Green China

Green China
David Antonio Gómez Arreola
Universidad del Valle de México
Administración Contemporánea
November 18, 2012
María Morales

Abstract

China is a nation that has transformed its economic landscape to become a highly industrious nation. China is now a leading economy in the world, and has also taken leadership in the fight to curb the effects of climate change. China along withthe United States, are undergoing projects to use their educated human capital to produce new and innovative solutions to the environmental concerns brought by the modern world.

Introduction

China is currently one of the most economic relevant nations in the world. It is a nation that plays an increasingly important role in all aspects of a globalized world. Following The Great Leap Forward,the nation has effectively transformed its economic landscape and developed into a highly industrious nation. China not only has increased its economic output, but it has now also become a key player in the fight to curb the effects of climate change.

China’s Transformational Power

China has seen many important economic changes in the past century. The Great Leap Forward, a social andeconomic campaigned launched by communist party, saw to turn much of China’s agrarian population into an industrious workforce. In Footnotes, the official organ of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Rawski (2011) writes “Following Japan’s surrender and the conclusion of the ensuing civil war, leaders of the newly established People’s Republic of China faced a poisonous cocktail of runawayinflation, budget deficits, and widespread reluctance to hold currency or bank deposits. These difficulties were quickly resolved despite the added complication of China’s October 1950 entry into the Korean War. Buoyed by this initial success, China’s new leaders redirected their economic efforts toward growth. Their actions reflected the widespread mistrust of private enterprise and international marketscommon among low-income nations at the time. China’s alliance with the Soviet Union and confrontation with the U.S. strengthened the tilt toward planning, public enterprise, and isolation from global markets. The design of China’s economic plans followed Soviet example (as did India’s): concentrate resources in industries that can ramp up domestic capacity to expand industrial investment. As inthe USSR, raising output of “machines to produce machines” became the key goal. This trajectory called for large-scale expansion of steel, electricity, mining, machine-building, and related industries, along with a supportive educational and research infrastructure. Planners viewed higher consumption as a cost—essential (in small quantities) to preserve incentives—rather than a policyobjective.” China saw further changed in its economy following the death of Mao Zedong. On the subject, Rawski (2011) writes “The death of Mao Zedong in 1976 was widely seen as a turning point for economic policy. People were not satisfied. Despite important economic achievements in growth, industrialization, technology (including nuclear weapons and space exploration), and human development (rising literacy,declining infant mortality, control of infectious diseases), China’s socialist system had fallen short in two key dimensions. The commune system failed to solve China’s food problem: as one local leader put it “hunger suddenly emerged without warning [in 1959] … For the next twenty years, the problem of hunger was part of our lives.”

Towards A Cleaner Future

Changes in the direction theChinese economy has taken has meant that this now fully industrialized nation has become a source of concern in environmental matters. In modern times, China has become an effective participant in the global fight to reduce the global environmental footprint. On the subject, Wesser (2011) writes “China and the United States share many strategic energy interests, Energy Under Secretary Johnson...