Changing community relations in southeast China: the role of Guanxi in rural environmental governance

Abstract

Rapid urbanization in China has been accompanied by increasingly serious environmental problems in rural areas, and government initiatives to control pollutions have not been successful, particularly with livestock farming pollution. One of the main causes is misunderstanding the changing influence of local Guanxi networks. Based on a case study in Southeast China, it is argued that the traditional Guanxi between villagers have fractured; the old, relatively unitary community has been replaced by different interest groups mainly formed around pig farming, with the pig farming household having stronger and more diverse Guanxi than others. The traditional mutual-help networks no longer have the ability to regulate disreputable behaviors, but exist in a way that tends to support and legitimates newer self-interested and financially-oriented networks, meaning that the ordinary villagers are increasingly caught up in condoning the poor environmental practices of the wealthy pig farmers. The paper concludes by arguing that, like their gifting and social capital counterparts in other countries, successful Guanxi are based on levels of mutuality that are increasingly rare, even in remote rural communities. This means that rather than providing a regulatory check on poor behaviors and practices, traditional Guanxi relationships have the potential to underpin and exacerbate them.