ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND THE GREEN SECTOR IN CHINA: LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND BILATERAL BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

The present work aims at providing an overarching review of the legal framework relating to the environmental protection in the People’s Republic of China, in order to evaluate its development pattern, its critical points and their implications for the development of bilateral institutional and business relations. The analysis of the legal framework on the national level is complemented with its declinations on the local level, taking Human Province as a case of study, because of its particularly serious environmental current conditions and the measures implemented by the government for pollution remediation and prevention, which include a strong institutional activism, with the establishing of relations with several international institutional and private players, amongst which the Italian Marche Region is probably the most relevant. The mostly analysed sectors by this work are the prevention and remediation of soil and air pollution, as they probably represent the most sensitive domains for current and future environment protection policies. The legal framework analysis is supported by a historical perspective of its development over time, as well as by the analysis of the current political context, which highlights the possible trajectories for improvements and represents the framework in which Europe-China future bilateral relations are likely to take place. An academic approach on legal research has thus been backed up by an extensive review of consulting and professional works, in particular by the reconstruction of Loccioni and Zoomlion cases of study and their business development strategies respectively towards China’s and Italy’s green sectors. The practical implications by the present work are to be found in the support which it aims at providing to strategic management, with particular focus on international business development processes by European small and medium enterprises within the green sector in China. The present work aims also at providing a support for institutional policy making, whereas international relations -and markedly decentralized relations- can be a decisive background for win-win and sustainable bilateral international relations between Europe and China firms.