Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences (2019) 9:151–158

https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-018-0526-1

Understanding China’s environmental challenges:

lessons from documentaries
John Chung-En Liu 1 & Huijing Huang 1 & Jingyi Ma 1

Published online: 3 November 2018

# AESS 2018

Abstract
Films can be powerful tools in teaching environmental studies. In this paper, we examined 36 environmental documentaries on
China for their content, theme, production, and reception with a view towards using them as teaching tools. In our analysis, the
films roughly fall into five categories: (1) globalization and global environmental justice, (2) urbanization and displacement, (3)
human-nature relationships, (4) the fossil fuel economy, and finally, (5) civil society and the environmental movement. We also
discuss the politics of documentary-making in China. Many of the independent filmmakers identify as activists and present
alternative perspectives to mainstream narratives. They strive to document the realities among the marginalized populations.
Close to half of the documentaries we analyzed are censored in China due to either foreign production, collective action potential,
or excessive popularity. Despite political constraints, high-profile environmental documentaries have enabled a number of
significant policy changes in China in recent years. In sum, this paper can serve as a Bviewing guide^ for students and instructors
to learn about China’s environmental challenges through films.

Keywords China . Ecocinema . Environmental film . Environmentalism . Environmental movement

In 2013, tens of thousands of dead pigs floated on the
Huangpu River in Shanghai, causing panic among the
Chinese public. In 2015, a chemical storage warehouse ex-
ploded in Tianjin, resulting in 173 deaths. In the end of
2016, many airports and highways were forced to shut down
due to severe smog, threatening social stability and public
health. As both an educator and students, we seek to make
sense of these issues in a seminar course at our institution. As
compelling as these headlines are, the issues that underlie
them can seem quite distant to students unfamiliar with
China. Even for students from China, some of the topics can
be difficult to understand because most only have experience
of their hometowns. We envision that using more visual ma-
terials, and documentary films, in particular, could be an ef-
fective way to enhance the learning experience.
Scholars from various disciplines have shown that environ-
mental films can have significant impacts in raising awareness
and even changing behaviors (Leiserowitz 2004; Nolan 2010;
* John Chung-En Liu
chungenliu@oxy.edu
1
Department of Sociology, Occidental College, 1600 Campus Road,
Los Angeles, CA 90041, USA
Jacobsen 2011; Janpol and Dilts 2016). In this journal,
Hempel (2015: 237) notes that environmental films can be
powerful teaching tools, which Bwhen watched collectively,
as in class, films can provoke immediate shared reactions.
They enable learning communities to integrate intellectual
and visceral (emotional) forms of engagement.^ The same
article also calls for reviews on environmental films.
However, environmental documentaries focused on China
are difficult to find due to censorship and limited distribution.
In this paper, we aim to provide a comprehensive list of envi-
ronmental documentaries on China with a view towards using
them as teaching tools. This is not a traditional Bfilm review^
paper. Rather, it serves as a Bviewing guide^ for anyone who
wants to learn about China’s environmental issues through
film, or for instructors who want to use these films as re-
sources for teaching.
In recent years, China’s eco-cinema (Lu and Mi 2009; Chu
2017) and independent documentaries (Robinson 2013;
Edwards 2015) have gotten sizeable attention in the humani-
ties. For example, Cui (2017) focuses on Under the Dome to
illustrate how a multimedia documentary can achieve virality;
Wang (2017) portrays director Wang Jiuliang as an example of
a Bsocially-engaged artist^; Shaw and Zhang (2017) demon-
strate that China’s queer filmmakers use new media technol-
ogy to advance LGBTQ rights.
152
Building on this body of work, we examined thirty-six envi-
ronmental documentaries on China for their content, theme, pro-
duction, and reception. To select the films for our study, we
searched the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), Chinese film re-
view sites such as Douban, and various relevant Internet re-
sources. Due to the non-commercial nature of documentaries,
we have to contact the distributors and even the directors them-
selves on a few occasions to gathering the study materials. To
define what counts as an Benvironmental^ documentary, we used
loose criteria to include any film that touches upon the human-
nature relationship, whether physical or ideological. We com-
piled the title, production year, length, director, rating, censorship
status, and availability of English subtitles in Table 1. After com-
piling the list, we watched all the available films from September
to December 2017. During our viewing, we took extensive notes
and identified the teachable moments in each film.
