Source: Journal of Contemporary Asia | Published: 2026-05-21
Category: 아시아 정치경제 | Keywords: china, governance, policy, transition
China's approach to climate governance has emerged as one of the most consequential policy questions of the early twenty-first century. As the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases and simultaneously its largest installer of renewable energy capacity, China occupies a paradoxical and pivotal position in global efforts to manage the climate crisis. The stakes extend far beyond its own borders: decisions made in Beijing about the pace of coal phase-out, the architecture of carbon markets, and the terms under which green technology is deployed internationally will shape the trajectory of global warming for decades. Against this backdrop, the growing scholarly attention to the internal dynamics of China's climate governance — particularly the interplay between state authority, market mechanisms, and institutional transition — offers critical analytical traction for understanding how one of history's most complex energy transformations is actually being managed.
The central tension in China's climate policy landscape involves reconciling the ambitions of a developmental state with the demands of an ecological transition. China's leadership has articulated increasingly bold commitments — most notably the dual carbon goals announced in 2020, which target peak carbon emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060 — yet the mechanisms for achieving these targets remain deeply contested and unevenly implemented. Scholarly work in this area has rightly emphasized that Chinese climate governance cannot be understood simply as a top-down command from the center. Instead, it operates through a layered and often fragmented system in which central mandates interact with provincial-level implementation capacity, local economic interests, and sectoral inertia from state-owned enterprises in heavy industry and energy. The governance challenge is therefore not merely technical — it is deeply political, involving the management of distributional conflicts between regions, industries, and social groups that stand to gain or lose from different pathways of decarbonization.
Market mechanisms have become an increasingly prominent feature of China's climate governance architecture, and their development reveals much about the broader character of China's political economy. The launch of the national Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in 2021, initially covering the power sector, represented a significant institutional milestone. However, analysts have noted that the ETS has faced persistent challenges related to data integrity, price volatility, and the limited incentive structures facing state-owned utilities that are simultaneously expected to maintain energy security and reduce emissions. The turn to market instruments reflects a broader ideological shift in Chinese economic governance toward what might be called "ecological modernization" — the attempt to harness price signals and financial innovation in service of environmental goals without fundamentally disrupting the state's commanding role in strategic sectors. This is not merely a technical adjustment; it represents a reconceptualization of the relationship between planning and markets in a socialist market economy under ecological constraint. The extent to which carbon pricing can actually drive behavior change in a system where state ownership blunts market incentives remains an open and empirically important question.
The governance of China's green transition also carries significant implications for development finance and ODA dynamics globally. China has positioned itself as a major provider of climate-related development finance through the Belt and Road Initiative and affiliated multilateral institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The pivot away from overseas coal financing — formalized in Xi Jinping's 2021 UN General Assembly pledge — reflects both genuine normative shifts and strategic recalibration in response to growing reputational costs. Yet the terms under which China deploys green infrastructure financing remain poorly understood and frequently contested by recipient governments and civil society actors. The governance norms embedded in Chinese development finance — with respect to environmental assessment, community consultation, and transparency — differ substantially from those promoted by DAC donors and multilateral development banks, creating a complex and competitive landscape for global green finance governance. Understanding how China's domestic climate governance institutions evolve will be essential for anticipating the norms it exports through its international financing activities.
Looking forward, the analytical questions raised by China's climate policy transition are likely to intensify in significance. The pace at which structural reforms in energy, industry, and finance can be synchronized with ecological targets will determine whether China's dual carbon goals remain credible commitments or aspirational benchmarks progressively eroded by growth imperatives. For practitioners working in international climate negotiations, development finance, or civil society engagement with China, the key insight is that China's climate governance is neither monolithic nor static. It is shaped by bureaucratic competition, regional heterogeneity, and evolving ideological frameworks that do not map neatly onto either Western liberal governance models or older stereotypes of Chinese state capacity. Researchers and policymakers alike would benefit from sustained attention to the micro-level institutional dynamics — the specific rules, incentives, and actors — that determine how climate ambition is translated into, or deflected from, real-world emissions outcomes. The Journal of Contemporary Asia's engagement with these themes reflects the field's recognition that Asian political economies are not simply objects of climate diplomacy but active architects of the governance frameworks that will define our collective ecological future.