China’s environmental awakening has brought cleaner skies and greener industries, but the costs of decades of ecological devastation remain immense. Mao Zedong was not a farmer. Though born into a peasant family, he had little farming experience. It was political struggle that interested him. This struggle would come to define his whole life; struggle against everything he thought was holding China back from becoming the Marxist utopia it was destined to be. In 1917, as a youth, he famously wrote, "Struggle with Heaven, boundless joy! Struggle with Earth, boundless joy! Struggle with people, boundless joy!" Ignoring the views of environmental scientists and intellectuals whom he instinctively distrusted, Mao believed that the natural world had to be moulded by the will of the people, that nature had to be struggled against to create his Marxist utopia. ‘Man must conquer nature’, Mao declared. And tragedy ensued. Fragile Ecosystems The growing population of China moved into wildlife habitats, disturbing and undermining fragile ecosystems. Mao believed the more people the better to achieve his political aims. These people had to be fed, leading to over-fishing and over-hunting. Forests were cut down to provide more arable land for intensive farming as well as to fuel the steel furnaces needed for the Great Leap Forward (1958-62), the drive for rapid industrialisation, with desertification being the result. As the greatest human-created famine in history took hold of the country due to the catastrophic failures of the Great Leap Forward, with as many as 30 million people losing their lives, even more of the natural wilderness had to be destroyed for the planting of grain. With Mao’s death in 1976, the political struggle against nature ended. But there would be no relief for the natural world. In 1978, Deng Xiaoping ushered in the Reform and Opening Up Era. The planned economic model was changed to what is officially known as the ‘socialist market economy’. Peoples’ communes were abolished, agriculture decollectivized, foreign investment welcomed, and private enterprises allowed to grow. What came next has rightly been described as an ‘economic miracle’. By 2010, China had become second only to the United States in terms of GDP. It was now the manufacturing hub of the world. China had also been transformed into one of the most polluted countries on the planet. China’s rivers ran with toxins from industrial run-offs, its soil was contaminated with heavy metals that in turn contaminated the food supply, and its air was filled with particulates pumped out of its steel mills and coal-fired power stations. And the people suffered. Instances of pollution-induced cancers and lung conditions soared. Something had to be done. The Reform Era’s loosening of the grip of the planned system on the economy had completely altered the relationship between Beijing and local governments dotted around the country. Every province, every city, wanted to get rich as quickly as possible. Communist Party cadres within these local governments had a vested interest in encouraging industrial development, regardless of the environmental cost, their careers inextricably linked to their province’s GDP. More often than not these local cadres would turn a blind eye to ecological enforcement directives handed down from Beijing, central government unable to properly monitor what was happening at the local level. This had, and still has, a far-reaching consequence for the environment. Environmental Consciousness The 1990s were a watershed decade for environmental awareness in China. In 1994, the first NGO in China, the Friends of Nature, was formed by the historian and environmental activist Liang Congjie. Local people protested the industrial development that was continuing apace with no consideration given for their health or the environment. Then, in 1996, came the turning point of the 4th National Conference on Environmental Protection where, for the first time, it was acknowledged that economic development must move forward but only within the confines of environmental protection. However, it would not be until 2007, under Premier Hu Jintao, that ‘ecological civilisation’ would become an explicit goal of the Chinese Communist Party, the phrase later enshrined in the Party’s constitution in 2012 – a necessary step in a country where ideology is everything, and where the Party must always be seen to be leading from the front. Back in 1995, a young Party secretary in Fuzhou City had written about the need to constrain local industry to maintain the quality of the environment while still pushing forward with economic development. His name was Xi Jinping. In 2005, Xi Jinping put forward his ‘Two Mountains Theory’, stating that, ‘Clear Waters, Green Mountains are in fact gold mountains, silver mountains’, meaning that ecological wealth sustains economic wealth. This was nothing new. Something similar had already been promoted by Chinese environmentalists back in the 1990s. The environment took centre stage when Xi Jinping came to power in 2012. The Central Government, in its efforts to clear Beijing’s skies of smog just in time for the 2008 Olympics, had already recognised the need to monitor the provinces more rigorously, to enforce mass shutdowns of factories wherever and whenever was necessary. Xi Jinping went a step further. He made the protection of the environment a key component of his political legitimacy. Not only did he insist on the enforcement of new environmental policies and the promotion of green industries, but he was also willing to forcibly remove Party cadres who stood in his way. Moreover, Xi Jinping’s brand of ‘environmental authoritarianism’ has no time for environmental NGOs, lawyers, and protesting activists. Their voices, their points of view, have been suppressed. The Communist Party leads the people in all things. The Party dictates policy in all things. The Party’s view of history is that it has taken China from an agricultural civilisation before the revolution to an industrial civilisation under Mao Zedong, to a material civilisation under Deng Xiaoping, and finally to an ecological civilisation under Xi Jinping – and the people must never be allowed to forget it. How green then is China in 2026? Certainly, it is now considered a worldwide leader in green industries. China’s environmental authoritarianism, its prioritising of green