Shengtai Wenming
Part 2: Four Pillars, Eight Beams - The governance architecture of ecological civilization
Last week, we ended with a simple but significant observation. Ecological civilization is no longer a slogan in China. It has been written into both Party and State constitutions. That matters. When a concept enters those two pillars of power, it becomes orientation rather than campaign. This week, we move from language and elevation to structure. What does this vision actually look like in policy, planning, and industrial strategy?
China is governed through two very tightly intertwined pillars, the party and the state. When something is present in both, it becomes a long-term civilizational orientation, not a temporary policy initiative. The party and the government become co-responsible for it. So for instance, there is a book entitled ”Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization Textbook”, published by the Central Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of China and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People’s Republic of China.
A couple of years ago, in 2023, an important white paper was published, “Ecological Civilization: Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth”. It was issued under the banner of institutions that are exploring Xi Jinping’s ecological thought. It is a hefty document, about eighty-five pages, written by policy experts in dense policy language. But it is quite remarkable and lays out a very coherent vision.
The paper declares a shift from the old model of “advance first and clean up later” to something new. The old model has reached its limits, it claims, so China has to change course and move toward something that restores, repairs, and regenerates.
The diagnosis is clear. Rapid industrialization delivered extraordinary gains but at huge and systemic ecological costs. (It’s worth mentioning that social and human costs are not really discussed in these official papers). Those of us who carry a more holistic view of sustainability will no doubt react at this omission.
The white paper uses a metaphor to describe the governance architecture. It talks of four pillars and eight beams that are meant to support the new system. The four pillars include things like: property rights systems for natural resources (to clarify ownership and responsibility for land, water and forests); ecological red line systems (to mark critical ecological zones, biodiversity hot spots and watersheds that must be protected); spatial planning and land control; and performance evaluation and accountability for officials.
At provincial and regional levels they are working hard to find suitable alternative metrics, while we in the West remain stuck in a GDP only metric. They are at least trying, in domestic policy, to move beyond that.
The eight policy beams are also interesting, especially if you are a policy wonk. They include total resource management and conservation systems, compensation and pricing systems, horizontal fiscal transfers between provinces to internalize ecological costs, environmental law, monitoring and early warning systems, public participation, institutional reforms and so on. And of course, a lot of science and technology, research into clean energy, modelling, green innovation.
Taken together, these are a coherent and well-structured body of work that tackles the question of how to take the world’s largest economy into another operating system. It is not only an ecological project. It is very much an industrial and geopolitical project as well. Since China is a manufacturing and trading nation, and has been for centuries, the market opportunities in green technologies were identified early. Ten or fifteen years ago industrial policy shifted the economy towards solar panels, batteries, electric mobility, and the whole supply chain of renewable energy systems. As we read almost daily now, China has ended up dominating many parts of that ecosystem, from patents and products to access to raw materials.
The white paper also roots this shift in traditional Chinese culture. Zhou Tao has a slide on this, describing how Chinese culture is often seen as a blend of three key strands: Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism.
Daoism speaks a lot about harmony between humans and nature, humans and the universe. Confucianism focuses more on harmony among humans, how we arrange our affairs, and speaks of benevolence, righteousness, integrity. Buddhism connects more to what you might discuss under inner development, the inner work. In a way, these three strands are all present in the body of work called ecological civilization.
The white paper uses traditional concepts like harmony, balance, relationality, the unity of humans and nature. It evokes the idea of harmony rippling through these three traditions.
At the same time, this body of thought is firmly rooted in the ideological framework of Chinese socialism. It is closely connected to “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”, a very long phrase that is the overarching ideological guideline today. And “Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization” sits within this.
Alongside the cult of Xi, the party is placed at the center of everything. On page three or five of the white paper, it says very clearly that it is the party that will lead China into ecological civilization. Is this written there because it must be written, or because the authors genuinely believe it? Who knows.
The text also draws on Marxist language about exploitation, long term planning, and so on. I do not remember that much Marx from university and what I remember was decidedly modernist and not very green, but it’s worth mentioning that there is a new green Marxism emerging today. For instance, a few weeks ago a Japanese philosopher, Kohei Saito, spoke in Stockholm on green Marxism. However, as I understand it, this is not the same as the Marxist thread inside China’s ecological civilization narrative.
Does China want to export this vision? The white paper says something about taking this idea out into the world, it frames ecological civilization as a possible Chinese contribution to global sustainability, and it talks about partnerships, standards and capacity building. The primary focus seems to be on their neighbors and their large markets in the global south, and ecological civilization is increasingly present in the Belt and Road discourse.
So this is the architecture. A dense web of doctrine, metrics, culture, and industrial ambition, all pointing toward what is described as a new operating system. But what does this mean beyond China? And what questions does it raise for those of us watching from elsewhere? Next week, in Part 3, we widen the lens.