National development and carbon trading: the symbolism of Chinese climate capitalism

China has begun to embrace a cap-and-trade approach for mitigating domestic greenhouse gas emissions and proposed a national emission trading scheme. The neoliberal climate policy program received strong political support in China, despite challenging political and economic realities. The conditions upon which the new domestic carbon market is established stand at odds with the neoliberal argument that such markets serve the interests of a business-led coalition. The China discourse, in geopolitical terms, is built upon a desire to engage in the international carbon finance and embedded into the historical narratives of lost development opportunities. The authoritarian regime and the society as a whole are keen on exploring ways for altering the unequal power structure reproduced in the international carbon markets. Creating domestic demand and its own carbon market institutions is described as an attempt to gain economic control from international market actors. Developing a functioning carbon trading regime and strategically engaging in the regional and global carbon market is consistent with its desire for acquiring market power in the global economy. The political discourse portrays China in search of greater degree of independence and global access to shape carbon finance on its own terms.