China’s Engine of Environmental Collapse

[english] – This podcast is part of the online discussion series China and the Left.

Announcement: China is at the heart of the global ecological crisis that is posing an existential threat to humanity. The breakneck economic development in China has wreaked havoc for the environment, extracting and consuming an unimaginable amount of resources and severely polluting land, air and water. And, while Europe and the United States have been historically responsible for the emission of greenhouse gasses, China has overtaken the rest of the world to become the leading emitter as global production moved into China in recent decades. How should we understand China’s environmental crisis and its roots from a left perspective? Is there anything specific to China’s politico-economic institutions that creates and perpetuates the ecological catastrophe? And, as the Chinese government has focused on promoting renewable energy and spoken of ecological civilization, does China hold any solution to tackling global ecological crisis? What strategies and approaches should the international left develop to counter and mitigate the crisis? To discuss these questions and more, we are joined by Richard Smith, author most recently of China’s Engine of Environmental Collapse (Pluto Press 2020).

Sponsors: gongchao.org, Made in China Journal, positions politics, and Critical China Scholars.