ABSTRACT
This chapter sets out the conceptual framework of this book by exploring China's policy style, approaches, and framework from both historical and developing perspectives. It identifies the influence of the classic Confucian principle of “rule by the wise” on China's consistent authoritarian style policies throughout the Chinese history. It also demonstrates how the administrative and market approaches were applied to climate-related policies in China. In particular, it explores the ongoing relevance of the fragmented authoritarianism framework as a means of analysing such policies from their design to implementation, and proposes an extended version of this framework to incorporate other actors beyond the government. In doing so, this chapter prepares the ground for later chapters to analyse China's climate-related energy actors, and their roles in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and the Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction Scheme (ECERS).
