4. The Chinese State, the Perceived Environmental Crisis, and the Mixed Paradigm for Diffusing Non-Hydro Renewable Energy

In terms of its current state of economic development, China appears to be a robust entity that will continue to grow in the future. Looking back over its short history of economic reform, the country has made swift progress in economic growth in only three decades, moving from an underdeveloped state to becoming the world’s second-largest economy. Its gross domestic product (GDP) has risen at an unprecedented rate, to the extent that many commentators have described the phenomenon (either with positive or negative connotations) as a Miracle, the China Model, or Resilient Authoritarianism, in response to its seemingly unique mode of development (e.g. Gilley 2003; Lin et al. 2003; Zhao 2010; Nathan 2003, 2013; Teets 2013, 2014). The increasing presence of this vocabulary in the literature reflects the fact that initially there was a misunderstanding in predictions about the regime in China, in which an unexpected economic and political phenomenon was encountered. These predictions were rooted in an implicit assumption that the governing system would eventually end, be replaced, or be normalised in the wake of democratisation and capitalist globalisation. However, at least until today, certain eschatological expectations for this regime have not yet been realised, and as many have reluctantly found, the regime of the Chinese Communist Party has not failed thus far but has been bolstered by its deliberate manipulation of state capacity, influencing the world through its neighbouring countries as well as the global community, although internally there is a vulnerability in relation to the stability of the regime (Mertha 2010; Li 2012).