The political economy of China’s green transition

As China increasingly leads the world in green industries, the country is a critical case for the debate on climate change in political economy. While climate change is now less of a blind spot than previously, the debate is obstructed by an inadequate grasp of the complexities of China, stemming from the disciplinary isolation of ‘China studies’ and the political isolation of the country itself. In this commentary, we address this problem by presenting a structured approach to understanding the case of China. We distill insights from different literature to offer an account of the political economy of China’s green transition, centering on three key insights. As umbrella terms that work as shorthands for summarizing the three literatures, we propose that China can be understood as: (1) ‘green authoritarianism’ – a political model that conceptualizes the political motives and processes underlying China’s climate governance. (2) ‘green state-steering’ - central-local-private relations that combine top-down and bottom-up approaches to advance climate priorities. (3) ‘green economic planning’ - an approach to industrial policy, such as the ‘Made In China 2025 Strategy’, that guides and organizes climate governance over time. Our intention is that these insights can help connect the scholarship on China with the scholarship on the political economy of climate change by facilitating non-China specialists in both drawing from and relating their work to the country.