Take for instance, environmental reform. China is one of the world's largest carbon polluters, many of its rivers are practically unusable and breathing the air in many areas is considered a health hazard.

Beijing, it seems, is doing its bit. For instance, it has sought to introduce a "green GDP" whereby national production estimations will factor in environmental damage. It is keen to ensure the 2008 Olympics in Beijing is a showcase of cutting edge environmental management. It is aggressively pursuing alternative energy solutions to fix its creaking coal-driven electricity grid.

Moreover, its bureaucracies are also looking useful. The revamped and re- energized State Environmental Protection Administration has scored important points of late and its leading light, Pan Yue, has raised the profile of the office and the causes it represents.

So, you want to talk to environmental reform in China, you go to Beijing, right? Let's see.

Tim Clissold's 2004 book Mr China is considered by most to be the definitive tale of the foreign investor trying to make a buck in the post-Deng miracle. But, Clissold, in his often doomed and always messy negotiations with company bosses, officials, and regulators almost never spoke with party officials in Beijing. It was always those in the provinces; the local mayor, the party boss or the small time potentate.

This gives the clue to the reality in China. A deeply embedded turf war between Beijing and local interests has been simmering since at least the decentralisation of the tax revenue system in the early 1990s.

Since income taxes from local companies have been shunted into the coffers of local party administrators, the boom in China has been paralleled by a tooth and claw grab for the tax revenue (and some cream off the top in some cases), and political power being generated by local state-owned companies, town and village enterprises and foreign investment interests.

The upshot of this is that even the most glittering of policies and statements to emerge from Beijing are likely to be forced to stay airborne like the hapless swallows, accused of stealing grain from starving peasants, in one of Mao's more bizarre schemes.

As such, environmental reform in China, while seen to be pushed by Beijing, falters as it filters down to the ground-floor operators outside the central party machinery.

And this is just the beginning.

Other interests are now emerging which may compete with those expressed by party apparatchiks.

Widespread social unrest, caused in large part by dodgy local government policies over, among other things, land access, is awakening the Chinese masses. Out of this, new political forces are beginning to emerge, as those organizing hitherto unheard-of street marches and protest rallies become more active, bolder and more visible.

These forces are engendering greater confidence in other areas. China's largely cuckolded media for instance is testing its influence. The recent walkout of journalists at the brash Beijing News over an editorial dispute with the central government may be the first of many examples of a new political dimension in China.

Then there's the burgeoning civil sector. Local non-government organizations need to be registered and therefore tend to find it difficult to take an anti-party line. But, Beijing is seeking to utilize certain NGOs (for instance in conservation and poverty reduction areas) in a way that is likely to empower them and make it more difficult to control them a la Falun Gong.

Further, the presence of such groups as Greenpeace in China, (which, while not official as such, are allowed to have a presence), is set to provide something of an influence to similar groups.

Pushing for reform in China is an important enough undertaking to be done to ensure that its emerging stakeholder constituencies are not ignored. It's one thing to be deceived in China. It's quite another to want to be deceived.

James Rose is Asia Pacific editor for London-based Ethical Corporation

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