It is worth noting that we did not exclude documentaries based
on whether they are produced by Bindependent^ directors or not.
In our collection, three—Green China, The Last Mountain God,
and The End of the Wild—are produced by China Central
Television (CCTV). Two—Mystery Monkeys of Shangri-La and
China’s Grim Future—are made by Public Broadcasting Service
(PBS). The majority of the rest roughly fall into the Bindependent^
film category. Seven out of the 36 films are produced by non-
Chinese directors. In addition, the popularity of these films varies
significantly. Some are obscure productions little known by the
Chinese public. On the other hand, Chai Jing’s Under the Dome is
undoubtedly the most watched, possibly followed by Wang
Jiuliang’s Plastic China and Beijing Besieged by Waste. Outside
of China, Up the Yangtze and Manufactured Landscape attracted
sizeable attention, and China’s Unnatural Disaster and Warriors of
Qiugang earned Academy Award Best Documentary nominations
in 2009 and 2010, respectively.
We choose to leave out commercial films with environmental
themes, such as Kekexili or Postman in the Mountain, for two
reasons. First, the large number of commercial films in this area
should be a project of its own and thus beyond the scope of this
paper. Secondly, documentary films offer a more realistic, and
often critical, perspective on social issues. They are more suitable
for students in environmental studies to learn about the reality
around China’s environment.
The paper will proceed as the following. We first summarize
how these films portray various dimensions of China’s environ-
mental challenges. We then discuss the politics of documentary-
making in China. Finally, we conclude with some thoughts on
how these films can be used as resources for learning about
China’s environment.
Environmental documentaries in China
The films we collected roughly fall into five categories: (1)
globalization and global environmental justice, (2)
J Environ Stud Sci (2019) 9:151–158
urbanization and displacement, (3) human-nature relation-
ships, (4) the fossil fuel economy, and finally, (5) civil society
and the environmental movement. These are not perfect cate-
gories. Some films may fit in multiple categories; others are
difficult to classify. Nevertheless, we use this typology to help
readers navigate the differences and distinctions of these
films.
Globalization and global environmental justice
The first group of films situates China’s environmental chal-
lenges in the global context. They portray China’s environ-
mental ills, at least partially, as a result of rich countries’
outsourcing of environmental problems, often accomplished
by shifting production. Manufactured Landscape illustrates
the scale of China’s industrial revolution to become the Bworld
factory^ through stunning cinematography of workers in the
industrial park, massive production lines, Three Gorges
Dams, urban renewals sites, etc. There is very little verbal
commentary in the film; rather, it invites viewers to contem-
plate our lifestyle based on excessive consumption. Two other
films, Death by Design and China’s Grim Future, offer more
direct and critical narratives. Death by Design reveals the
health and environmental costs associated with the electronics
industry. The film argues that the USA solved local environ-
mental issues partially by moving manufacturing jobs to
China, but now, the pollution is traveling back to the USA.
Similarly, China’s Grim Future, while portraying serious en-
vironmental disasters in China, also points out that China’s
excessive carbon emissions are due partly to the consumptive
lifestyle of Americans. All of these films highlight pollution’s
global context.
Besides outsourced dirty manufacturing, the films portray
the export of wastes to China and other developing countries
by rich countries as another source of environmental injustice.
In Plastic China, director Wang Jiuliang takes a close look at
the communities that depend on plastic waste recycling
through the eyes of an 11-year-old girl whose family depends
on a household plastic recycling workshop in rural China.
Heavy Metal and Living with Shame show thousands of mi-
grant workers using their hands to dismantle metal waste
products from developed countries such as Japan, Australia,
and the USA. The water used to rinse the waste is recycled by
the workers for bathing and growing vegetables. These films
powerfully contrast the poor living conditions of these waste
workers with the privileged lives of westerners that produce
the waste.
