The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 16 | Issue 17 | Number 1 | Article ID 5193 | Sep 01, 2018

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Ecological civilization Politics and Governance in Hangzhou:New pathways to green urban development?

Jorgen Delman

Abstract

This study applies a governance perspective toexamine how China’s national ecologicalcivilization framework is implemented at thecity level. With Hangzhou, one of China’sleading green cities, as a case, the studyfocuses on how the city’s party-state authoritiesrespond to various pressures from the centralleadership and from society to improveenvironmental governance. Hangzhou’sgovernment applies a new public managementapproach with public sector performancecontracts, performance reviews, and associatedresults management procedures that areintegrated with a battery of social participationinstruments. The city government aims tomitigate contradictory goals relating to theneed for continued economic growth and forsimultaneous environmental improvementsbased on plans for ecological civilizationdevelopment and protection of ‘red’ ecologicalbottom lines. It is argued that Hangzhou’sauthorities are testing a novel approach thatcou ld con t r ibu te t o nar row ing the‘implementation gap’ in China’s local greenpolitics by enhancing the local party-state’sabi l i ty to handle new instruments ofgovernance in environmental politics.Available, but rather fragmented data suggestthat environmental improvements areoccurring, but the link between the newg o v e r n a n c e f r a m e w o r k a n d t h e s eimprovements is diff icult to establish.

Keywords: China; Hangzhou; ecologicalcivilization; green governance; green

development; new public management;performance reviews; social participation

A new framework for green developmentpolitics

As a consequence of China’s environmentalcrisis, the Chinese leadership has recognizedthe need for a green turn in its developmentstrategy, and it has made ecological recoveryand security a national priority, charting acourse tha t p r i o r i t i ze s eco log i ca lreconstruction, a cleaner environment, andincreased use of renewable energy (ZhongguoHuanjing Bao 2014). Yet, it continues to call forhigh economic growth in the range of 6-7percent annually.

The concepts underlying the green turn havebeen fueled by debates that combine well-known internat ional developmentalapproaches, e.g. sustainable development, lowcarbon development, circular economy, greendevelopment, and green innovation, withhomegrown ideas such as: harmonious society,scientific outlook on development, ChinaDream, Beautiful China, Beautiful Life, China’sNew Normal, ecological Marxism, andecological civilization. In recent years, China’sleaders have taken these ideas on board (Kuhn2016; Z. Wang, He, and Fan 2014; Zhu 2014),and the speed of policy formulation has beenstriking.

During this process, ‘ecological civilization’(shengtai wenming jianshe 生态文明建设, here:‘eco-civilization’) became the leadership’s

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preferred policy framework for greendevelopment. Eco-civilization was originallyintroduced as an eco-development conceptanchored in Chinese civilizational tradition inthe mid-1980s (Huan 2016), but it was not putforward officially as a national greendevelopment framework until 2007, when HuJintao, then General Secretary of theCommunist Party of China (CPC), endorsed it inhis report to the 17th Party Congress. Huemphasized that China must “construct eco-civilization” and anchor perceptions about eco-civilization broadly in society (Hu 2007). In hisreport to the 18th Party Congress in 2012, Hufurther pointed to the need for a practical “eco-civilization construction system” to guide andmanage policy implementation (Hu 2012; Huan2016).

Conceptua l l y , there have been twopredominant views on eco-civilization in China:“At the level of philosophy and ethics, eco-c i v i l i za t i on i s a weak eco -cen t r i s t(environmentally friendly) natural or ecologicalvalue and morality; at the level of politicalideology, eco-civilization is an alternativeeconomic and social formula differing from thedominating capitalist one”, i.e. a conceptrooted in Marxist ecology (Huan 2016). As agreen development framework, it aims tointegrate interventions involving climatechange, environment, ecology, energy, greeninnovation, eco-culture, social well-being, andlivability by mobilizing and engaging a broadrange of state and non-state stakeholders(Huan 2016). As the analysis below shows, ithas become an operational framework1 thataims to address the eff iciency gap inenvironmental policy implementation at thelocal level of government caused by aseemingly inescapable contradiction between arelentless pressure to achieve high economicgrowth rates and green developmentimperatives (Economy 2010; Kassiola and Guo2010; Smil 2015; T. Yang et al. 2016; Eaton andKostka 2014; A. L. Wang 2013).

This was made clear in 2015, when the centralleadership issued an eco-civilization guidelineproposing reform procedures and instrumentsto mitigate the obstacles to the implementationof environmental policies. While economicgrowth and development remained “hard”strategic priorities, the Chinese leadership nowstated that future development must besustainable and “green” and that it could nolonger occur at the cost of the environment(Zhonggong Zhongyang 2015). This wastranslated into practice in 2016, when theNational Development and Reform Commission(NDRC) published a policy guideline with asystem of eco-civilization targets and “green”indicators on the bas is o f which theperformance of governments at all levelsshould be guided, monitored, and controlled.The document stipulated that economic andenvironmental indicators must be part of thesame system of key performance indicatorsused at all levels of government (GuojiaFagaiwei et al. 2016).

In addition to the eco-civilization framework,China’s central leadership introduced anadditional eco-development concept in 2013,called the “red line for ecological protection”(shengtai wenming hongxian 生态保护红线). Itwas not only an add-on to the eco-civilizationframework. Rather, it was presented as anintegral part of a more comprehensiveeconomic reform package. It focused on theneed to protect and control the use andmanagement of natural resources andecologically vulnerable areas, and to reject theexclusive priority given to economic growth,especially in areas with vulnerable ecologicalresources, in development zones, and in poorcounties. The document stipulated that balancesheets should be made for the use andconservation of natural resources. This shouldin turn be used as a benchmark for assessingthe performance of leaders in the public sector.The document introduced a new and morerigorous system of life-long responsibility byleading officials for environmental losses

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incurred under their leadership at any givenpost at any given time (Zhonggong Zhongyang2013).