industries and especially its ability to steer finance into that sector, has given it an advantage over Western democracies. And yet the situation on the ground is complex. Local Party cadres might now be assessed on their environmental credentials, but economic growth still remains their primary concern. Moreover, Xi Jinping has himself stressed in recent years the necessity to maintain, for instance, the conventional energy infrastructure to continue China’s drive toward modernisation. ‘Build first, destroy later,’ he said back in 2021. Coal-fired power stations, with all their accompanying pollution, are still being built. The greening of China, its building of an ecological civilisation, remains a work in progress. And the ecological destruction wrought under Mao continues to cast a very long shadow. The Scouring of the Seas In 2013, Xi Jinping gave a speech on Hainan Island urging Chinese fishermen to ‘build big boats, to go forth into the deep sea, and to catch big fish’. Chinese fishing stocks had become seriously depleted and there was a hungry nation to feed. By 2012, 30% of the fisheries in China had collapsed, with a further 20% said to be over-exploited. In 1985, China had sent out its first distant-water fishing (DWF) fleet consisting of 13 trawlers to fish the waters off West Africa. Since then, China has become the undisputed seafood superpower, landing roughly 12 million tonnes of seafood per year. China’s DWF fleet lands over 2 million tonnes per year. In 2026, no one truly knows the number of vessels in China’s DWF fleet, official Chinese figures stating only a few thousand, while more independent studies put the figure at as many as 17,000. The ownership of China’s DWF fleet is also opaque. Subsidised by the Chinese government to the tune of US$7 billion per year, the majority of fishing vessels are owned by small to medium-sized private companies, often subsidiaries of much larger organisations hidden behind complex corporate structures that do nothing to aid transparency. Many hundreds of these vessels are registered to foreign countries so as to bypass the laws of those countries that restrict fishing to domestically-owned vessels. It is not for nothing that these vessels are referred to as China’s ghost fleet. Despite the importance the oceans play in terms of food supply and economic development, it is said that 75% of the world’s oceans remain unexplored and little understood. No one knows for sure by how much fish stocks are being depleted in international waters, how much damage is being done to delicate marine ecosystems by over-fishing. China’s DWF fleet operates all over the world. Wherever it has gone it has attracted accusations of illegal fishing and environmental vandalism, especially with its use of indiscriminate ‘bottom trawling’ where the seabed is raked over, disrupting fish spawning grounds and the catching of many unwanted fish – fish ultimately to be dumped overboard. There was a worldwide outcry back in 2020 when Ecuador raised the alarm about a Chinese DWF fleet consisting of 260 vessels stationed just outside the 188-mile fishing exclusion zone around the Galapagos Islands. The islands are a UNESCO Heritage site and home to many diverse species, including one of the world’s greatest concentrations of sharks. The islands were made famous by Charles Darwin who visited in 1835, and where he collected specimens that provided crucial evidence for his theory of natural selection. Though the Chinese DWF fleet was just outside of the exclusion zone, Ecuador accused it of intercepting migrating fish as they moved back and forth from the waters about the islands and thereby ruining efforts at conservation. China consistently places at number one on the index of Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing. It has been alleged that 8 out of the top 10 companies involved in illegal fishing are Chinese. Vessels in the Chinese DWF fleet regularly turn off tracking devices. There have also been numerous allegations of the use of slave labour on the Chinese DWF fleet, many thousands of fishermen forced to work brutal hours, trapped on the fishing vessels by the withholding of their wages and the confiscation of their passports, and with limited access to medical care. It should be noted that, despite the enactment of antislavery laws in the US and the EU, both continue to unashamedly purchase seafood from the Chinese DWF fleet. In response to the Galapagos Islands incident, China stated that it would thereafter restrict its DWF fleets operations in certain areas. It has also launched a policy of ‘developing sustainable distant-water fisheries’, whatever that might mean in practice, and has capped the DWF fleet catch at 2.3 million tonnes. It has also begun to promote green aquaculture technologies to meet environmental concerns, the majority of fish now caught for the Chinese domestic market sourced from aquaculture, amounting to 60 million tonnes in 2024. But China’s DWF fleet remains a constant in the news – and for all the wrong reasons. China may well be on its way to becoming an ‘ecological civilisation’ but its scouring of the seas continues. The Scouring of the Seas In 2013, Xi Jinping gave a speech on Hainan Island urging Chinese fishermen to ‘build big boats, to go forth into the deep sea, and to catch big fish’. Chinese fishing stocks had become seriously depleted and there was a hungry nation to feed. By 2012, 30% of the fisheries in China had collapsed, with a further 20% said to be over-exploited. In 1985, China had sent out its first distant-water fishing (DWF) fleet consisting of 13 trawlers to fish the waters off West Africa. Since then, China has become the undisputed seafood superpower, landing roughly 12 million tonnes of seafood per year. China’s DWF fleet lands over 2 million tonnes per year. In 2026, no one truly knows the number of vessels in China’s DWF fleet, official Chinese figures stating only a few thousand, while more independent studies put the figure at as many as 17,000. The ownership of China’s DWF fleet is also opaque. Subsidised by the Chinese government to the tune of US$7 billion per year, the majority of fishing vessels are owned by small to medium-sized private companies, often subsidiaries of much larger organisations hidden behind complex corporate structures that do nothing to aid transparency. Many hundreds of these vessels are registered to foreign