China is not just the recipient of pollutions, but the driver of
environmental problems elsewhere as well. Illegal wildlife
trade is a salient example. End of the Wild, a Chinese
Central TV (CCTV) production, connects poaching in
Kenya with rising consumer demand in China and other parts
of Asia, where ivory is considered a luxury good and
J Environ Stud Sci (2019) 9:151–158 153

Table 1 Summary of China’s Environmental Documentaries

Film title Year Length Director/publisher IMDb Censored English

(min) rating subtitle

Death by Design 2016 73 Sue Williams 7.0 No Yes

Green China (绿色中国) 2016 86 CCTV (中央电视台) N/A No No
Plastic China (塑料王国) 2016 82 Wang Jiuliang (王久良) 7.8 Yes Yes
The Ivory Game 2016 112 Kief Davidson and Richard Ladkani 7.9 No Yes
Wandering Village (废城记) 2015 61 Zeng Qian(曾茜) N/A No No
Behemoth (悲兮魔獸) 2015 95 Zhao Liang (赵亮) 7.6 Yes Yes
Mystery Monkeys of Shangri-La (云上的家庭) 2015 54 Xi Zhinong (奚志农) Public Broadcasting 8.1 Yes Yes
Service (PBS)
The Chinese Mayor (大同) 2015 89 Zhou Hao (周浩) 7.6 Yes Yes
The Road (大路朝天) 2015 95 Zhang Zanbo (张赞波) 7.7 No Yes
Under the Dome (穹顶之下) 2015 104 Chai Jing (柴静) 8.1 Yes Yes
Planting for Life (种植人生) 2014 75 GuXiaogang (顾晓刚) / Shanghai Documentary N/A No No
Channel (上海纪实卫视)
The End of the Wild (野性的终结) 2014 93 CCTV (中央电视台) N/A No No
Whisper of Minqin (风沙线上) 2013 54 Wen-Ming Wang (王文明) N/A No Yes
A Clear Sky (晴朗的天空) 2012 72 HarhuuHarhuu (哈乐夫) N/A No No
Beijing Besieged by Waste (垃圾围城) 2012 86 Wang Jiuliang (王久良) 7.5 Yes No
Land of Black Gold (遍地乌金) 2011 142 Li Xiaofeng (黎小锋) and Jia Kai (贾恺) N/A No Yes
To the Light (煤路) 2011 69 Liu Yuanchen (刘元辰) 8.2 Yes Yes
Waking the Green Tiger (唤醒绿色虎) 2011 78 Gary Marcuse 7.7 Yes Yes
Gas (瓦斯) 2010 136 Lin Xin (林鑫) N/A Yes No
The Warriors of Qiugang (仇岗卫士) 2010 39 Yang Ziye (杨紫烨) 7.4 Yes Yes
China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan 2009 38 Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill 7.5 Yes Yes
Province (劫后天府泪纵横)
Coal Money (煤钱) 2009 53 Wang Bing (王兵) 6.7 Yes No
Heavy Metal (呼啸的金属) 2009 50 JinHuaqing (金华青) N/A Yes Yes
What’s for Dinner? (何以为食) 2009 29 Jian Yi (简艺) N/A No No
A Journal of Crude Oil (采油日记) 2008 840 Wang Bing (王兵) 7.2 No Yes
Flood (大水) 2008 90 Dong Jun (董钧) N/A No Yes
Ancient Species (红谷子) 2007 86 Lin Zhizhan (林稚沾) N/A No Yes
Family on Sky Lake (天湖人家) 2007 52 Hu Pinglin (胡林平) N/A No No
Living with Shame (瓦全) 2007 27 JinHuaqing (金华青) N/A No Yes
Up the Yangtze (沿江而上) 2007 62 Yung Chang 7.5 No Yes
Useless (無用) 2007 84 JiaZhangke (贾樟柯) 6.7 No No
Manufactured Landscapes (人造风景) 2006 86 Jennifer Baichwal 7.3 No Yes
Before the Flood (淹没) 2005 150 Li Yifan (李一凡) and Yan Yu (鄢雨) 7.2 No No
China’s Grim Future 2004 56 Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) N/A Yes Yes
Voice of Angry River (怒江之声) 2004 34 Shi Lihong (史立红) N/A Yes No
The Last Mountain God (最后的山神) 1992 40 Sun Zengtian (孙增田) / CCTV (中央电视台) N/A No No

rhinoceros’ horns deemed a precious medicinal material. In an
attempt at celebrity activism, the camera follows basketball
superstar Yao Ming as he learns how local volunteers protect
wildlife from being poached (Jeffreys 2016). The campaign
appeals to consumers with the slogan: BWhen the buying
stops, the killing can, too.^ The American documentary film
The Ivory Game covers the same subject but with a more
thrilling cinematic representation. The film uniquely features
an undercover Chinese investigative journalist, Huang
Hongxiang, who later is hailed as the BChinese James
Bond^ on China’s Internet.
