Thirteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

Environmental policy diffusion/transfer led by China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is, as incorporated in the CCP constitution, guided by the ideology of ‘ecological civilization.’ Does the myth of ‘ecological civilization’ and its policy application reflect the ‘corridor economies’’ policy process? What do coalitional dynamics of BRI’s transnational advocacy networks imply about the influence of the myth on inter-regional policy convergence/divergence? This research first delves into the metaphilosophical foundations for the myth of BRI’s ‘ecological civilization’ and its structural functionalist compatibility with liberal environmentalism in global governance. Then, it examines policy process of recipient economies’ BRI policy implementation by 1) providing semantic analysis of domestic/global public attitudes towards the concept of ‘ecological civilization’ 2) case studying how well BRI’s as well as Green Climate Fund(GCF)’s agendas reflect domestic/global public opinion on regional environmental standards enhancement. This research argues that BRI’s ‘ecological civilization’ is not structurally functional global governance discourse mainly because, compared to liberal environmentalism, 1)it is poorly legitimatized during the recipient economies’ policy process 2) the top-down nature of the coalitional dynamics of BRI’s transnational advocacy networks reveals that BRI-led policy diffusion is more of coercion than socio-cultural construction.