China’s Ecological Civilization

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After hundreds of years of technological revolution and rapid economic advancement, humanity has reached a moment of crisis in its relationship with nature. Many of the approaches endorsed such as sustainable development (SD), the planetary boundaries (PB), ESG (Environmental, social, and governance) have different strengths, but they cannot really address the complexity and multifaceted aspects of human development and human-nature relationship. When the time comes to 2022, while we have got a list of sustainable things to do, we are further plagued with human conflict, unresolved pandemics, climate change, poverty, and inequality. With China’s rapid economic growth, poverty alleviation, and mounting environmental issues for decades, China started to propose the concept of Ecological Civilization (EC) which insinuates an imperative shift of way of thinking. The concept acts as a coherent and holistic conceptual framework for adjustments to development the country that meets 21st century challenges. It is increasingly realized that EC, underpinned by the traditional Chinese philosophy - harmony between man and nature, differs from many other sustainable development concepts in the emphasis placed on political and cultural factors, as well as on defining new relationships between people and nature that would permit living well, and within the environmental bounds of planet Earth. EC thinking should not be confined to the territorial state of China, but a gift to humanity. This podcast profiles and documents the language and characteristics of China’s ecological civilization and its implication to all aspects of the harmonious human-human and human-nature relationship. read less
Society & CultureSociety & Culture
Examining China’s Influence in the World Health Organization (WHO) - A Conversation with Dr. Jeremy Youde
17-01-2022
Examining China’s Influence in the World Health Organization (WHO) - A Conversation with Dr. Jeremy Youde
This is a reproduction of the interview between Bonnie S. Glaser and Dr. Dr. Jeremy Youde entitled “Examining China's Influence in the World Health Organization: A Conversation with Dr. Jeremy Youde” dated April 21st, 2020. For the source of this information, please follow this link: https://www.podbean.com/site/EpisodeDownload/DIR8AA8D38CPTX2 Even with great attempts to link the answers to the presenter’s own belief by asking leading questions to presumed answers, or pretexting questions with implicative phrases that are intended to elicit negative opinions/information about China, Dr. Jeremy Youde (Fellow/Senior Lecturer Department of International Relations, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs ANU College of Asia & the Pacific) answered these questions gracefully, truthfully and courageously. J.F. Kennedy has said, “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived, and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion with the discomfort of thought." Ironically in the ‘fake news’ ‘post-truth era, deception is truly commonplace, from the illicit to the so-called intellectuals, who really are the primary sources of disinformation – an “elite-driven, mass-media led process” and fundamentally controls what the people listen to. Let us be always on guard of the people who speak “to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”