Urbanization and displacement
China’s rapid urbanization in recent years is a popular subject
for Chinese filmmakers. In 1990, only about a quarter of the
Chinese population lived in cities. By 2017, that figure is close
to 60 %. Of all the films, The Chinese Mayor is probably the
154
most dramatic narrative documenting the massive transforma-
tion that many Chinese cities have undergone or are undergo-
ing. The film follows GengYanbo, the mayor of Datong city in
Shanxi, during his term in office as he tries to transform
Datong into a Bcultural^ city. Roughly half a million residents,
or 30% of the city’s population, were relocated due to the
project. Such a campaign is bound to be controversial, but
the documentary tries to approach the issue through multiple
perspectives, including those of citizens, relocated house-
holds, and government officials. The Chinese Mayor also of-
fers a rare glimpse into the everyday life of a Chinese official
to Western audiences. The film crew followed mayor Geng up
close in meetings where he scolded subordinates, or, in many
scenes, when citizens petitioned in front of him. The film ends
with Geng’s abrupt departure from his post. When he was
about to leave Datong, hundreds of citizens held banners
and marched in the streets, hoping that he could stay.
On a smaller scale, The Road documents a provincial high-
way construction project in Hunan Province. The director,
Zhang Zanbo, went undercover for 3 years to document the
conflicts among stakeholders, including local citizens, con-
struction companies, local police, and governments, due to
this construction project. Both The Road and The Chinese
Mayor offer rich contexts for viewers to learn about the com-
plex politics of China’s urban growth.
The construction of the Three Gorges Dam is another pop-
ular topic taken up by filmmakers. Up the Yangtze, which won
multiple awards, features a teenage girl working on a tour
cruise on the Yangtze River. Due to the dam construction,
her family lost their land and thus faced financial difficulties.
As the oldest child, she gave up the opportunity to continue
school and worked to support her family. Ironically, the Three
Gorges Dam project was partially turned into a tourist site
where the tour guides would never reveal the negative aspects
of the project.
Both Up the Yangtze and Before the Flood focus on the
displacement of the local population due to the project.
Before the Flood documents the conflict between local gov-
ernment and local residents in regards to compensation for
relocation for the Three Gorges Dam project in Fengjie, a
historic town near Chongqing. The film reveals how construc-
tion disrupts the social fabric of the community: people turn-
ing against each other to reap the most compensation. As the
director said, the Yangtze River not only submerged the town,
but also the humanity of the people. Another film, Flood,
records a much earlier project—the Sanmenxia Dam in
1957. Judith Shapiro (2001) discusses Sanmenxia as an envi-
ronmental disaster caused by political repression during
Mao’s era. Flood faithfully records the negative impacts still
felt after 40 years.