In 2017, the central leadership issued a policyopinion for red line ecological protection thatmandated relevant authorities to set specificbenchmarks and standards for preventingfurther degradation of eco-resources and toreinforce implementation of environmentalpolicies (Zhonggong Zhongyang Bangongting2017). The red line policies are important sincethey have now become foundational in China’sefforts to secure the country’s eco-balance, i.e.growth should not be the overr idingdevelopment priority any more. Secondly, theneed for balancing ecological consumption withecological capacity has been accepted as abase-line principle in the general reformprogram. Finally, the stipulation regarding life-long responsibility for environmental harmswas radical. It has never been tried elsewherebefore. While it will be practically difficult tohandle, it clearly sets the frame for makingsustainability and ecological security a keyconcern for local officials across China.

The processes leading to the formulation of theeco-civilization and red-line policy frameworkshave not been entirely synchronous, but theyare mutually reinforcing. The frameworks aimto restore order and balance to China’sdistressed environment and to convince andmotivate China’s party-state organizations andtheir leaders to seriously care for the ecologicalfuture of their territory and not only focus oneconomic growth. China’s current leader, XiJinping, has emphasized that “green is gold”and that moving towards a new era of eco-civilization to build what he calls a “BeautifulChina” (Meilide Zhongguo美丽的中国) are coreelements of his “China Dream” (UNEP 2016).

While the viability of mitigating the seeminglycontradictory environmental and economicobjectives remains to be proven, China hasalready demonstrated that economic growth

and the growth of energy use and ofgreenhouse gas emissions can be decoupled(Zhang and Da 2015). Still, future economicgrowth remains predicated on increasedenergy and resource consumption for sometime to come, including both black (coal) andgreen (renewable) energies, and futureresearch will have to determine whether thededicated efforts across the Chinese economywill make it possible for China to combineeconomic growth with a clean, secure, andeconomically efficient energy system by 2050,making i t poss ib le to reduce energyconsumption below present levels, as projectedby one of China’s leading energy think tanks ina recent authoritative study (“China RenewableEnergy Outlook 2017” 2017, hereinafter: CREO2017).

China has also succeeded in decoupling othercritical environmental pressures from economicgrowth. Emissions of SO2 and NOx peaked in2006 and 2011 respectively, and some waterpollutants such as ammonia nitrogen have beendeclining since the early 2000s. In fact, most ofChina’s ecosystem services2 have seennoteworthy improvements between 2000 and2010. The only exception is habitat provisionfor biodiversity. Food production had thelargest increase (38.5%), followed by carbonsequestration (23.4%), soil retention (12.9%),flood mitigation (12.7%), sandstorm prevention(6.1%), and water retention (3.6%), whereashabitat provision decreased slightly (–3.1%)(Sugden 2016).

A recent analysis by the Development ResearchCentre of the State Council (DRC) and OECD ofChina’s environmental policy implementationefforts provided evidence that China’senvironmental policy has indeed become mores t r ingent in recent years , and thatenvironmental policy measures have increasedthe explicit or implicit cost of environmentallyharmful behavior. The analysis is based on theOECD’s Environmental Policy Stringency (EPS)proxy indicators and it shows that over the last

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15 years, Chinese environmental policy hasconverged with OECD standards much morerapidly than other emerging economies (DRCand OECD 2017, p. 21).

However, the DRC/OECD study also noted thatgiven the high rates of GDP growth in China,even relative decoupling of pollutants will likelycontinue to intensify environmental pressuresfor many years to come (DRC and OECD 2017,p. 17). Indeed, the viability of relativedecoupling as a long term approach tosustainable development is doubtful (Ward etal. 2016)

Still, the intensified national efforts to ensurepolicy compliance at the lower levels ofgovernment have put local governments underincreasing pressure to mitigate environmentaland economic growth objectives. In this study, Ie x a m i n e h o w t h e i n t e n d e d g r e e ndevelopmental turn and the impl ic i tcontradict ions between conf l ic t ingdevelopment agendas are handled throughgovernance practices in Hangzhou, the capitalof Zhejiang Province.

This study engages with an emerging, butscattered literature (J. Wu et al. 2017) on howurban governments in China are dealing withthe need to leverage the conflict between thecontinued demand for economic growth and theneed to protect the environment and restoreecological order and security. My focus is onhow these developments are tackled throughnew governance approaches and policyinstruments. I have chosen Hangzhou as a casesince the city engaged with the need for agreen transition early on (Delman, 2018). Thecity has been at the forefront of urban greendevelopment programs since the 1990es and itinvar iab ly ranks h igh on green andsustainability dimensions in comparative cityrankings (UNDP China Office 2015, G. Wang2014). The rankings reflect different aims anddifferent methodologies and are often based onincomplete or incomparable data (J. Wu et al.

2017), yet Hangzhou’s overall high score hasbeen a good reason for focusing on the city’sgreen politics at a time when the Chinesecentral state is desperate to implementsubstantial initiatives in response to thecountry’s escalating environmental crisis.

