Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
to challenge Southern extractors or polluters, and how Northern advo-
cacy groups remain critical in elevating global standards. Collectively,
these actions may also encourage China to advance its own high criteria
in order to avoid confl ict in South America in particular.
Future Networks: Sino-Latino Justice or an Advocacy Vacuum?
Though China's overseas oil expansion is certain, the response of China's
NGOs, advocates, scholars, and journalists is not certain. These profes-
sionals may adopt either a conservation position or an environmental
justice one, maintain a domestic-only lens, become a global watchdog of
China's operations, support labor groups, or interpret global challenges
as threatening to national development. The latter could provoke a
retraction from global engagement or inspire greater nationalism in
support of China's economic growth and global infl uence, which could
amplify spatial injustices between the oil supplier and oil recipient.
With candor, Tao (2008, 245) suggests that “Citizens' participation
in, and evaluation of, foreign affairs and foreign aid is basically non-
existent in China,” while other scholars caution that “Chinese actors are
still learning (rapidly) how to build up global governance capabilities in
many global governance arenas, and how to balance national interests
with regional and global challenges and responsibilities” (Gu, Humphrey,
and Messner 2008, 289). From Shirk's (2007) evaluation of mass patrio-
tism in China, however, it would appear that China's activists and profes-
sionals may defend China's economic and political interests, rather than
challenging China's contributions to global inequities.
This chapter acknowledges China's limited local campaign experience
while stressing Latin America's capable role of cultivating the global
entry of China's activist communities. Indeed, contact with Latin Amer-
ica's labor unions and grassroots movements, which have been contesting
local-, national-, and international-level policies for decades, could
promote more strident demands among China's maturing activists, much
like Northern activists encouraged and supported grassroots activism in
South America decades ago.
Ideally, Pan-Pacifi c alliances could also fi ll the fault lines of North-
South networks. First, linking environmental degradation and economic
deprivation in the South with lifestyle patterns in the North has remained
daunting for transnational EJ networks. Second, Northern advocates
have pressured Southern groups to market an internationally receptive
position (Bob 2005), which forced a focus on Northern issues, rather
than domestic ones (Mandle 2000; Moberg 2005; Widener 2007a, 2009).
