Shizhi is a researcher working on the UKRI EPSRC funded project “Pluralizing the just transition: Building principles and practices of just transitions in China” (PLURALIZE) led by PI Dr Linda Westman.
The PLURALIZE project explores environmental politics in China through critical perspectives on transitions, addressing the urgent need to confront global ecological challenges while ensuring social justice. Focusing on the concept of 'just transitions,' the project aims to integrate justice and wellbeing into climate policies to protect vulnerable communities from the adverse effects of environmental reforms. Given China's central role in global environmental governance, PLURALIZE examines how just transitions can be implemented in urban China. By combining philosophical principles, historical analysis, policy evaluation, and investment flows, the project reimagines environmental justice and seeks to develop a new policy framework to support equitable transitions in the context of geopolitical transformation.
Shizhi has been focussing on developing theories of ‘environmental justice’ based on traditional Chinese philosophy and history. As mainstream theories and understandings of this concept are often rooted in the experiences of Europe and North America, they may not fully resonate with the environmental movements and just transitions in contemporary China. By examining traditional Chinese philosophies—including Confucianism, Mohism, Taoism, Legalism, and later Buddhism from early historical periods—the research explores how ‘environmental justice’ is reflected in these philosophies and how it was practiced throughout Chinese history. In doing so, the project aims to enrich theoretical and philosophical discussions on environmental justice, while also establishing a framework to analyse China’s environmental practices in later stages.
At the RGS, Shizhi attended the session on “Environmental Justice and Ecological Governance” which aimed to explore both theoretical and empirical discussions on environmental justice and ecological governance on a global scale. Ecological and environmental issues have emerged as critical topics of concern worldwide, with environmental justice becoming a key perspective for understanding these challenges. However, environmental justice and ecological governance in the Global South remain understudied and underrepresented. Therefore, the panel aimed to foster dialogue between studies on various topics and focal areas related to environmental justice and ecological governance.
In my presentation I summarised how by reviewing the classical canons of Confucianism and Legalism from the pre-Qin period, our research reveals that these two Chinese philosophies, along with their historical-political contexts, provide a robust conceptual foundation for developing principles of ‘environmental justice’ distinct from those in the anglophone literature. Both philosophies demonstrate that the understanding and practice of ‘environmental justice’ are deeply embedded in their unique conceptions of socio-political structure and their interpretations of nature and the environment.
Dr Shizhi Zhang