Specifically, I ask how Hangzhou’s local party-state addresses the need to restore ecologicalbalance, save on resources, and diminishpollution through eco-civilization politics, andhow the red line for ecological protection isbrought into this framework. I further inquirewhether the city’s emerging green governanceframework can leverage the potential conflictbetween green development goals and thecity’s economic growth target set at >7.5%annually for the 13the five-year plan period(2016-2020) (Hangzhou City Government 2016)to address the environmental pol icyimplementation gap. I am particularlyinterested in probing the sustainability of theinstitutions, mechanisms, and instruments thatare designed and developed to makeimplementation of green policies moreeffective. To do this, I combine results of myresearch on Hangzhou’s climate change andgreen governance since 2012 with readings ofrecent local government documents andreports. I also examine developments on someof Hangzhou’s key green indicators based onlocal statistics to determine the effects ofHangzhou’s efforts to implement greenpolicies. It is important to note, however, thatthere is no systematic reporting at the locallevel as yet on progress with regard to fulfillingthe numerous targets se t for greendevelopment. The data are fragmentary andstill mostly reported at a high level ofaggregation.

Eco-civilization as a green developmentframework in Hangzhou

Building on the governance (治理 zhili inChinese) perspective of J.A. Rhodes (Rhodes

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1996), the study examines the interplay of theauthoritarian party-state and non-state actorsin relation to the implementation of eco-civilization politics following Hangzhou's publicsector reforms during the process of itseconomic transformation. Administrativereforms in Hangzhou include growing attentionto professional management; adoption oflearning from private sector styles ofmanagement practice; market based thinkingin the public sector; emphasis on explicitstandards and measures of performance;emphasis on enhancing government efficiencythrough a shift to greater competition in thepublic sector; stress on discipline of localorganizations and their leaders; buildinggovernance networks with non-statestakeholders; and efficiency in resource use.This approach has drawn inspiration from newpublic management practices (NPM) developedin Western countries since the 1980es (cf.Rhodes 1996; Hood 1991), and the NPMapproach has been used liberally within China’sParty-state system since the 1990s (Burns andZhou 2010; K. Yang 2007), including Hangzhou(B. Wu 2017, p. 1-18).

Hangzhou’s government published its first eco-civilization plan (2010-2020) in 2011. Itstipulated 35 specific targets (Hangzhou CityGovernment 2011), divided into five broadcategories, four of them with “ecological” as aprefix: Economy, environment, residentialareas, and culture (Delman, 2018). In line withNPM principles, as elsewhere in the country(Gao 2009), these targets became keyperformance indicators (KPIs) written into theresponsibility contracts3 of local departments.4

It has been argued that China’s responsibilitycontracts with their KPIs do not alwaysenhance local government efficiency asintended (Burns and Zhou 2010; Zhu 2014).This has a lso been so with regard toenvironmental politics where there is evidencethat points to an environmental policyefficiency gap (Eaton and Kostka 2014; Kostka

et al. 2014; Zhu 2014). In response to thisdilemma, Hangzhou’s leadership has developeda package of governance instruments aimed toenforce implementation of environmentalpolitics and delivery of environmental services(Delman 2018; Guan and Delman 2017). Thebest documented example of such greenpolitics in Hangzhou is in relation to energyefficiency, which is a key national priority,where local targets and KPIs were graduallydisaggregated and differentiated according tolocal conditions and then written intoresponsibility contracts between governmentagencies and between them and localenterprises (Delman 2018; Guan and Delman2017 ) . F igure 1 shows no tewor thyimprovements in Hangzhou’s energy efficiencybetween 2006 and 2017 in terms of reductionof KwH of electricity consumed and energyconsumption in terms of standard coalequivalents used per 1,000 Yuan RMB per GDPunit respectively. This relative decoupling ofeconomic growth from use of energy has comeabout due to the use of a state-of-the-artpackage of governance instruments thatcombine command-and-control instruments(such as responsibility contracts), market basedinstruments, and a few co-governanceinstruments through publ ic -pr ivatepartnerships (Guan and Delman 2017).

However, relative decoupling of economicgrowth from use of energy does not prevent

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energy consumption from growing inHangzhou. Thus, the city’s energy consumptionwas 33% higher in 2015 as compared to 2010(Hangzhou Government Office 2016). Still, theuse of coal fell from 46.2 % of total energyconsumption in 2010 to 28.9 % in 2015 (Table1).

Table 1 Composition of energyconsumption in Hangzhou 2010 and 2015,

in %

Since the 2011 eco-civilization plan waspublished, Hangzhou’s leadership hascontinued to reinforce its approach to greendevelopment. The local People’s Congresspassed a detailed implementation guideline foreco-civilization in late 2015. Eco-civilizationinterventions were now to be among thehighest policy priorities. The guideline calledfor: a more comprehensive set of developmentindicators that could be turned into a system ofKPIs (zhibiao tixi 指标体系) to be used in localpublic sector performance reviews; completionof detailed regulations aimed at clarifying theproperty rights to natural resources and thepro tec t i on o f s t a te owned l and f o rdevelopment; development of a system forspatial planning based on ecologicalconsiderations; new policy measures regardingsystematic quantitative management andcomprehensive savings of resources,compensation for use of resources, and eco-

compensation; establishment of tradingmechanisms for the rights to use of energy, toemit CO2, to discharge pollutants, and waterrights; establishment of a system for publicmonitoring of and early warning aboutpollution and elaboration of a plan for this;establishment of a system for decision makingregarding eco-civilization construction, and thecoordination, collaboration and incentivizationto this end; and finalization of a targetresponsibility system for eco-civilizationconstruction, performance review procedures,and rewards and sanctions. Finally, the entiregovernment apparatus would have to takecollective responsibility for attaining eco-civilization goals and targets in relation to theplans under their respective authority, fordevelopment of the associated indicatorsystems, for monitoring and coordinationacross sectoral and administrative divides at alladministrative levels, and finally for affordingaccess of non-government organizations andenterprises to necessary information and socialparticipation (Hangzhou People’s Congress2016).

