China - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 256

River. Another exception is the Nature Conservancy, which maintains
its national headquarters in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province,
rather than Beijing. In 2007 it helped establish Pudacuo National Park
in Yunnan, the first national park in the PRC. The Nature Conservancy
foresees this as a way to introduce professional park management and
promote nature education.
Other international groups have had little success in penetrating the
People's Republic. Greenpeace established an office in Hong Kong in 1997.
Although the former British colony reverted to Chinese control that year,
it is a Special Administrative Region, hence retains some democratic
features. Greenpeace engaged in the activism for which its parent orga-
nization is famous. It opposed the city's new airport and a golf course.
From its Hong Kong base it opposed the Daya Bay nuclear plant in nearby
Guangzhou on the mainland, but did not operate from Guangzhou itself.
Recently, it established a small office in Beijing, but this branch will not
engage in direct action. “Friends of the Earth (HK)” claims not to be affili-
ated with Friends of the Earth International, and the parent organization
does not list the Hong Kong group as an affiliate.
Although the number of NGOs is small and their membership is sparse,
they are growing. Guobin Yang found that in 1994 there were only five
environmental groups, but that in 2002 there were 71. He notes that the
groups avoid confrontation and promote education through public lec-
tures, field trips, and newsletters. They are skilled in using the rhetoric and
commitments of the government and the Party to promote their side of
the argument. They use the regime's own words as a weapon of protest and
resistance. Official goals of “sustainable development” and the “harmoni-
ous society” lend themselves to this. In addition the environmental groups
are now calling for legal action as Chinese society becomes more attuned to
citizen rights. Environmental groups have found support from the media:
television and newspapers. The Internet has been a new resource. 4
Because of its deliberate isolation beginning in 1949 and continuing for
the next two decades, the People's Republic lacked many of the international
connections deriving from diplomatic treaties that brought nonindustrial
countries into the environmental age. Then in 1971, Mao began to seek
international connections. In October the PRC successfully campaigned to
get the Chinese seat in the United Nations transferred from the Nationalist
Republic of China government in Taiwan. In February 1972 President
Richard Nixon made his famous visit to Beijing. Both countries saw this
as a way to counter the Soviet Union. To the surprise of many, the PRC