Governance of Biodiversity Conservation in China And Taiwan

2000s, has even less authority to issue binding orders to the ministries or
provinces. Yet, the status of ministries and administrations is in flux, and
changes in power at the apex of the system influence bureaucratic politics
decisively. One of our respondents made these observations on the status of
SEPA as compared to other units:

‘It depends on what you compare it to. Definitely, it (SEPA) is weaker than

economics and finance ministries. But it certainly is not toothless when compared

to the Ministry of Agriculture. The most important factor is the new national

leadership. Wen Jiabao and Hu Jintao give more attention to environmental

agencies. Wen Jiabao formerly supervised the agriculture related-ministries when

he was vice premier.’^4

Thus, notwithstanding the institutional weakness of SEPA and SFA, the
primary agencies of China in biodiversity conservation, their influence may be
bolstered by changes in political coalitions and new leadership.
The devolution of decision making authority and finance to the provinces,
municipalities, and counties after the onset of economic reforms vastly
complicated bureaucratic politics. In Chapters 4–6 we pointed out the
difficulty that central government environmental protection authorities have
had in supervising the implementation of biodiversity policy, particularly
when it conflicted with economic development objectives of local govern-
ments. The difficulty has a source in the structural characteristics of bureau-
cratic government under conditions of rapid decentralization. As Saich notes,
the structure is ‘highly-fragmented, making consensus-building central’, and
produces these consequences:

‘First, problems tend to get pushed up the system to where supra-bureaucratic

bodies can coordinate response and have sufficient leverage to bring together the

different parties. Second, the fragmentation of authority means that at each stage of

the decision-making process strenuous efforts have to be made to maintain a basic

consensus to move forward. Third, for a policy to be successful, it needs the

concerted support of one or more top leaders.’^5

Thus, while it was relatively easy for the regime to adopt Agenda 21 and the
new concept of sustainable development, it has been far more difficult to
revise and implement carefully, through a host of provincial and local
governments, legislation such as the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
Act of 2003 and the Wild Animal Conservation Act of 1988. One of our
respondents saw two sources to administrative problems:

‘First is economic development and an awareness of differences in economic

interests. Different levels of government have different interests; but our

government structure is unitary, and it assumes that everyone will share the same

interest. This is delusion of thought ... The state does compromise, but decision

194 Governance of biodiversity conservation in China and Taiwan