a million premature deaths each year. China is the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, and choking smog in cities reaches levels that make it hazardous to go outside. 3 According to the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China's figure for 2010, 4 the cost of pollution has reached about 1.5 trillion RMB, or roughly 3.5 percent of GDP. For the Chinese state, one unanticipated outcome caused by degrading environmental quality is the occurrence of a large number of environmental conflicts. Since 1997, environmental conflicts have increased annually by 25 percent (Hou and Zhang 2009). In recent years, there is increasing evidence that the upcoming middle class in urban regions has started to express their concerns and disagreements with government decisions, which adopt a rule-based approach; national laws, policies, or regulations are cited to remedy perceived governmental mismanagement (Johnson 2010). One consequence of this is that the Chinese state often has to reinforce public participation to accommodate this. In addition, in contrast to many violent protests that have occurred in rural China in response to environmental degradation, these citizens work within the existing political system as much as possible. They attempt to depoliticize their protest actions by establishing transparency and public consultation as their master frame (Johnson 2015), which is a generic type of collective action frame (Snow and Benford 1992). In contrast to other types of master frame, such as human rights, political reform, or political freedom, this master frame is relatively acceptable for the Chinese state, which creates an environment for negotiation between it and its citizens (Johnson 2015).In general, these new features of protests initiated by Chinese citizens in relation to environmental issues cause a dilemma for the state. China, like many other authoritarian counties, has established concession and repression as two crucially important strategies to cope with social conflicts (Cai 2010). However, both suppression and concession appear to be ineffective in coping with environmental conflicts in contemporary China. First, the occurrences of environmental conflicts with mobilized protests potentially endanger social order, the top priority of the Chinese state. Actions must be taken to end them as soon as possible. Second, the depoliticized nature of the protests initiated by citizens makes the use of suppression inappropriate as it will significantly damage state legitimacy. Third, making concessions to meet 3 http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/07/china-pollution-protests-2014729105632310682.html (accessed August 25, 2015). 4 http://www.cfr.org/china/chinas-environmental-crisis/p12608 (accessed August 25, 2015).4citizens' demands by enhancing public participation does not match the authoritarian nature of the state. It can be thus concluded that the governance of environmental conflicts is a challenging issue for the Chinese state; concession or suppression cannot help it out of environmental co...