| Facing many important problems of unsustainability for human being’s civilization and asereies of headaches such as the shortage of resources, limited energy and large population,which prevent China from achieving its sustainable development, the question that how couldhuman civilization develop continuously made the author keep to concern, think and discuss formany years. This thesis focues on two purposes. One is to provide theoretical support for thepopularity of environmental politics so as to help the the political settlement of the ecologicalproblems in China by extending the research scope of environmental politics and the study itfrom its "root". Another is to argue the environment political tradition for the sustainabledevelopment of the Chinese civilization, revealing the internal relationships and interactionbetween environment and politics and pointing out the practical value that the traditionalenvironmental politics for for the sustainable development of Chinese civilization.This thesis is based on the theoretical knowledge and methodological principles ofenvironmental politics and modern politics. The object is to study the formation anddevelopment of the Chinese traditional environmental politics from the Xia and ShangDynasities to the Late Qing Dynasty and the early stage of the Republic of China with thehighlights of the emergence and development of the traditional environmental politics, theideological basis of the traditional environmental politics, the principles and mechanisms forthe running of the traditional environmental politics, the environmental regulations and laws ofthe traditional society, the historical significance of the traditional environmental politics andthe contemporary value of it.The major research and conclusions are as below:First, the author made a summary of the concept of the environment politics, and apreliminary definition of “traditional environmental politics”.(1) Environmental politics is akind of ecological, social relation based on specific environmental and socio-economicrelationships and their interest relationships. In this relationship, the members of the societyrecognize and protect their environmental political rights and realize their ecological intereststhrough public power. Environmental and political development is to be guided by greentechnology, taking ecological and sustainable economy as the center, with the achievement ofenvironmental and political rights and the realization of the ecological benefits as the purpose,the change of political system, political thinking and political values as the way, to realize theco-prosperity of political civilization and ecological civilization.(2) Environmental politics as adiscipline takes environmental politics as the study object. It reveals the rules and trends of itsemergence, development and evolution. It belongs to political science.(3) In this essay, theso-called "traditional environmental politics" refers to a kind of relationship formed inrecognizing and dealing with the relationship between human beings and nature in the field of politics in China before1912. It mainly studies the pertinence between environmental andpolitical relations, analyzes the environment change caused by the political response as thefundamental point in order to reveal the essence of the distribution of environmental politicalpower, and the content and the rules for changing environment political behavior andenvironmental political thoughts.Second, the author tried to use the research methods of the Maxist political science as theroot and mainly used cross research methods of environmental politics to make a systematicstudy on the traditional environmental politics in China, and constructed a basic analyticalframework, which includes traditional environmental political thoughts and principles,environmental political system, behavior and development. What’s more, the author alsosummarized the characteristics of traditional environmental politics, revealed the rules andtrends of its development, affirmed its positive significance and contemporary value, and finallypointed out its historical limitations.Third, the author analyzed and concluded the basic thoughts related to environmental politicsof four schools of thoughts, Confucianism, Daoism, Buddism and Leaglism etc., and analyzedthe rules of communication, confrontation and combination among them. The author alsoanalyzed the characteristics of different nature, content and methods showed by environmentalpolitics and pointed out that the pluralism and accommodation are the guiding principles of thetraditional environmental politics. and the basic patterns and trends for the development ofthese schools of thoughts are self-adaptation and innovative development.Fourth, one of the important innovations of this paper is to analyze the running principlesand mechanism of the traditional political environment, by consulting different social andpolitical ideologies. The traditional social and political ideology of China is far different fromthe West. From the Xia Dynasty established in the21st century BC until1912when the newdemocratic constitution started in China, the traditional society is ruled by different dynastiesfor a long time. Such a long duration of dynastic politics is rare in the world. Based on the factof dynastic political ruling, we believe that the first principle of the traditional environmentpolitics is the "kingship". While, baed on the actual condition of the ecological field, the levelof economic and social development, the cognition of heaven and mankind, the rulerproposed and implemented some unique governance principles including constructing cities andtowns and planing districts and villages, adapting the shape of mountains and rivers, servinggovernance in line with time, constraining develop in with the changing rhythm of seasons,equity and justice, average and saving, creating the system civilization of protecting theecological environment and promoting the construction of environment political system and theimplement of environment political behaviors.Fifth, the frequent and mass natural disasters, especially the flood and droughts of largerivers stimulated the political wisdom of the ancestors to respond to environmental issues. Aseries of policies and measures like the establishment and the long-term adherence of Yu Hengmechanism, the great importance that Government attached to water conservancy projects andthe ongoing practices, planting trees based on local conditions, care for life and saving resources not only promoted the release of the tension between man and nature, but alsoincreased the awareness of environmental protection, nourished the ecological virtues. Therespond by the system to the contradiction between people and land, people and water forthousands of years provided us with valuable experiences and lessons to understand and graspthe evolution of the law and its institutional change of important environmental issues.The experience from the history taught us that any ideological principle and system that isreasonable and advanced in its time can be an important political resource. Such resources, ifbeing properly developed, would be able to properly take care the interests of the differentclasses and groups, help resolve social conflicts, change negative factors into positive, andfinally achieve social balance and protect social productive forces.Today, the achievements of China’s social development are remarkable, while theenvironmental challenge is also unprecedented. In order to promote the harmony andsustainable development of China that integrated herself into the world and the world thataccomodated China, we need a wisdom of self-adaptation and innovative development, and amind to seek the campatibility and balance of diverse values. To achieve the balance amongdifferent values is to promote the integration and transformation of them. The nature of such abalance is to define a more proper standard, which is also the ultimate pursue for this thesis toextend the research scope of environmental politics based on the study Chinese tradition. |
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