Migrant workers are another topic that filmmakers tend to
take on. In addition to toiling in industries that process foreign
wastes, they also deal with waste from growing urban centers
J Environ Stud Sci (2019) 9:151–158
within China. In Beijing Besieged by Waste, Wang Jiuliang
reveals that much of Beijing’s residential waste eventually
went into hundreds of dump sites in the nearby villages with-
out regulation. Similarly, Wandering Village explores this is-
sue through the lives of 30,000 Henan immigrants who lived
and worked at the largest recycling ground in Beijing. Even if
some of these migrants accumulate wealth and become the
Brural middle class^ after years of dirty work, their upward
social mobility is limited without the local household registra-
tion (hukou). They are vulnerable in the face of forced demo-
litions and cannot access basic social services such as their
children’s education. Once again, these films feature a mar-
ginalized group who are usually invisible in mainstream me-
dia and highlight the social inequality in the urbanization
process.
The human-nature relationship
Western viewers tend to be familiar with the dominant Han
group, but China is, in fact, a country with 56 recognized
ethnic groups. This ethnic diversity presents a wide range of
traditions in human-nature relationships. Green China, a
CCTV production, collects stories of traditional ecological
wisdom from China’s ethnic minorities. For example, in a
village called Basha in Guizhou, the Miao people believe that
trees are not only plants but family members and ancestors.
Therefore, each person is connected to a tree through a rite of
passage after which the tree becomes an extension of one’s
life. The film offers a useful overview of the diverse environ-
mental ideologies in China, but it can also risk exoticizing and
romanticizing some of these traditions.
Other films on the human-nature relationship among ethnic
minorities include The Last Mountain God, Family on Sky
Lake, and A Clear Sky. The Last Mountain God, the oldest
film in our collection, records the life of the last shaman in
Oroqen—an ethnic minority group with less than 10,000
members in Northeast China. The film follows MengJinfu, a
shaman who worshipped the mountain God. Every time he
went hunting, he would carve the face of the God on the tallest
trees in the area to express his piety. With the rapid pace of
modernization, Meng witnessed declining numbers of trees
and animals. This film is a rare historical record before
Meng died and Oroqen’s shamanism went extinct in 2000
(Noll and Shi 2004). Additionally, director Hu Linping docu-
ments the clash between modernization and the traditional
pastoral lifestyles in Tibet (Family on Sky Lake) and Inner
Mongolia (A Clear Sky). Hu laments the vanishing environ-
mental values and hopes to preserve these traditions through
his videos. All these films exhibit the many faces of human-
nature relationship in non-Han peripheral China.
Environmental values also change rapidly with urbaniza-
tion and improved economic well-being. What’s For Dinner
and its sequel, Six Years On, explore the human-nature
J Environ Stud Sci (2019) 9:151–158
relationship through the rise of industrial farming and chang-
ing diets in contemporary China. Director Jian Yi approaches
this topic through interviews with farmers, animal rights ac-
tivists, and environmental scientists. On one hand, meat is
often regarded as a status symbol in the relatively poor coun-
tryside; on the other hand, there is an emerging vegetarian
movement based on ethical and environmental concerns in
more well-off areas such as Beijing. This film is the only
one that touches upon the environmental and health conse-
quences of industrial farming.
Planting for Life and Ancient Species illustrate how farm-
ing practices are affected by environmental attitudes in mod-
ern China. The former features a couple who decides to grow
food the Bnatural^ way without pesticides and fertilizers, and
their fellow local farmers view them as misguided urbanites
who have no idea how to farm. The latter documents how
local farmers in Yunnan find their identities through growing
grains with traditional practices. Similarly, in Useless, director
JiaZhangke reflects on the instrumental values associated with
modernity through the lens of clothes. While in the past,
clothes were handmade in small workshops, nowadays they
are uniformly produced in factories with streamlined human
workers acting like machines. Jia documents how the Chinese
fashion designer, Ma Ke, incorporates soil into her fashion
design. By burying clothes into the soil, a symbol of mother
nature, and letting time and erosion transform them, Ma Ke
invites nature into the making of her work and restores our
connections with nature. All in all, these films showcase the
struggles to find the balance between human and nature in
contemporary Chinese society.
