As international community today has become more dependent on the interdependence between countries due to rapid advances in globalization, there has been a growing need to cope with environmental problems and resource depletion cooperatively.
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As international community today has become more dependent on the interdependence between countries due to rapid advances in globalization, there has been a growing need to cope with environmental problems and resource depletion cooperatively.
Along with the need for international cooperation in dealing with environmental problems, there has arisen a move to tighten controls on environmental pollution mostly in advanced countries.
While traditional tariff barriers such as WTO and FTA are increasingly on the decline or lifted owing to trade liberalization, non-tariff barriers proposed by industrialized countries are exerting an increasingly significant influence in the form of Technical Barrier and Green Barrier.
The aim of environment regulation is to make sustainable growth possible by saving resources and conserving environment. The relationship between trade and environment should not be that of the mutual confrontation but cooperative one, contributing to sustainable growth of human society. However, considering a wasteful use of resources and damage to environment in practice, it is certain that harmony between environment and economic growth is hard to achieve.
China has achieved a dramatic economic growth and emerged as the second largest economic power in the world through its domestic economic reform in 1978 and foreign open-door policy. Especially, China entered the system of world economy by joining WTO in December, 2001. Even under the U.S. financial crisis of 2008, it continued to grow to become a member country of G2 and the biggest holder of foreign currencies in the world.
However, China is now facing a lot of environmental problems due to severe environmental pollution and irrational exploitation of natural resources, along with its rapid economic growth. Especially, as many advanced countries got to regulate environment, China got damaged a lot, struggling to take measures.
From the start, China noticed that environmental regulations by advanced countries were used as a tool to hamper sovereignty and economic growth of developing countries, and viewed new forms of trade barriers of developed countries as a means to strengthen their political and economic status.
However, in recent years, it has been argued that China has to acknowledge the reality of strengthened international environmental regulations and improve its industrial structure in order to achieve sustainable growth.
Former studies mostly regarded environmental pollutions as Chinese domestic problems, since China prioritized economic growth and profits as a strategy for national development.
However, since its joining WTO in 2001, China has undergone changes in environmental policy because of changes in trade structure caused ny environmental barriers. Moreover, changes in environmental policy has not been limited only to domestic China. Rather, they have tended to lead to environmental foreign policy.
These changes of awareness on environment and trade by Chinese government are seen as strategies of foreign environmental policy. In fact, China has made sturdy and rigid export and import restrictions in recent years.
Including international environmental regulations in national aims, Chinese government is now trying to turn into a politically and environmentally advanced country, as well as an economic power.
This study starts from questions on how China recognizes environmental regulations in international trade, and analyzes how it responds to international environmental regulations.
This study suggests that there is a large frame called international system in Chinese global environmental policy, in addition to "government" as a major agent of the making of policies and corporations as the targets of policies.
It is about time for China, which is now in need of reflecting international environmental awareness and domestic desire for economic growth, to slow down the pace of economic growth and put forward policies for environmental protection and improvement.
Within this frame, Chinese government is trying to make or revise official policies regarding environment, participate in international environmental restrictions, and at the same time make its voice heard in international system by way of environmental diplomacy.
Conclusively, international trade conditions have significantly improved, but enforced environmental regulations of international community are a big barrier against China's international trade and economy. International community today applies global standards to every area.
Chinese government is expected to make new strategies and policies and reset the targets and identity of the nation within the large frame of global regime and governance of international environmental cooperation.