Furthermore, Hangzhou’s authoritiesresponded to Xi Jinping’s “Beautiful China”framework through a “Beautiful Hangzhou”plan, which incorporated the eco-civilizationframework and other relevant developmentconcepts. The plan stipulated that the keypolicy priorities and interventions must beincorporated into the city’s economic, political,cultural, and social development plans, whileemphasizing the need to meet the greentargets . This was the f i rst t ime thatenvironmental concerns and continuedambitious goals for economic growth werelinked so clearly in a local policy document.Again, the plan provides for the use of relevantplan targets as KPIs in the city’s performancereview system (Beaut i fu l Hangzhou(2013-2020) 2013).

Finally, Hangzhou’s leaders incorporated thenew ecological red line framework into the

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2015 eco-civilization guideline which stipulatedthat the city authorities must elaborate thevarious red lines for environmental protectionand assess ecological resources and supplycapacity. The responsibility for implementationand monitoring of these interventions are to bewritten into the job descriptions andresponsibility contracts of the relevantorganizations and leaders at all administrativelevels. Specific resource mapping as well asutilization and protection plans for water andland resources were to be elaborated(Hangzhou People’s Congress 2016). As anexample, the red l ine framework wassubsequently incorporated into the 2017 workplan of Hangzhou’s Environmental ProtectionBureau (EPB) as a “control mechanism”(yueshujizhi 约束机制), a fairly rigid instrumentwithin eco-protection. It entailed elaboration ofa bottom-line for environmental quality, upperlimits for utilization of resources, and anegative list for environmental accessrespectively. The red lines would also have tobe taken into consideration in environmentalimpact assessments (EIA), in the government’sinvestment promotion work, in innovation inenterprises, in the development of strategicsectors in Hangzhou, and in the intersectionbetween urban and rural developmentprograms (Hangzhou Shi Huanbao Ju 2017).

A key government official in Hangzhou pointedout that the work to define red lines forsensitive ecological areas in the city started in2008 already, and that it was decided early onthat red line indicators would become “veto”indicators5, which - if trespassed - would haveserious consequences for the responsibleofficials (cf. L. Wang 2013). When linked to theidea of life-long responsibility of individualleaders, this instrument could potentially havea significant impact on the future behavior oflocal authorities.

Whi le Hangzhou ’ s government hascontinuously ref ined its approach toimplementation of the eco-civilization

framework, the need for economic growthremains a top priority. As noted above, thecurrent annual target for GDP growth is set at7.5%, yet the 13th five-year plan covering theperiod 2015-2020 ranked improvement of theenvironment at the same level as economicgrowth and listed ten critical indicators relatedto eco-civilization interventions (Hangzhou CityGovernment 2016). While there is thus a strongpolitical intention to leverage the demands forgrowth and environmental protection, thepolicies are so new that future research willhave to determine their impact and viability.Even more, there is no local public debate inHangzhou about these policies or about theimplications of the double squeeze of the localgovernment between high growth and greenturn imperatives.

Inter-government contracting

In principle, the targets set locally forHangzhou’s eco-civilization construction thusprovide the basis for guiding, controlling, andassessing the performance of party and stateorganizations, their leaders, and their externalpartners, as well as for assessing theeffectiveness of eco-civilization interventions(Hangzhou People’s Congress 2016). But thegreen efforts of Hangzhou’s government alsohinge on its relationship to the next higherlevel in the Party-state system, ZhejiangProvince, where eco-civilization politics aremanaged by leading groups for Developing aBeautiful Zhejiang and for Eco-civilizationConstruction respectively. The 2016 contractbetween the governments of Zhejiang Provinceand Hangzhou City regarding development of aBeautiful Zhejiang incorporated eco-civilizationinterventions in Hangzhou which aligned thepriorities of Hangzhou with the environmentalpolicies and programs laid out by the provincialgovernment (Meili Zhejiang Ban 2016). Thecontract stipulated some hard constraints forHangzhou’s performance reviews eliciting

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criteria for excellence and some “veto” targets,specifically:

The leadership in Hangzhou must berated “excellent” in programs initiated bythe central government. As an example,Hangzhou’s authorities would get an“excellent” grade if they complied withna t i ona l and prov inc ia l wa termanagement regulations. It would alsoreceive top marks, if it received positivepublic satisfaction reviews for its effortsin complying with indicators for theenvironment and air pollution, andHangzhou should be ranked within thefirst seven localities in the province interms of citizen satisfaction with theenvironment. Furthermore, there shouldbe demonstrable improvement over theprevious year. Finally, there must be nomajor environmental protests withsignificant social impact.“Veto” targets were to be set forenvironment-related protests, whichcould again lead to major mass incidents.Sanctions would be meted out in case ofinability to fulfill major targets withinenergy saving, pollution, and watermanagement and pollution (MeiliZhejiang Ban 2016).

Surprisingly, there was no reference to theecological red line, although it was already partof Hangzhou’s green pol ic ies and i tsperformance review system at the time. Giventhe efforts to develop viable green developmentindicators in Hangzhou, it is also noteworthythat the contract only included a fraction of thegreen targets already elaborated byHangzhou’s authorities. Those mentionedrelated to public accountability, but socialparticipation was not mentioned as a way toenhance implementation, although thisinstrument has already become critical in theefforts of the Hangzhou leadership to ensureenvironmental policy compliance (Delman2018, 2016), as we shall see below.

