Chapter 13 Reflections on Developmentalism

On May 6, 2003, Pan Yue's name appeared in the new round of personnel appointment and dismissal lists announced by the central government.He was dismissed as deputy director of the State Council's Restructuring Office and appointed as deputy director of the State Environmental Protection Administration.The State Environmental Protection Administration is another key department in the country's economic construction. China's emphasis on environmental protection in recent years has attracted worldwide attention, and the international community has raised environmental protection to the same level as economic construction.After arriving at the State Environmental Protection Administration, Pan Yue focused his reflection on GDP, blaming the root cause of China's environmental problems on the one-sided pursuit of GDP and the developmentalist thinking mode.

China, which experienced thousands of years of vicissitudes, began to truly pursue the realization of modernization in the second half of the 20th century. However, for a period of time, the view of development first, one-sided emphasis on achieving the same affluence and prosperity as the United States and Europe, dominated the guiding ideology. Gained a certain advantage.The extremeization of this demand has formed a developmentalist ideology with Chinese characteristics. "Developmentalism" and "development" are two different concepts."Development" in the general sense refers to the improvement of the level of material production and the improvement of the quality of life, which is a legitimate requirement of human society and the goal of China's reform and opening up.The so-called "developmentalism" refers to a concept that originated in the specific institutional environment of Western Europe and North America, and gradually became popular after the 1960s. The promise of modernization, modernization, etc. has had an extremely far-reaching impact on the vast "third world", including the widening gap between the rich and the poor, the deterioration of the ecological environment, and so on.After the end of the Cold War, developmentalism has evolved into a global trend.This trend simply reduces "development" to economic growth, and economic growth simply equates to an increase in GDP or per capita income.While promising everyone a "better life" in the future, developmentalism breeds an unbalanced economic structure and an unreasonable exchange and distribution system, and at the same time seriously damages the environment where resources are dwindling. very fragile ecosystem.

The focus of Pan Yue's article on China's modernization is the reflection on developmentalism.On the basis of rethinking the growth mode of the traditional industrial economy, he tried to explore a new growth mode of the ecological industrial economy.Pan Yue emphasized the need to strengthen the central government's authority and macro-control capabilities, and to shift the economic chain to western China and accelerate the development of the central and western regions.At the same time, pay attention to the development of circular economy, and obtain maximum economic and environmental benefits at minimum cost. "The government must have the ability of 'green control', from the pursuit of simple economic growth to the pursuit of coordinated development of economy, society and environment, and expand the concept of environmental culture from simple natural environmental protection to education, technology, business operations and waste disposal, etc. Among many links. Through many means such as environmental education, environmental legislation, environmental taxation, environmental labeling, environmental auditing, green national economic accounting system, strategic environmental impact assessment (especially the system for environmental impact assessment of major government policies), so that The chain of green control starts from the planning and design link to the end point of waste recycling, to achieve the goal of complete material and energy recycling." (See Pan Yue's "Environmental Culture and National Rejuvenation").