Fossil fuel economy
Coal, which accounts for more than 60% of energy supply in
China, is absolutely central to China’s struggle to control pol-
lution. A Journal of Crude Oil is an epic 14-h film that fol-
lows, with tedious details, the long workdays of crude oil
extractors in China’s Gobi Desert. This film most often ap-
pears as installation art in museums. Other filmmakers adopt
an investigative angle to expose the harms of the coal industry
to the public, starting in the coal mines. Behemoth depicts
Inner Mongolia’s famed grasslands devastated by the activi-
ties of coal mining companies. To the Light closely documents
the day-to-day lives of three coal miner families. The director
filmed the worker Huo a few minutes before a fatal accident
happened to him. The film shows Huo’s dead body carried out
of the mine, as well as his portrait, age, and the compensation
for the accident, all in black and white. In the film Gas, Lin
Xin, son of a coal miner, used his camera to document the
lives of people who suffered from the Chenjiashan mine ex-
plosion which led to 166 deaths. Many local residents refused
to be filmed due to the trauma.
155
The effects of the coal industry do not stop at coal mines.
Coal Money follows a fully loaded coal truck from Shaanxi to
Tianjin. On the driver’s journey, he negotiates with brokers to
strike a deal, haggles with the police to get permits for his
overload truck, and bargains with workers about the price
for unloading the truck. Finally, the film Land of Black Gold
threads together the mining, transportation, and brokerage
segments in the coal supply chain. The film takes place in
the city of Yulin, Shaanxi, which is often regarded as the
Kuwait of China due to its oil wealth.
Civil society and the environmental movement
Another set of documentary films feature bottom-up environ-
mental actions from local communities. Voice of the Angry
River and Waking Up the Green Tiger both document how
environmental groups exerted influence to stop the govern-
ment from constructing hydropower stations along the Nu
River in Yunnan Province. In Voice of the Angry River, the
villagers in the Xiao Shaba village were undecided whether
they should sign the relocation papers. Dr. Yu Xiaogang and
his colleagues organized a trip for the villagers to visit a near-
by village which was relocated due to a dam construction
30 years ago. Both films documented the trip where the
Xiao Shaba villagers witnessed the poor living conditions of
the people who were relocated. Seeing the grim prospects, the
villagers turned their hesitance to firm resistance and caused a
temporary then permanent halt to the construction.
The Warrior of Qiugang is a moving depiction of a man
becoming an environmental hero of his village. It portrays
Zhang Gongli, a villager who fights against three chemical
factories in his hometown of Qiugang in Anhui province
which were severely polluting the water with their effluents.
Zhang sued the company but to no avail. With the help of local
environmental NGOs and media, Zhang was able to report the
situation to a larger audience and petitioned higher level gov-
ernments. As a result, the local government banned the facto-
ries from production in 2008, and in 2009, the factories moved
out of Qiugang.
The social mobilization after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake
is another common topic. According to Svensson (2017),
there are at least 16 independent documentary films made on
this topic. While these films do not fall neatly into the
Benvironmental^ category, we find it useful to include the
most notable work, China’s Unnatural Disaster, in this paper.
The film documents the local protest where hundreds of par-
ents rallied on the streets, holding photos of their children, and
demanded the municipal government to investigate the qual-
ities of the school buildings where their children passed away.
In one scene, a local party secretary kneels down to beg people
not to escalate the issue to the upper level government. Both
The Warrior of Qiugang and China’s Unnatural Disaster pro-
vide rare glimpses into the political dynamics of local protests.
156
Lastly, Under the Dome, the most watched of all films
considered in this paper, is an BAn Inconvenient Truth^ style
lecture on China’s air pollution narrated by the famous jour-
nalist Chai Jing. The film draws from academic research, fac-
tory site visits, and interviews with officials to critique state-
owned oil companies as egregious polluters. It went viral upon
release, receiving 117 million views and 280 million posts in
24 h. Due to its excessive popularity, the film was banned
within a week. Cui (2017) describes it as an unprecedented
case of how a documentary can turn an environmental crisis
into a dynamic media event. The film ends with a call for
stronger actions from average citizens, such as reporting big
polluters through environmental hotlines.
