Reforms Lay Foundation for Green Growth
China shows how modernity can be embraced by recognizing we must do so in harmony with nature.
Erik Solheim
Erik Solheim is a Norwegian diplomat and former politician, former under-secretary-general of the United Nations and executive director of UN Environment. Solheim was appointed as Norwegian minister of International Development in 2005.Two years later, he additionally became the minister of the Environment. Solheim was chair of the OECD Development Assistance Committee in Paris (2013—2016).
The rise of China is, with the end of the Cold War, arguably the most important change that has taken place in the world in the past 50 years. Global relations, the strategic balance and the flow of goods and people have fundamentally shifted, and this shift is still playing out in front of our eyes.
The source of this shift dates to meetings in Beijing in December 1978. Many of my Chinese friends say they still remember where they were when this change took place — they knew it was a shift that heralded a new China. But nobody could anticipate the magnitude of the changes to come.
In the years that followed, no nation has brought more people out of poverty at such a fast rate. Indeed, half of the global poverty reduction took place in China alone. Per capita GDP in 1978 was just $156. Today it’s 50 times higher.
Deng Xiaoping’s role was central to this unparalleled change.He had learned from previous failures, and was experimental in nature, ready to try new ideas and was open to innovation, yet also grounded in pragmatism and singularly focused on the goal of China’s growth.
Deng did not lead by micro-management; he focused on the bigger picture in setting a new agenda for China. He sought to inspire learning of “seeking truth from facts”, and appointed key leaders to implement his vision while galvanizing popular support.
I first visited China in 1984, when the reforms were only just beginning to take root. There were no private cars and hardly any buildings that could be described as skyscrapers. Shenzhen had barely been established, and there was no Pudong in Shanghai.
In some villages, the first two-story buildings were appearing,and the owners were very proud. Businesses of those years were a far cry from the high-tech sectors of today. I remember a friend from Shanghai getting a new car, and the neighbors turned out in droves to look at the miracle machine. Professors were selling vegetables in the street to benefit from the market reforms.(https://www.daowen.com)
There was no high-speed rail and only one metro line in Beijing.
To reflect on Deng is therefore to reflect on dramatic changes:new skylines, metro networks in dozens of cities, or 70 percent of the world’s high-speed rail. Simply put, the China of today is unrecognizable.
The reforms started in agriculture, and not in industry as many now believe. In a pilot project, Wan Li, the then Party chief of Anhui, allowed private farming in some villages, and then at a provincial level. Compared to the collective farming system,production skyrocketed. Based on this success, reform was taken to all of China. That’s still a powerful lesson for many nations today — experiment, learn, reform.
Deng’s readiness to learn was critical. He was not afraid to admit that China was behind advanced parts of the world, replacing habitual chest-beating of so many leaders with an almost studious drive to analyze and take new ideas on board. He was unafraid of the outside world, having moved to France as a teenager and traveled to Singapore, Japan and the United States. This exposure bred a pragmatic attitude of learning, not copying, and taking examples and transforming them to the Chinese context.
This was followed up by what was an early embrace of a globalized world. Millions of students, business people and others went abroad to learn, bringing back the same kind of can-do worldview that cemented the foundations of China’s growth.
There was a focus on productivity and economic development,with education a central pillar. Special economic zones like Shenzhen were pioneered — the city itself still stands today as a symbol of this successful policy, having transformed from a fishing village to a modern, green metropolis of 13 million. Today a very different China will develop Xiongan as a model city as Beijing’s neighbor, with an emphasis on quality more than speed.Of course what did suffer was the environment, because breakneck growth — most of it fueled by coal and other fossil fuels— was not without the fallout of dwindling air quality, shocking levels of pollution and accompanying health impacts.
But China has shown that it can tackle this in the same spirit with the view that no challenge is too big. Deng’s leadership underpinned what we see today — a modern, outward-looking nation eager to learn from the success and failures of others, and examine itself critically. It’s a nation that combines innovation and ambition to solve the seemingly impossible, to think big and succeed.
That’s why, today, the sky is clearing up over Beijing, and China is now emerging as a green economic leader, paving the way in the shift to renewables, energy efficiency, green transportation and green buildings.
Without the staggering changes brought about by Deng, there likely would not be the ambition to build an “ecological civilization”, a beautiful China and the notion that green is gold.President Xi Jinping has the same ability to give the direction and set out policies in a way that energizes people and propels transformative change.
China also shows, in taking a leading role on the Paris Agreement, that science and knowledge are still the greatest resource.
It’s a powerful example for the rest of the world too, in that the ultimate prize — even after unprecedented growth and wealth creation — is a clean, green and low-carbon economy. It’s about embracing modernity but recognizing we must do so in harmony with nature.