we have (or standard ideals) of sucess, of hapiness etc. Indeed, the standard ideals of capitalism are more likely to be environmentally damaging, as they push the individual towards more and more needs, thus needing more and more resource use to satisfy those.
What we have to review, and that's where I believe that the term "eco civilization" has to be brought in, is our way to live. Do we live in order to consume (as a reminder, consuming comes from the latin consumare, wich means to destroy), or do we live just for the sake of living, which does not need that much of consuming.

Default avatar
匿名 | Anonymous




No matter how big it becomes, China will always be a member of our big family Earth!

Default avatar
匿名 | Anonymous



Green punishment

As the national living standard improves, we are paying more and more attention to health and the environment we live with. In modern society, the competitiveness of a city is no longer restricted to the economic power, the geographic location, or political status and the alike, the ecological environment of the city has become an increasingly important factor. To count on people's creativities. And to introduce an harmonious development of nature and mankind. Human beings are son of environment. The environment gave birth to mankind. And human beings are changing the environment too. Therefore, we, who form the society, and the nature, whom the society cannot live without, should be able to find a win-win. And this should be our goal, a lofty goal which we should always stick to and try to pursue. We cannot trade anything for natural resources and environment in anytime, under any circumstances. Furthermore, we cannot sacrifice the living conditions of our offspring for our immediate benefits in development. We should see that the boosts of human desires and the scarcity of natural resources are putting a trigger to the fight over resource controls, which subsequently distorts the price, or even ethics. What we did wrong to the nature has led to the increasingly serious "green punishment".

Luo Zhigang

Default avatar
匿名 | Anonymous



Personal viewpoint

I have spent some time reading all the comments. "Dialogue" means people's opinions clashing in the process of argumentation, not everyone acting like a creep!

Default avatar
匿名 | Anonymous



A vegetarian world

Peace, disarmament, curbing animal husbandry, vegetarianism, and prayers for this world; all of these would also help protect the environment.

Default avatar
匿名 | Anonymous









To destroy and jeopardize the environment, how far can we go, how should we save it

We need technology and development, but we even desperately need an environment where we can live! Moreover, development does not necessarily depend on destroying the environment, and wasting resources either. I wouldn’t discuss about how is the relation among government, trader and the public, what I would like to mention is, now we must cooperate in order to proceed with a long term development! Most of the people will say, as long as we are live well and enjoy for the time being, can’t be bother about future. Then, I have a question: What is the point you have your next generation? Let him (her) to enjoy those irreversible disasters left by us?Much less, how far away the disaster is currently with us?! In the current economic society, things will not proceed without money, every town in China are full of the shadow of volunteers, however due to living, and they have no choice. In addition, lack of financial support, he (she) can only care about their own, make use of the least time they have to work for the society within their ability. Public benefit and the benefit for everyone, works that benefit everyone should be undertaken by all of us with enthusiasm! I would suggest commercialising the operation, forming a security system for volunteers, and providing more confident for volunteers to take part in the activities! Being an enterprise, apart from pursuing economical efficiency, but also need to create social efficiency, a good social environment will definitely bring a stable and long term economical efficiency. Bicycle, a popular environmental friendly transportation, do appropriate cycling everyday will benefit our health.

Default avatar
匿名 | Anonymous



ecological socialism

The Western countries (and Japan) underwent capitalist development in a very different geo-historical epoch than the one that China confronts today. Relative to levels of industrial demand, fossil energy resources were relatively abundant, and the atmosphere had yet to fill up with greenhouse gases. The early economic modernizers were also able to displace many of the ecological costs of capitalist development onto the "backwards/colonized/poor" (sic) areas of the world.

China today enjoys no such luxuries. Supplies of commercially viable energy resources worldwide are under great strain. The biosphere's carbon-absorbing capacity is massively overwhelmed. China has much less room to dump the environmental contradictions of its industrial accumulation on outside parties -- many of these burdens are put upon its own population, especially in the poor, inland, and rural regions.

From the standpoint of distributive justice there is no reason why Chinese GDP per capita should not equal that of Western Europe, North America, Japan, etc. – but it is not geo-physically possible. Great social upheavals within China, related to various forms of socio-environmental distress, will arrive before any kind of parity with the high-income countries is close to being achieved.

The only way out of this nightmare scenario is for China to pioneer a truly "ecological socialist" society in which development equals meeting the basic educational, health, nutrition, and free time needs of everyone, rather than the wants of a rich and middle class minority for luxury automobiles, McMansion housing, and plasma TV's.

But I'm afraid for the Chinese people that this lesson will only be learnt the very hard way after much popular suffering.

Default avatar
匿名 | Anonymous



My point of view

The content is perfect, but the title was wrong!

Default avatar
匿名 | Anonymous



I think Pan Yue is really good

This is a very exciting and touching way of trying to achieve harmony in the reality. A government official is so sincere and frank that he makes me have new understanding of being a government official! I like those officials who are brave to take measures just like him, and i dislike those who surrender and bow their knees to power and money.