Chinese lessons on upscaling environmental policy concepts? A review of policy-oriented circular economy research

Circular economy is a policy concept that requires mainstreaming to enable sustainable development through cleaner production and consumption. Unique among CE frontrunners, China's CE implementation is well documented to be a major experimentation program at different scales. It therefore offers one example of CE upscaling. However, while China is the most studied CE case country, few works have conducted an in-depth analysis of its policy expansion through the scales of implementation. We take advantage of the abundant data source and review 104 scholarly works on Chinese CE policy development and implementation to find out the drivers and barriers behind its CE upscaling process. Our results show that the process was influenced by a complex interplay of centralized governance and multi-level dynamics through a rich portfolio of international, national and sub-national interactions, despite China's authoritarian governance. Yet, our results also suggest that China's macro-level CE development was hindered by implementation barriers stemming from weak multilevel governance. We conclude by drawing three generalizable key policy lessons for other regions and countries. These lessons are relevant for both 'industrialized' regions such as the EU with a longer history of prominent multilevel governance as well as 'industrializing' countries who look to China's development pathway as an alternative model of development to that of liberal democracy.

Automated summary

China's implementation of the circular economy is a major experimental program at different scales and has made progress through interactions at international, national, and sub-national levels. Despite its centralized governance, the macro-level development of the circular economy in China has been hindered by implementation barriers.