New public management and socialparticipation in Hangzhou’s eco-civilization politics

Traditionally, China’s authorities have relied ona top-down and compliance-oriented policydesign, implementation, and evaluation system(J. Wu et al. 2017), but compliance remains anenduring challenge as noted earlier. WhileHangzhou’s contract with Zhejiang Provincecould indicate an uncharacteristically loose top-down approach to environmental policyimplementation, Hangzhou’s authorities haveshown significant commitment and progress inrecent years in their use of governanceinstruments that respond to the pressure fromBeijing for policy compliance in relation to eco-civilization politics.

The authorities have progressively come to relyon the NPM approach with responsibilitycontracts based on KPIs combined withperformance reviews of local party andgovernment leaders and their organizations(jixiao kaohe绩效考核) (Delman 2018).Furthermore in 2016, the city leadershipmerged two existing leadership groups for itsBeautiful Hangzhou and its Eco-civilizationConstruction programs respectively into onecommission (weiyuanhui委员会) that was maderespons ib le for both programs. TheCommission is headed by Hangzhou’s PartySecretary, the city’s de facto leader, not by theMayor (Shengtaiban 2016). Responsibilitycontracts for 2016 were signed between theCommission and departments of the city’sparty-state and lower level governments anddistricts. These contracts were itemized and allitems were allocated a maximum number ofpoints that could be attained through fullcompliance. The red line for ecologicalprotection was now introduced into thecontracts (Shengtaiban 2016), although thishad not been the case in Hangzhou’s contractwith the province see above), or in similar

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contracts within Hangzhou’s government in2015 (Delman 2018). The guidelines associatedwith the red ecological bottom-line in the 2016contracts were rudimentary, though. Theysimply stated the need to conduct research tocreate a better basis for defining the future redlines. The EBP was made responsible forcoordinating this work in collaboration withother departments (Meili Zhejiang Ban 2016).

The NPM approach also includes a resultsmanagement procedure (jixiao guanli绩效管理)to enforce compliance. Issues that have beenidentified through the performance reviewprocess in one year are put on top of thegovernment’s agenda for the next year withspecific targets which are then included asKPIs in the responsibility contracts. While theseinstruments respond well to top-down policiesand pressures, Hangzhou’s leadership hasaccentuated the need for active “socialparticipation” (shehui canyu社会参与),primarily through a comprehensive and highlysophisticated “social assessment procedure”(shehui pingjia社会评价). This instrumentinvolves a variety of assessments that solicitthe satisfaction and opinions of the public,including various organizations, experts, andcompanies on the overall performance of thecity government and the Party organizations(Delman 2018).

Social participation procedures cut across alltypes of interventions and instruments, andthey have become increasingly important inlocal green politics. They contribute toaccentuate the importance of green issues inthe performance of local departments. In thesocial assessment component of the citygovernment’s overall performance reviewreport for 2016, 17 top political priorities(wenzheng问政) that had been identified insocial assessments in previous years and werethen put into the results managementprocedures for 2016 were re-examined in asecond, more detailed survey with a sample ofpopulation of 2.000 citizens as respondents.

The survey examined citizens’ satisfaction withhow the city authorities had addressed thesetop challenges in their work. Four of theseitems were eco-civilization issues, i.e. itemsnumber 11-14 (Hangzhou Shi Kaoping Ban2017) (Table 2).

Table 2 – Satisfaction with implementationof eco-civilization related measures amongHangzhou government’s 17 top priorities(2016)

When items 11-14 are ranked according to theaverage rate of satisfaction (Table 2, column 4),waterway management comes in highestamongst the four, whereas garbage sorting isat the bottom of all with least satisfaction. The2.000 respondents were most satisfied with thecity government’s efforts to set up one-stopadministrative shops to handle citizen queriesand tasks and with improvements in quality oftelecommunications infrastructure and services(Hangzhou Shi Kaoping Ban 2017).

In Table 2 there is a discrepancy on two countsbetween the citizens’ perceptions of eco-civilization related issues in the general surveycompared to a special face-to-face survey, mostnotably in relation to garbage handling, inwhich only half as many respondents weresatisfied compared to the general survey(Hangzhou Shi Kaoping Ban 2017). During anumber of urban community visits and from my

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own experience living in Hangzhou, I found outthat many citizens are happy with the goals ofthe garbage sorting program, a top priority onthe local government agenda, but that they areunhappy with the way it was managed. In the2016 social assessment report, it was notedthat the garbage sorting program did notengage the households and that the garbagebags and containers used were inappropriatefor sorting. The report quoted critical citizensfor saying that: “Garbage sorting stops at themouth, there has been a lot of propaganda, butit does not really reach out”; and: “We havedone this for years, community citizens arealready used to use special bags for kitchengarbage, but there are not enough greengarbage containers” (Hangzhou Shi KaopingBan 2017).

Taking Hangzhou’s EPB as a pointer of the citygovernment’s ability to deal with eco-civ i l izat ion issues, there were someimprovements in its performance from 2015 to2016 in the eyes of the survey respondents. In2015, The EBP ranked second with regard tothe number of issues raised in the survey, viz.717, which amounted to 6.73% of all opinionsflagged. In 2016, the EPB was no. 10 with 420complaints, i .e. 2.57% of all opinions(Hangzhou Shi Kaoping Ban 2017).

