China’s Economic and Environmental Challenges

China’s economic development repeatedly hits the headlines, as ‘China’s explosive economic growth seems not just challenging, but terrifying. China, apparently, is set to sweep all before it’ (Hutton 2007: 329). The World Fair Exposition being hosted in Shanghai in 2010, the economic equivalent of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, will highlight China’s image as an economic heavyweight. Economic and environmental statistics feature heavily in this section, but it is the underlying trends, patterns, relationships, implications and consequences for the coming century that are the most important features to take account of. Mutual challenges lie between China’s supercharged ‘superpower economy’ (Tkacik 2007b) and the world. China and the world are looked at in turn vis-à-vis the other. China’s economic drive has become the central component of its foreign policy: ‘China’s foreign policy has largely been driven by immediate needs — access to economic markets and energy resources’ (Wolfe 2005). This will take us to the energy politics and general environmental issues coming into play between China and the world.