Evaluating Government's Environmental Performance: Evidence from China

While China has achieved miraculous economic growth over the past 30 years, this process are accompanied with numerous environmental problems, which result in substantial economic losses, social conflict, and rising health costs in China. How do the Chinese assess their government’s environmental performance? Based on the survey data of the 2003 and 2010 CGSS data, this article provides an empirical analysis of government’s environmental performance in the first decade of 21^st century China. The main results of analysis are as follows: (1) Compared to other countries, 39.56% of the respondents argue that their government has done too little; while 6.17% of the respondents think that their central government has done too much. (2) Environmental performance whether in central government or local government become even worse in 2010 than in 2003 CGSS data. (3) As for central government’s environmental performance, rural respondents give more positive evaluation than urban respondents. However, urban respondents give local government a higher environmental performance score than rural respondents. (4) Multivariate analysis of government’s performance in environmental protection indicates that education is the strongest factor in while negative relationship with the central government’s environmental performance. These results suggest that government’s environmental performance in China today are a mixed system, in which objective environmental problems and resident’s subject perception and social characteristics coexist to determine how the Chinese evaluate their government’s environmental performance.