Table 3 shows the number of participants ineach surveyed cohort within the 2016 socialassessment exercise and the distribution ofopinions across the cohorts.

Table 3 – Composi t ion of samplepopulation and their views of thegovernment of Hangzhou’s environmentalservices (2016)

17.445 people participated in the survey andthe number of opinions raised across all servicesectors (criticisms, praise and suggestions) was17.677, i.e. 1.01 per participant. 21.92 % of thesurveyed citizens participated through an on-line survey. The rest were interviewed.Ordinary citizens surveyed on-line were themost active in offering opinions (80.98% of thetotal), i.e. 3.74 opinions per participant,whereas officials in lower level governmentshad the lowest number of opinions, i.e. 0.08 perparticipant. Paradoxically, those who would beexpected to have political views on theconcerns of citizens and needs for serviceimprovements, i.e. leaders and so-called“people’s representatives” of various kinds, hadvery few opinions and suggestions.

Representatives from businesses were ratherinarticulate as well (0.32 opinions perparticipant) (Table 3). Still, the largest share ofopinions and concrete suggestions raised bycitizen and business representatives had to dowith the environment, i.e. 8.98% and 10.62%respectively (Table 4). Of course, they could

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well be contradictory, because manybusinesses are primarily concerned about thecost of enforcing ever stricter environmentalstandards.6

Table 4 – Comparative statistics drawingon different cohorts* of participants andtheir concerns (% of total cohort that hasraised the specific concern)

Local government representatives and leadersaccounted for 3.85% and 2.86% respectively,and Party representatives and representativesfrom social organizations for about 6.8% each.Representatives from people’s congresses didnot offer a single opinion (Table 4), and thusseemed to be out of synch in relation to theperception of the importance of environmentalissues with what is supposed to be theirconstituencies, i.e. citizens and businesses.

A similar social assessment report from 2014showed that city leaders amongst therespondents did not concern themselves withenvironmental issues at all. They were moreconcerned with traditional focus areas such asgood government, management of party andstate cadres, and the party’s campaign against

corruption (Delman 2018). This situation hadchanged a bit in 2016 where they expressed amodicum of views on the environment (Table4).

The level of satisfaction with governmentservices was very high in general, and therespondents in the social assessment did notseem disproportionately dissatisfied with theenvironmental situation in Hangzhou, nor didthey express disproportionate criticism. Yet,the report’s summary accorded environmentalissues a continuing top priority and emphasizedthat more efforts are needed to incentivizelocal leaders to implement green policies. Themain issues identified were air and waterquality and environmental monitoring(Hangzhou Shi Kaoping Ban 2017).

The social assessment report also emphasizedthat Hangzhou leaders must continue toimprove their policy instruments to attainbetter results. As an example, they have donethat in relation to energy efficiency alreadywhere the city leadership did not only rely oncommand-and-control instruments. Itintroduced additional market-based and, and toa lesser extent, co-governance, instruments,which demonstrably improved energy efficiencyin Hangzhou’s enterprises (cf. Fig. 1; Guan andDelman 2017).

Co-governance (gongtong zhili共同治理)t h r o u g h c o o p e r a t i o n o rinteractive/collaborative governance isfrequently mediated by new types ofintermediary agencies, so-called “third parties”(disanfang第三方). This approach involvesoverlapping and cross-cutting authorities andresponsibilities since the parties involved mustjoin hands to address a common purpose andinvest their identities and autonomy in theprocess (Guan and Delman 2017). Potentially,such an approach could leverage the traditionalinformation asymmetry between governmentdepartments and external stakeholders,including ordinary citizens. Indeed, public

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participation and outsourcing of public servicesaccentuate the need for information sharingbetween the partners who engage inenvironmental improvement projects (Delman2018) in areas such as energy efficiencyprograms (cf. Fig. 1; Guan and Delman 2017)or in green public procurement.7

Wang et al. argue that a multi-stakeholderapproach to governance has become not onlynecessary, but also possible. First of all, itaddresses the need for broad-based governanceto address tendencies towards bureaucraticfragmentation due to decentralization and theinfluence of vested interests within the localparty-state system. It has also become possibledue to a strong contemporary focus on legaland regulatory procedures. In complex politicalfields like the environment, this has becomeeven more important due to the need to findsolutions through public engagement andcollaboration with multiple stakeholders atmultiple scales across administrative andregional borders (M. Wang, Cai, and Wang2014).

The social participation procedures introducedin Hangzhou is an example of an increasinglyopen and inclusive approach to environmentalgovernance. In official political jargon it iscalled “the common environmental governancesystem comprising government, enterprisesand the public” 8 (Hangzhou Shi Huanbao Ju2017). According to the local authorities, the“people orientation” (gongmin daoxiang公民导向) of this neo-liberally inspired NPM approachis an innovation that reflects an ambition toaccentuate effectiveness, transparency, andpublic accountability in local governance(Delman 2018). It has become institutionalizedand adds important new nuances to thetraditional command-and-control approach inenvironmental governance.

