In The China Environment Yearbook, Volume 5 | ISBN: 9789004183025

China's environmental challenges are so severe and so central to the manner in which China will “rise” that it is no exaggeration to say that they lie at the heart of China's identity and the government's ability to provide for the Chinese people. Indeed, the government's legitimacy is at stake as it tries to achieve contradictory aims: It must provide an improvement in material living standards for a country whose hinterlands are still des…