Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
powerless people ran rampant in the relentless search for wealth. Friedman,
in admiring CCP investments in Green GDP-ism, exemplifi es this impulse to
understand China as the “New World,” liberated from old limits and social
structures, as well as the fear that China will pull ahead, leaving the United
States in the proverbial dust, much as the eastern United States was left behind
as the western United States grew, especially during the Gold Rush era.
But is Friedman's description of China's green investments as “the great-
est show on earth” mere hyperbole? Not if you look at the numbers. Recent
changes in Chinese environmental policy have led to a signifi cant growth in
capital investments in “building green.” For example, at the Seventeenth
National Congress of the Communist Party held in Beijing in 2007, President
Hu Jintao coined the new term
shengtai wenming,
or an “ecologically harmo-
nious socialist society.”
32
He argued that China “must pursue comprehen-
sive, balanced and sustainable development . . . and build a resource-con-
serving and environment-friendly society . . . so that our people will live
and work under sound ecological and environmental conditions and our
economy and society will develop in a sustainable way.” h is speech signi-
fi ed the fi rst time the CCP had highlighted ecology, putting it explicitly on
the Party's agenda. Hu explained: “h e emergence of shengtai wenming is a
global revolution related to the mode of production, lifestyle, and the con-
cept of value. It is an inevitable global trend. It is a new choice for human
society after agricultural civilization and industrial civilization.”
33
He called
for a broad new awareness of shengtai wenming to “be fi rmly established in
the whole of society.”
34
h at same year, in his “State of the Union” address,
Prime Minister Wen Jiabao made forty-eight references to the environment
or pollution.
35
Being put on the Party agenda makes all the diff erence. After all, all land
in China is owned by the central government, although local municipalities
lease development rights. In China, no major development happens outside
the Party system, to the consternation of other nations which cry foul at the