The NPM system does however have itscontinuing challenges. It is not easy to meet thenumerous and often overlapping, even

contradictory targets still found in the variousplans and in the performance contracts. It isalso unclear to what extent the performancereviews affect individual careers. Furthermore,the nature of the policy agenda presupposescollaboration and coordination acrossdepartments to mitigate tendencies towardsfragmentation and intra-bureaucraticcompetition. While this is being addressedthrough the establishment of coordinatingleading groups and subsequently a commissionwith Hangzhou’s Party Secretary in charge toenable cross-depatmental leadership andcoordination, the performance reviewprocedure may stimulate competition ratherthan collaboration among local leaders, whichcould lead to renewed bureaucrat icfragmentation and less efficiency (Delman2017). Finally, public accountability does notcome without opposition. Resistance from somedepartments and local governments has beenpublicly acknowledged, and a couple of officialsinterviewed in Hangzhou indicated thatdifferences of opinion could be found about theusefulness of such a complex system (Delman2018).

The developments and results discussed heredo not provide definite answers about thepractical consequences of the new governancemeasures to mitigate the contradictionsbetween green development and economicgrowth objectives. It will take time to assesshow the performance review and resultsmanagement procedures challenge localofficials to comply with the pro-environmentalpriorities in local politics.

Does it all help?

Yet, it is important to attempt to determine ifthe approach to environmental governance inHangzhou makes the city greener. To do this,we have to rely on limited publicly availabledata that is rather fragmentary. Some of themajor indicators most relevant to this analysis

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are: energy efficiency, air pollution (number ofclear days and particle pollution), waterquality, chemical oxygen demand (COD)(Figures 1-5), and green transport (Table 5).

Fig. 1 showed that energy efficiency hasimproved considerably between 2006 and 2017in terms of relative decoupling of energyconsumption from economic growth, but otherdata have shown that overal l energyconsumption is not yet going down (Table 1).Fig. 2 shows that the number of days with goodair quality has been improving during the sameperiod. A new, stricter national standardincorporating 2.5 ppm particles was introducedin 2012. For this reason, the number of cleardays fell from 328 in 2009 to 217 in 2013, butthe figure based on the new standard is on therise again, with 306 clear days in 2016. Fig. 3reflects that particle pollution and general dustfall have also gone down during the monitoringperiod. Most importantly average ppm 2.5measured as μg/m3 air, has gone down from 70in 2013 to 48.8 in 2016. Fig. 4 shows that thegeneral quality compliance rate for surfacewater in Qiantang River, the major river inHangzhou, is improving, while the generalquality of surface water in Hangzhou is stable,but not improving more these years. Fig. 5shows that the chemical oxygen demand (COD)measured in 10.000 tons, which reflects thelevel of water pollution, has also gone down.

In sum, the data here reveal improvements onsome of the critical eco-civilization parameters.Although a causal link between Hangzhou’sgreen governance approaches and theoutcomes reflected in the figures cannot beconclusively established, I would speculate thatsuch a relationship is plausible.

However, as we have noted above, futuregrowth and increased environmental stress arestill linked, despite the general decoupling ofgrowth, energy use, and pollution. The

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transport sector is an important example ofthat. Like in any other city, transport volumes,and especially private car ownership is growingrapidly in Hangzhou. Therefore, greentransport is seen as part of the solution toHangzhou’s climate change and otherenvironmental challenges. With a bag ofdifferent policy instruments aimed atsupporting the development of green transport,the city authorities will expand public transporton ground and underground, improve taxiservices, expand Hangzhou’s iconic public bikesharing system to cover all of the city’s built upareas, and create better water transport on thecity’s rivers and canals. Together with anambitious project to curtail old pollutingvehicles and deploy new energy vehicles, bothof which instruments are heavily subsidized bythe local state, and by developing more electricpublic transport, these solutions shouldcontribute to making Hangzhou a low-carboncity (Delman 2016). However, the projections inTable 5 about future transport and theassociated carbon emissions in Hangzhou until2020 demonstrate the difficult task the cityauthorities are up to. The CO2 emissions fromtransport were estimated to be about 3.587tons per day in 2009 and will increase to anestimated 5.724 tons per day in 2020. Eventhough the city’s new extensive metro systemwill be in place by 2020 and take up a 16%share of daily transport as compared to 0% in2009, the share of non-motorized transport andelectric bicycles may decrease from 66.6% in2009 to 45% in 2020 (Bannister and Liu 2013).

Table 5 – CO2 emissions from passengertransport in Hangzhou (2009 and 2020)

Despite the challenges, Hangzhou’s leadershipis doing well on its green policies in acomparative national perspective. In late 2017and early 2018, national and provincialauthorities published a ranking of provincesand provincial cities and districts respectivelybased on their attainment of eco-civilizationtargets and green development indicatorspublished officially in 2016 (Guojia Fagaiwei etal. 2016). Hangzhou ranked no. 1 in ZhejiangProvince and Zhejiang was no. 3 in the nationalranking. Hangzhou had a score of 80.57 points(Zhejiang sheng Tongjiju et al. 2018) andZhejiang scored 82.61 points (Guojia Tongjiju2017) out of a maximum of 100 points. This wasthe f i rs t such ranking ever , and theaccompanying explanations indicated that theexercise would be repeated systematically inthe future.

Eco-civil ization: A green cure forHangzhou?

From the central level, the eco-civilization andthe ecological red line frameworks areconceived as critical top-down instruments. InHangzhou, the programs have stimulated amore comprehensive and rigorous approach togreen politics that increasingly aims atmitigating the traditional contradictionbetween economic growth and greendevelopment. New local policy approaches andinstruments are continuously being put in placein the city, which has always positioned itself atthe forefront of green development. Thepolicies are lodged in a governance frameworkthat relies heavily on the NPM paradigm,especially performance contracts withquantitative KPIs that are used as a guide forpolicy implementation and as a basis forperformance reviews. These practices arecombined with a results management

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procedure based on performance reviews witha strong focus on social assessments that aremeant to motivate local departments andofficials to address the environmental issuesidentified in social assessments.

