ABSTRACT
The chapter explores the ways in which NGOs, including International NGOs and Chinese domestic NGOs, successfully led activism against the highly controversial Nu River hydropower dam plan in Yunnan from 2003 to 2006. The forms and operations of transnational activism were analyzed in order to understand the connectivity of domestic environmental NGOs in China to alliances, venues, and discourses. The case reveals that the “translocal” nature of the local helped them to capitalize on the commonalities of their claims and agendas with global actors and with kindred groups in other localities to create partnerships based on mutual and reciprocal collaboration. The case study demonstrates what I call “horizontal dynamics” in transnational activism based on the development of transnational solidarities and local empowerment.
This environmental activism shows not only the ways in which Chinese environmental NGOs in Yunnan, Beijing, and Sichuan cooperated and allied with the (then) State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), but also the ways in which they engaged in transnational activism, involving International Rivers as well as Thai NGOs, by capitalizing on their connectivity to foreign NGOs, international venues, and global discourses to benefit their local advocacy for dam-affected villagers.
