Chinese Local Governments to be Held Responsible for Their Local Environment: New Law, Old Problems

Local governments in China have been frequently blamed for the deteriorating environmental conditions due to their failure to implement and enforce national environmental laws. To improve local governments' environmental performance, the recently amended Environmental Protection Law provides a comprehensive responsibility system to hold local officials accountable. However, the underlying reasons behind local governments' failures, as the author argues, are much more complicated than they may appear. While variables like motivation, incentives and capacity are widely recognised as key factors in successful implementation of the new law, the transparency, accuracy and rigidity of legal provisions are equally important. When the new law is ambiguous and fails to explicitly delegate responsibilities, local leaders become confused about their environmental responsibilities and may act improperly to cheat the accountability system. All of these variables must be understood in the current context of central–local relations which informs local governments' identity, decision-making process and law implementation.