China Goes Green: A new book by Yifei Li and Judith Shapiro

Today, we’re talking about a new book, China Goes Green, by Judith Shapiro and Yifei Li.

The book explores the promise and drawbacks of Chinese environmental governance in light of the urgency of climate change and other issues. It examines Chinese environmental governance through examination of specific cases of environmental programs such as the war on air pollution, waste sorting, tree planting campaigns, dam building, the best and road, and overall energy and environmental planning.

Judith Shapiro is Director of the Masters in Natural Resources and Sustainable Development for the School of International Service at American University and Chair of the Global Environmental Politics program. She was one of the first Americans to live in China after U.S.-China relations were normalized in 1979, and taught English at the Hunan Teachers’ College in Changsha, China. Professor Shapiro’s research and teaching focus on global environmental politics and policy, the environmental politics of Asia, and Chinese politics under Mao. She is the author, co-author or editor of nine books including including China’s Environmental Challenges (Polity 2016), Mao’s War against Nature (Cambridge University Press 2001). Dr. Shapiro earned her Ph.D. from American University’s School of International Service. She holds an M.A. in Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and another M.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Illinois, Urbana. Her B.A. from Princeton University is in Anthropology and East Asian Studies.

Our second guest is Yifei Li. Yifei Li is Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at NYU Shanghai and Global Network Assistant Professor at NYU. In the 2020-2021 academic year, he is also Residential Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich. His recent work appears in Current Sociology, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Environmental Sociology, and the Journal of Environmental Management. He received his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Bachelor’s from Fudan University.

Further reading:

https://www.amazon.com/China-Goes-Green-Coercive-Environmentalism/dp/1509543120/

https://chinadialogue.net/en/cities/as-china-goes-green-should-the-world-celebrate-its-model/