Chinese Women at the Forefront of Environmental Activism: Wang Yongchen, Liao Xiaoyi and Tian Guirong.

All around the world, women have been at the forefront of environmental activism. In the Western world, very little is known about China’s environmental movement and its champions. This paper aims to bridge this gap. It does so by tracing the path to activism of three female figures: Wang Yongchen, Liao Xiaoyi and Tian Guirong. For each of the three, I first introduce the main environmental campaigns and I then sketch out a profile of the activist, shedding light on their personal motivations, the rhetorical strategies they employ to spur collective action, and their vision for a greener China. The paper has a twofold result: it not only provides the reader with the elements to understand the country’s struggle for sustainability, it also sheds lights on the different manifestations of environmental activism “made in China”. Findings draw mainly from the analysis of secondary sources (books, academic papers, newspaper articles) and to a lesser extent, from first hand interviews carried out by the author between July and December 2013.