~ Linn Maung ~
The extreme weather in China in the last couple of years has completely exposed the lack of preparations by the Chinese government to meet eventualities. From China’s global manufacturing hub, Guangdong province to Fujian province, the authorities have been struggling to deal with extreme weather conditions. The authorities are busy making preparations to deal with Super Typhoon Ragasa in southern China and its possible impact on people, infrastructure, agricultural fields, and industrial production. According to the latest reports, the authorities in Shenzhen were preparing to evacuate 400,000 people ahead of its arrival.
Beijing saw unprecedented downpours for three consecutive days in July, leaving 44 people dead. More than 100,000 people were evacuated. Thousands of properties were damaged, along with roads, bridges, and hydropower installations.
China’s Climate Change Blue Book for the current year clearly mentioned that the country is vulnerable to climate-change impacts and is warming faster than the global average, with extreme-weather events becoming both more frequent and more intense. Climate change-induced natural disasters such as floods, droughts, heat waves, rising summer temperatures, and increasingly cold winters have been striking China more frequently. Crops in several regions have suffered heavy damage, significantly affecting the stability of agricultural production.
Researchers have attributed this to the lack of awareness among the people about climate change. The internationally reputed journal Nature stated that climate change awareness in China has historically lagged behind developed countries. In 2008, only about 62% of Chinese adults had heard of climate change, compared to over 90% in North America, Europe, and Japan. However, most of these surveys were either national polls or city-level case studies that overlooked important regional differences.
According to an article in Dialogue Earth, extreme events are not isolated events in China. Data from China’s Meteorological Administration showed that between 1984 and 2021, direct losses from weather disasters in China averaged 30 billion US dollars annually. A study conducted by Tsinghua University’s Institute of Energy, Environment, and Economy on droughts, floods, typhoons, and cold waves from 2014 to 2020 found that 27% of direct losses could be attributed to human-induced climate change. For droughts, 58% of losses were linked to climate change; for floods, 10%; and for storms, 81%. Agriculture and manufacturing suffered the most, accounting for 40% and 36% of attributable direct losses, followed by water infrastructure (15%) and transportation (6%). Beyond direct destruction, extreme weather also disrupts supply chains and industries in unaffected regions, causing indirect losses—a phenomenon known as “loss amplification.”
China lacks localized climate change communication because the autocratic Chinese Communist Party (CCP) insists on controlling narratives from the top down. Campaigns are tightly scripted in standardized Mandarin and avoid space for indigenous languages, local stories, or community-led perspectives, as any independent initiative is viewed as a potential challenge to state authority. Policy interventions are imposed from Beijing, with little effort to embed them in community structures. This centralized, one-size-fits-all approach prioritizes political control over genuine engagement, leaving precision communication absent and widening the perception–risk gap.
Research highlights that national-level measurements conceal deep regional disparities. The CCP’s preference for uniform, centralized narratives sidelines regional vulnerabilities, leaving areas with high climate risk but low public concern dangerously underprepared. By ignoring these variations, the government not only worsens unequal awareness but also entrenches unequal exposure to climate impacts. The absence of region-specific strategies reflects Beijing’s prioritization of political control and image management over risk communication.
Researchers stated that Chinese policies lack vision to deal with climate disasters. The Beautiful China Initiative is one such plan. It envisions China as a modern, fully developed nation. Unfortunately, the initiative has little capacity to handle worsening climate disasters. According to an article in ScienceDirect, its effectiveness is threatened by extreme weather that may exceed current expectations and overwhelm urban coping capacity. Heat waves, heavy storms, and droughts could reduce productivity, lower species abundance, alter species distribution, and increase disease incidence. Experts argue that the Chinese government has failed to conduct adequate scientific predictions and assessments of climatic risks for 2035 and 2050, leaving the initiative highly vulnerable. Persistent global warming has already intensified the severity of disasters, amplifying the threats to the initiative’s goals.
Persistent extreme weather has already had severe repercussions on China’s agriculture, financial system, and infrastructure. Crop yields are frequently reduced by droughts, heatwaves, and floods, threatening both domestic food security and global supply chains. Rural commercial banks face declining deposits and constrained lending during disasters, undermining financial stability in affected regions. Roads, bridges, and hydropower facilities are often damaged, disrupting transport and industrial production, while overlapping hazards amplify the indirect economic losses across multiple sectors.
China is not just the world’s second-largest economy—it is also a global manufacturing hub and a key agricultural producer. Weak climate preparedness in China has spillover effects on global food security, financial stability, and supply chains. Global forums—especially the UNFCCC, G20, and IMF—must hold China accountable not only for not reducing emissions but also for not ensuring robust climate adaptation strategies that match the scale of the crisis.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/388057008_Future_climatic_risks_faced_by_the_Beautiful_China_Initiative_A_perspective_for_2035_and_2050
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-024-04287-5https://dialogue.earth/en/climate/chinas-greatest-losses-from-floods-and-typhoons-are-indirect/
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