My dissertation consists of six articles about the institutional development of domestic carbon trading in China and the international influences on China's carbon trading policy. Despite the traditional reliance on command-and-control for environmental protection, energy-saving, and emissions reduction, since 2007 domestic carbon trading has been gradually gaining momentum in China. My research attempts to trace and assess the evolutionary path and current status of domestic carbon trading in China, and explore how China's carbon trading policy-making has been influenced by international factors.;The Overview provides a brief introduction to each article. The main method that I use is qualitative process-tracing. Besides, I use implementation analysis to evaluate China's pilot cap-and-trade plans and identify the institutional obstacles; furthermore, policy analogy is applied to explore China's possible strategy toward international carbon trading. Since the articles address different aspects of China's carbon trading policy, I draw on a broad range of literature, including Chinese politics and foreign policy after the adoption of the Reform and Opening-up policy, international political economy, the constructivist and neo-realist theories of international relations, and neo-Gramscianism.;Article 1 develops an explanation for the fragmented and pre-legislation development of the domestic voluntary carbon market (DVCM) in China. To do this, it traces and analyzes the establishment and operation of Chinese carbon trading institutions, and the roles that Chinese government agencies and non-state actors have played from 2008 to 2011. It suggests that the development pattern of the Chinese DVCM has been shaped by the actions taken by Chinese local governments and non-state actors under the policy experimentation approach adopted by the Chinese central government.;Article 2 discusses the obstacles to the implementation of China's cap-and-trade plan. While the pilot cap-and-trade schemes have been integrated into the national development agenda, this article argues that three factors rooted in the Chinese political economy have led to the non-smooth progress at the local level: the ambiguous legal nature of carbon-emissions rights, inequality in distribution, and local business-government networks. It concludes by identifying four policy options that can help improve the implementation of the cap-and-trade schemes incrementally.;Article 3 and Article 4 explore from different perspectives the question of why China has decided to gradually develop a domestic carbon market while it has no international obligation to do so. Drawing on the constructivist theory, Article 3 argues that the international sources of China's carbon trading policy can be approached from three dimensions: the institutionalized international norms under the global climate regime; the expert knowledge of international epistemic communities; and international anarchy which leads to a strategic construction need for pursuing national interests in global climate negotiation. Then from a neorealist perspective, Article 4 suggests that the climate negotiating strategies of three other major actors---the EU, the U.S., and the Group of 77 constitute the international cause of China's cautious attitude, while the pursuit for institutional influence and policy independence in global climate politics has provided momentum for China's carbon trading plan.;Article 5 is a "semi-predictive" exploration of China's strategy toward the possibility of international carbon trading. It argues that China faces a policy "trilemma" between carbon market integration, state sovereignty and policy flexibility. Then through developing a policy analogy of China's foreign exchange policy and carbon trading policy, it suggests that China will probably support the gradual establishment of intergovernmental governance mechanisms under which nation-states can prioritize sovereignty and national policy flexibility.;Article 6 explains the inconsistency in the climate actions of Chinese companies, which is featured by their active participation in energy-saving initiatives, and passive attitude toward climate-focused campaigns such as voluntary carbon trading, carbon footprint assessments, disclosure of emissions information, etc. Drawing on constructivism and neo-Gramscianism, this article attributes the inconsistency to the normative tension between nation-states in global climate negotiation, and the limited influence of transnational business-led initiatives and public-private partnerships.;The Conclusion briefly summarizes the international relevance of China's carbon trading policy. Then it provides a preliminary discussion about a collective insight that emerges from the six articles regarding the Chinese approach to state-market relations in climate governance. Based on the exploration of how China addresses carbon trading in domestic and foreign policy-making, it identifies three directions in the evolution of China's climate governance, and discusses the implications of the emergence of the Chinese domestic carbon market to international stakeholders.
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