Authoritarian Environmentalism and Epistemological Violence: A Southern Green Criminology Analysis of the 2014 Lanzhou Water Crisis and the Belt and Road Initiative Expansion into the Global Water Sector

Abstract

This article examines authoritarian states’ roles in commodifying freshwater resources in illiberal societies. The authors argue that collusion between global capitalism and national authoritarian interests has affected the legal structure, regulation enforcement, and institutional practices of public–private partnerships in China’s municipal water systems, resulting in regulatory failures in drinking water provision. The article also explores the implications of China’s state capitalist expansion into the global water utilities market as part of the green Belt and Road Initiative and suggests that this expansion may lead to new patterns of environmental concerns in the Global South. The findings demonstrate that collusion between neoliberal and authoritarian capitalist expansions shapes increasing inequalities and environmental governance standards in the Global South. The authors stress the need to view environmental and public health disasters resulting from water privatization as a transnational crime rather than solely focusing on nation-state regulatory mechanisms that exemplify “metropolitan thinking” in criminology.