countries so as to bypass the laws of those countries that restrict fishing to domestically-owned vessels. It is not for nothing that these vessels are referred to as China’s ghost fleet. Despite the importance the oceans play in terms of food supply and economic development, it is said that 75% of the world’s oceans remain unexplored and little understood. No one knows for sure by how much fish stocks are being depleted in international waters, how much damage is being done to delicate marine ecosystems by over-fishing. China’s DWF fleet operates all over the world. Wherever it has gone it has attracted accusations of illegal fishing and environmental vandalism, especially with its use of indiscriminate ‘bottom trawling’ where the seabed is raked over, disrupting fish spawning grounds and the catching of many unwanted fish – fish ultimately to be dumped overboard. There was a worldwide outcry back in 2020 when Ecuador raised the alarm about a Chinese DWF fleet consisting of 260 vessels stationed just outside the 188-mile fishing exclusion zone around the Galapagos Islands. The islands are a UNESCO Heritage site and home to many diverse species, including one of the world’s greatest concentrations of sharks. The islands were made famous by Charles Darwin who visited in 1835, and where he collected specimens that provided crucial evidence for his theory of natural selection. Though the Chinese DWF fleet was just outside of the exclusion zone, Ecuador accused it of intercepting migrating fish as they moved back and forth from the waters about the islands and thereby ruining efforts at conservation. China consistently places at number one on the index of Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing. It has been alleged that 8 out of the top 10 companies involved in illegal fishing are Chinese. Vessels in the Chinese DWF fleet regularly turn off tracking devices. There have also been numerous allegations of the use of slave labour on the Chinese DWF fleet, many thousands of fishermen forced to work brutal hours, trapped on the fishing vessels by the withholding of their wages and the confiscation of their passports, and with limited access to medical care. It should be noted that, despite the enactment of antislavery laws in the US and the EU, both continue to unashamedly purchase seafood from the Chinese DWF fleet. In response to the Galapagos Islands incident, China stated that it would thereafter restrict its DWF fleets operations in certain areas. It has also launched a policy of ‘developing sustainable distant-water fisheries’, whatever that might mean in practice, and has capped the DWF fleet catch at 2.3 million tonnes. It has also begun to promote green aquaculture technologies to meet environmental concerns, the majority of fish now caught for the Chinese domestic market sourced from aquaculture, amounting to 60 million tonnes in 2024. But China’s DWF fleet remains a constant in the news – and for all the wrong reasons. China may well be on its way to becoming an ‘ecological civilisation’ but its scouring of the seas continues. The Great Green Gamble Regardless of the damage done to the environment under the leadership of Mao Zedong, increasing desertification has been a historical problem in the north of China. Dust storms are common, often battering Beijing. In 1978, China decided to implement the Three-North Shelter Forest Program, aimed at slowing desertification by planting of billions of trees at the margins of the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts. Expected to be completed by 2050, and referred to colloquially as the ‘Great Green Wall’, it was hoped that the planting of the trees would reduce windspeed, stabilise loose soil, and prevent rapid loss of moisture. It is one of the greatest environmental projects in human history. The question is whether it is working. The answer is not so simple. Politics lie at the heart of everything in China. Deng Xiaoping was a great advocate of tree-planting. In 1981, at his suggestion, March 12 was declared Arbor Day, or Tree-Planting Day. The law stipulated that every man from the ages 11 to 60, and every woman from the ages of 11 to 55, were required to plant three to five trees per year. These days, most people in China are unaware of this legal duty, but many still participate as a way of expressing their concern for the environment. It is estimated that in the last four decades, 400 million people have involved themselves in tree planting, with an extraordinary 70 billion trees planted all across China. Political campaigns may be eye-catching, and there is no doubt that China is much greener because of all the tree-planting, but such a heavy-handed and simplistic approach to what is a complex ecological problem has not necessarily been the success Chinese authorities have made it out to be. Across China, soil erosion has worsened in recent decades, desertification has increased, and there is much debate over whether dust storms have grown in frequency or not. Tree species such as poplar, aspen, red pine, and locust, have been selected for their speed of growth. However, monoculture, the planting of a single tree species in an area, leaves those trees very vulnerable to disease and, unlike natural forests, provide a poor habitat for wildlife. Furthermore, species such as poplar and aspen have deep roots which deplete underground water sources, thereby leading to more desertification and often irreparable damage to the ecosystem. It might be argued that the nationwide afforestation campaign has been more politically than ecologically successful. It is not all bad news, however. Though the jury might well be out on whether afforestation is actually slowing down desertification in the north of China, ecologists have now begun to realise that complex ecological problems do require complex solutions. And a recently published study by the late Caltech planetary scientist Yuk L. Yung has confirmed that the newly afforested areas surrounding the Taklamakan desert have created a visible and measurable ‘carbon sink’. The Great Green Wall might well one day provide a model for human-led climate change mitigation after all. (The writer is a novelist and retired investigator with an abiding passion for crime fiction and Chinese history. He is the creator of the Magistrate Zhu mysteries. Views personal.)
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