While there are those in the higher echelons of the party who are no doubt keen to see the country's environment at least considered in the country's headlong rush toward becoming an economic superpower, the lack of a true democratic process undermines much good work. For example, China needs a debate on alternative energy that, to date, it has not had.

Take biofuels for instance. The use of agricultural products such as sugarcane or wheat has created a dilemma over whether crops should be used to feed people or fuel vehicles and industry.

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The matter is of course particularly acute in the mainland, where the world's largest national population puts enormous pressure on food security. Moreover, the party has, notwithstanding occasional horrific food policy reversals during Mao Zedong's weirdest phases, historically put food security as its chief priority.

Mainland leaders more or less nailed their colors to the mast late last year when concerns were raised about the rising prices of certain crops, such as corn, due to increased demand from biofuels pioneers.

It was a trend underlined late last year when Beijing stepped in to limit the use of corn and other edible grains for use in biofuels, claiming rising prices were severely undermining food security.

This at a time when China's oil majors are gathering around the biofuels' lab desk to see what the fuss is all about. China National Petroleum Corp announced through state media that it plans to produce 600,000 tonnes of automotive grade ethanol from potatoes each year and 100,000 tonnes of biodiesel manufactured from seeds of the jatropha curcas tree.

News media note that generous state subsidies and support to encourage renewables are major drivers of the burgeoning interest in the new technology. But the government has a few things to consider here.

Government support of renewable energy development is generally encouraged worldwide, as a means of increasing energy security and improving environmental conditions through, for instance, reducing greenhouse gas emissions. That is as it should be as renewable energy, including biofuels, is still a small industry and needs assistance to reach critical mass and be applicable to national energy grids.

But, as far biofuels go for example, food-or-fuel and other questions loom large and it is doubtful whether Beijing is either able or willing to embrace all issues. The contradictory approach of supporting biofuels development while at the same time intervening to ensure that those in the provinces are not starving shows the government's confusion.

There are a number of issues to be seriously considered, many of which have been outlined in a paper recently written by energy commentator Sharon Astyk, who presents her views about biofuels mainly in a US context, but says a lot that is worth considering by China. In an 11-point outline of the social and environmental issues surrounding the development of biofuels technology and industry, she details many of the sort of political discussion points that should be part of the political/civil public policy matrix China so sorely needs.

Probably the most significant issue Astyk raises for China is the size and shape of a local biofuels industry. She argues that for a sustainable biofuels industry to emerge it must be both organically based and small scale.

The point is that industrial agriculture has done much harm in both environmental and social terms and, she notes, biofuels production has the potential to further invest in the industrial agricultural model.

Researcher Peter Rosset has argued that small-scale organic polyculture farming is perhaps thousands of times more efficient than industrial-scale farming.

He suggests that a farm size of between 1.61 hectares and 4.04 hectares is up to 1,000 times more productive in real, sustainability terms, than 4.04 hectares of industrial farming land.

So, the goal Astyk pursues is to increase the population in the United States actively engaged in agricultural production, and to diversify the agricultural production base. China, with its high proportion of agricultural producers, is - unlike the United States - already in such a position. It is, therefore, in a situation where it needs to arrest the move to greater agricultural industrialization rather than recreate it.

But the problem is that the debates surrounding these serious and far- reaching issues will not be appropriately aired.

For all the positives in China's endeavors, the sustainability issue will likely be shaped more by political expediency than true civil-political engagement. China's alternative energy agenda, indeed its sustainability outcomes in general, will suffer as a result.

James Rose is editor of www.corporategovernance-asia.com