Politics of documentary-making in China
The content of these films provides valuable windows into
China’s environment; however, the Bsocial lives^ of these en-
vironmental documentaries—how they are made, circulated,
received, and in some cases, censored in the Chinese
society—also tell us a lot. In this section, we discuss the pro-
files of the film producers, the accessibility of these films, and
finally, their societal impacts.
The filmmakers included in this paper range from those
who work completely within the system to foreign filmmakers
who are much less bound by China’s political culture. Chinese
independent filmmakers, whom we want to highlight in this
discussion, fall somewhere in between. Many of these inde-
pendent filmmakers identify more as activists than as artists
(Mosher 2010; Viviani 2014; Shen 2015). As Edwards and
Svensson (2017) argue, Chinese independent filmmakers
mostly relinquish the traditional Confucian ideal of the intel-
lectual, and instead engage with the grassroots to make visible
marginalized subjects or to bear witness to hidden situations.
They strive to present their subject’s experience on the screen
to critically reflect upon China’s contemporary realities. Their
commitment to transparency often leads them to present alter-
native perspectives to state-sanctioned mainstream narratives
(Cui 2010). As a result, independent filmmakers and their
documentaries have always been treated with skepticism, if
not outright hostility, by the Chinese government. In more
extreme cases, independent filmmakers were jailed with
charges such as Bincite subversion of state power^ because
they went beyond the political redline (Viviani 2014; Wong
2014; Wee 2017). Their activist approach contrasts sharply
with the state-sanctioned representations such as CCTV’s
Green China and End of the Wild.
For filmmakers, carving out a space to counter state-
sanctioned discourses is politically risky, and sometimes per-
sonally dangerous. Gaining access to sources is often chal-
lenging. In Behemoth, director Zhao Liang had to rely on
sneak shooting to capture coal mining actions and was
J Environ Stud Sci (2019) 9:151–158
stopped multiple times. In The Road, Zhang Zanbo used a
pseudonym and pretended to be filming a different project.
These are common experiences among independent film-
makers. Many documentaries even make political red lines
visible in the film. For example, even though the director got
incredible accessibility to Mayor Geng in The Chinese Mayor,
there are multiple scenes where the mayor told the director to
leave the room or stop shooting. We also witness police ha-
rassment and surveillance on screen. When filming the trans-
portation of the coal miner’s dead body after the mine’s col-
lapse in To the Lights, the director was stopped by a local
official. Such footages are insightful in showing the political
environment the directors are embedded in, as well as give the
audience a reference point of what is deemed too sensitive by
the Chinese state and thus left out of the film.
Many of the films that we reviewed are not easily accessi-
ble in China. Aside from the limited distribution of non-
commercial films, close to half of the documentaries cannot
be seen in China due to censorship. The Chinese government
regulates these films as part of the larger effort to control
information sources ranging from books, TV, to text messag-
ing. The censored films in our list are either (1) produced by
foreign media, (2) focus on social mobilization, or (3) received
excessive popularity. In the foreign media category, PBS pro-
grams are not available in China as part of the Great Firewall
to block foreign websites such as Google, Facebook, Twitter,
etc. In terms of regulating speech, research shows that Chinese
government usually allows certain level of criticism, giving a
relief valve to citizens and a gauge of public sentiments to
government at the same time. Censorship program is most
active suppressing information that leads to collective actions
(King et al. 2013). We suspect that, in the second category,
Warriors of Qiugang, China’s Unnatural Disaster, and the
two films about Nu River activism are banned due to their
focus on local protests. In the third category, Under the
Dome and Plastic China were not deemed too sensitive when
they were released, but later on, they were removed due to
their enormous popularity and the consequent potential for
political instability. It is crucial to understand these regulations
as dynamic. The Bredlines^ are constantly shifting. Very often,
the rules regarding what can be discussed are to be kept de-
liberatively vague so that the authorities can intervene at any
time.