There is no doubt that the battery of socialassessment and participation instruments areopening up for more public accountability andtransparency of government. In turn, this maywell lead to more policy compliance, althoughthere is still insufficient evidence to supportthis proposition. It could also be argued, asOscar Almén does in a recent study of socialparticipation in Hangzhou (Almén 2017), thatthe participatory reforms are primarilydesigned to improve the Party’s capacity togovern and thereby strengthen its position asthe party in power vis-à-vis the citizens. Yet, ifthe local Party wants to do so, it seems to haverealized that it must also deliver on the greenagenda, since there is a growing populardemand for green change.

Indeed, the data and analysis presented heresuggest that the increased focus onenvironmental policy implementation has led tolocal environmental improvements. But we donot have data to determine the actual impact ofpro-environment policies on the reduction ofgreenhouse gases in a situation with increasingelectricity consumption, increased automobileuse, use of coal and petroleum vs. renewables,and so forth. Still, data on energy use (Table 1)i l lustrate that an increasing share ofHangzhou’s energy is coming from cleanenergy sources, even if energy consumption inincreasing,

Until now, there is no system in place inHangzhou to ensure independent data-collection, analysis, and validation and there isno way to conclusively determine whether thelocal party-state and its leaders take theirresponsibility contracts seriously, and whichrewards and sanctions the government metesout based on the performance reviews. In their

review of the literature on energy efficiencypolitics in China, Wu et al. noted that littleattention has been paid to evaluation ofimplementation and that the effects ofperformance reviews are not discussed much inthe literature either (J. Wu et al. 2017).However, this study documents that theenvironmental policy agenda is gaining inimportance in Hangzhou and that localdepartments and officials are under heavyinternal and external pressure to satisfydemands for better environmental services.

There are some obvious deficiencies inHangzhou’s policy implementation approach.Responsibility contracts are published late;data is published selectively; and generally farfrom all relevant information is made public.While the red line for ecological protection isgradually brought into the performancemanagement system, it is done very guardedly.There is no evidence as yet that trespassing ofthe red lines will have consequences forindividual leaders.

In sum, this study reveals a long term andincreasingly focused official commitment togreen change in Hangzhou through acombination of well-known and new policyinstruments under an NPM inspiredgovernance regime. It is noteworthy that thecity authorities are actively encouragingexternal collaboration, scrutiny, and pressurethrough quasi-democratic mechanisms, such associal participation, in response to pressurefrom the central authorities, and that it helpsinform the approach to green policy making.This could contribute to a stronger sense ofp u b l i c s e c t o r r e s p o n s i b i l i t y - o r“responsiveness” (cf. Almén 2017) - towardsthe environment across a l l levels ofgovernment and in all sectors. Positivedevelopments are already evident on a numberof key eco-civilization indicators. While it is tooearly to conclude that the authorities inHangzhou have found a green cure to mitigatethe contradiction between economic growth

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and environmental priorities, the policydirection and the new governance instrumentshave demonstrated a willingness to try and apotential to stimulate environmentalimprovements. On the other hand, the cure isslow to work, and with continuing economicgrowth and increase in use of pollutingresources, the prospects for a real green turnin local development will continue to bechallenged.

A first version of this paper was presentedunder the title: “Luring the elephants back?Eco-civilization and the pressure for greenurban development in Hangzhou” in the panel:"Green Development and Ecological Civilization(GDEC) : Per formance Assessment ,Implementation Path and Decision-making", atthe Shanghai Forum, 28 May 2017.

I would like to thank Inger Helen Sørreime forher research assistance and proof reading ofthe manuscript, Yu Jianxing for hosting me atZhejiang University, Guan Ting for ourextended research collaboration, Zhang Liyanfor her research assistance, Clemens StubbeØstergaard for his informed comments on thefirst draft, and Mark Selden for his criticalreview of the paper.

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Notes1 Zhen and Shuang 2014 argue along similar lines.2 Ecosystems services are the direct and indirect contributions of ecosystems to human well-being. They support directly or indirectly the survival and quality of human life. To improveecosystems service, green politics must address issues such as: Climate regulation, waterpurification, pests and diseases, soil biodiversity, and associated cultural services (See here,accessed 19.7.2018).3 责任书 (zerenshu). Same as a (performance contract).4 The Ministry of Environmental Protection started developing this approach in 2003 to createa base for quantitative evaluation of the performance of local governments on specificenvironmental parameters, to counter the one-sided focus at local levels of government oneconomic growth. Since then, sub-national governments have been required to adapt thetargets to local conditions as they are transmitted downwards through the administrativelayers of the Party-state system through performance or responsibility contracts (Zhu 2014).5 “Targets with veto power” (yipiao foujue mubiao 一 票否决目标) are critical in theperformance review system: failure to meet these will automatically lead to serious sanctions(A. L. Wang 2013).6 Stavrapolous et al. suggest that command-and-control instruments are still dominant in

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enforcement of environmental policies and standards vis-à-vis businesses in China. Suchinstruments may be effective in reducing pollutant emissions, but they do not reflect marketdemand and they are economically inefficient due to government failure (Stavropoulos, Wall,and Xu 2018). Unfortunately, the 2016 social assessment report does not allow us to delveinto the nature of opinions raised by businesses.7 Hangzhou is actively developing its approach to green public procurement. The relevantannouncements are published on a dedicated website, accessed 18.1.2018 (Delman 2018).8 政府、企业、公众共治的环境治理体系.