Introduction

In the Chinese municipality of Liuzhou, in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in the southwest of China, approximately 80,000 tons of sulphur dioxide are discharged into the atmosphere annually. Liuzhou is now one of China’s leading sources of acid rain, and industry is largely to blame. The scale and severity of environmental problems in China now threaten the economic and social foundations of its modernization. Rapid economic growth in the world’s most populous nation is leading to widespread soil erosion, desertification, deforestation and the depletion of vital natural resources. It is now widely recognized that over the past decade the Chinese government has made considerable progress in integrating environmental concerns into development policy-making. The national environmental regulatory framework is impressive relative to China’s stage of development. A focus upon environmental capacity building as the key condition for understanding donor effectiveness is a complex task.