Documentary films, whether state-sanctioned or indepen-
dent, can raise awareness of environmental issues in China.
Viviani (2014) argues that independent documentary films can
B[open] up spaces of dialogue between filmmakers and local
authority, mass media and civil society^ and thus can motivate
citizens to engage in discussion and action on social issues.
She reaches this rather optimistic view through case studies of
films produced between 2004 and 2010. However, in recent
years, President Xi has significantly tightened up media con-
trol (Brady 2017). Multiple long established independent
J Environ Stud Sci (2019) 9:151–158
documentary festivals were forced to cancel due to political
pressure (Qin 2014), while patriotic films (Philips 2017) broke
box-office records and CCTV’s propaganda film Amazing
China became the highest-earning documentary ever shown
in China (Huang 2018). As Kostka and Zhang (2018) recently
pointed out, the current China’s environmental governance
trends toward more centralization with even more stringent
control on civil society and public participation. We are unsure
of the extent to which independent documentaries can fulfill
their activist potential in the short term.
Despite political constraints, high-profile environmental
documentaries may have facilitated a number of significant
policy changes in China in recent years. Under the Dome is
especially worthy of attention in this regard. While it is diffi-
cult to pinpoint the exact policy impacts, the film likely en-
couraged the series of environmental policies promulgated
under the 13th Five Year Plan in 2016. It is important to note
that the producer Chai Jing, a media celebrity, has much
higher financial and political resources than any other film-
makers in our review. She was able to garner support from
some government officials—the film was released on People’s
Daily Online and the Minister of Environmental Protection
even praised the film before it was censored. In other words,
the success of Under the Dome is unique and hard to replicate.
Wang Jiuliang’s films, while not reaching the same viral sta-
tus, might also have expedited some new regulations. Beijing
Besieged by Waste (2010) brought waste management issues
to the public. Shortly after, Wen Jiabao, then prime minister of
China, announced plans to regulate over 1000 landfills around
Beijing. Similarly, Plastic China evoked massive outcry; the
film was censored in January 2017, and in July of the same
year, the Chinese government announced the ban of numerous
kinds of foreign garbage by the end of 2017. The repercussion
of this film is still felt by waste management industries around
the world.
Conclusion
While there are many excellent films on our list, four of them
merit special attention for potential use in teaching environ-
mental studies. Under the Dome touches upon air pollution—
the environmental issue that Chinese people care the most
about. The lecture is clear and easy to understand even for
non-Chinese speakers. It should not be missed. Plastic
China literally disrupted and reshaped the recycling industry
around the world. The film can easily accompany discussions
on globalization, international environmental treaties (e.g.,
Basel Convention), and the ethics of trading wastes. The
Chinese Mayor shows the unbelievable pace and scale of ur-
banization in China. Its visuals, while representative of many
Chinese cities, can easily shock students. It also offers rich
content to understand Chinese politics. Lastly, The Warrior
157
of Qiugang, though somewhat dated (produced in 2009), con-
cisely introduces local environmental activism in China. It can
be followed with discussions on the shrinking spaces of civil
society in recent years.
Environmental documentaries offer a window to under-
stand environmental challenges in China. They excite class-
room discussions, foreground marginalized groups, and help
students understand key topics of Chinese politics such as
media control, the hukou system, center-local relations,
fragmented authoritarianism, etc. They can also build emo-
tional connections to the course materials and may further
motivate learning interests. Yet, there is an important
caveat—these films only present Bfiltered^ environmental
and social realities. One should never take the filmmakers’
points of view for granted. It is essential to insert critical
thinking when using them as teaching resources.
Acknowledgements This work would not have been possible without the
financial support from Henry Luce Foundation’s Luce Initiative on Asia
Studies and the Environment (LIASE) and the Faculty Enrichment Grant
from Occidental College. We wish to thank Sasha Day and Clara
Changxin Fang who assisted in the preparation of the manuscript.
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