Who Drives Carbon Neutrality in China? Text Mining and Network Analysis

Abstract

China has recently declared its role as a leading developing country in actively practicing carbon neutrality. In fact, its carbon-neutral policy has accelerated from a gradual and macroscopic perspective and has been actively pursued given the changes not only in the overall social system but also in its impact on various stakeholders. This study analyzed the patterns of carbon neutrality (CN) and the actors of policy promotion in China from a long-term perspective. It collected policy discourses related to CN posted on Chinese websites from 2000 to 2022 and conducted text mining and network analysis. The results revealed that the pattern of CN promotion in China followed an exploration–demonstration–industrialization–digitalization model, similar to other policies. Moreover, the policy promotion sector developed in the direction of unification–diversification–specialization. Analysis of policy promotion actors found that enterprises are the key driver of continuous CN. In addition, the public emerged as a critical actor in promoting CN during the 12th–13th Five-Year Plans (2011–2020). Moreover, the central government emerged as a key driving actor of CN during the 14th Five-Year Plan. This was a result of the emphasis on efficiency in the timing and mission process of achieving CN. Furthermore, based on the experience of COVID-19, the rapid transition of Chinese society toward CN emphasizes the need for a central government with strong executive power. Based on these results, this study presents constructive suggestions for carbon-neutral development in China.

1. Introduction

The phenomenon observed in China, namely the transformation of climate issues into policy agendas, is becoming increasingly prominent. Not only did China declare to the international community that it will achieve carbon neutrality (CN) by 2060, but it also included various topics, such as the environment, climate, and low-carbon lifestyle, in its domestic five-year plans (FYP) and various government documents [1]. In particular, CN is rapidly being promoted in each sector of society in China after President Xi Jinping declared that China would reach a carbon peak (CP) in carbon dioxide emissions in 2030 and CN as of 2060 at the end of 2020. Various actors, including the government, markets, enterprises, private sectors, and the public, are responding to carbon-neutral policies (CNPs) and putting plans into action. In addition, academia is paying attention to this issue, such that recent studies mainly verify various levels of effectiveness related to CN. For example, research focuses on the low-carbon city pilot policy [2,3,4,5], evaluation of the effectiveness of carbon emissions trading policies [6,7,8,9,10], and the effects of energy saving and greenhouse gas emission reduction policies on carbon emissions [11].

On the surface, the central government promotes climate- and environment-related governance in China in a top-down fashion. This approach is typically considered to be authoritarian environmentalism [12] and generally protects the environment in two ways: promoting state-led policies and restricting individual freedoms related to the environment [13]. However, rather than the authoritarian environmental protectionism apparent at the surface, the socioeconomic development method and environmental awareness due to climate change recently observed internal changes [1,14,15,16,17,18]. This led to the perception that the top-down governance model of the government is insufficient to achieve these increasingly ambitious goals and that governance among all sectors of society is a prerequisite for addressing climate issues [19]. In addition, the provision of alternatives by nonstate actors is becoming frequent and meaningful; the complexity and persistence of climate change and environmental issues require additionally diverse and multidimensional solutions [17].

This trend toward de-authoritarian environmentalism is occurring in the field of CN as well; the weight and role of social actors (e.g., nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), enterprises, and the public) are being emphasized. Enterprises, social groups, or individuals must offset their carbon dioxide emissions through afforestation, energy conservation, and the use of ecofriendly energy to achieve CN within a certain period [20]. In addition, international pressure for environmental protection is increasing, and external factors, such as multinational corporations, international organizations, and multinational NGOs, have greatly influenced the establishment of CNPs in China. As such, CNPs are jointly influenced by national and social participants and international factors. Therefore, CNPs in China require the consideration of participants apart from the government; identifying policy actors and analyzing their roles during each period are necessary tasks. The reason for this is that CN is only possible through the participation and voluntary practice of all members of society.

However, existing studies on CN in China mainly focus on three aspects. The first is the CN pathway [21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36], followed by effectiveness [37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45] and practice [20,46,47,48,49,50]. Many scholars extensively analyze the long- and short-term path prediction of CN in China, evaluate the effectiveness of policies and systems, reflect on the heterogeneous characteristics of regions and industries, and examine the practice plan of each industry for CN. To achieve CN, cooperation is required between all major actors in the social structure. However, although previous studies emphasize the influence of actors, they overlook their detailed roles and changes. Thus, examining long-term changes in the process of achieving CN and the roles of the actors in the process is necessary to prepare for ever-changing domestic and foreign political, economic, social, and cultural scenarios. In terms of methodology, the majority of these existing studies employ qualitative analysis. However, this study intends to focus on the identification of the link and importance of key words and actors through a network analysis of the textual big data surrounding CN.

Therefore, this study examines the changes and roles of actors in the process of CN in China from a long-term perspective. We collected textual data related to CN in China from online portals and conducted text mining and network analysis. From the time series perspective, the study inferred the development trends and patterns of CN based on macro and micro aspects. We identified the policy actors and how their roles changed in the policy implementation cycle (every FYP) in China. This study complements existing studies in terms of content and methodology through textual big data analysis. Therefore, it extensively investigates the actors and influencing factors that promote CN. Understanding the core driving actors of CN can enhance the understanding of the effectiveness of CNPs and provide theoretical and practical implications for future directions in CN.

The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 reviews the existing studies on China’s CN governance through theoretical research and introduces and classifies the actors that influence CNPs. Section 3 describes the data and methodology used for analysis. Section 4 identifies the CN propulsion actors and their roles on the basis of the analysis. Finally, Section 5 concludes and presents implications according to the results of the empirical analysis.

2. Literature Review

2.1. A Brief History of Carbon Neutrality (CN) Research in China

Research related to CN in China has become a rapidly growing trend since 2020. Analysis of recent studies focuses on three aspects. The first is related to the pathway toward CN in China, the second highlights the effectiveness of CN, and the last elucidates the practices of CN.

First, in a study related to the pathway toward CN in China, Yang et al. [21] suggested that the country should consistently pursue its CN goals through the CN integration index of 30 provinces in China. Improving the quality of economic development is becoming an important axis in setting the CN pathway [22], and emphasizes that cooperation between different technological pathways can have a synergistic effect on the achievement of CN goals [23]. In the field of air pollution, China should proceed with CN in such a manner that protects public health and adheres to World Health Organization guidelines rather than ex post control [24,25]; specifically, an annual average carbon emission reduction rate of 6–10% must be maintained until 2060 [26,27,28]. The energy transition path for CN is also attracting scholarly attention [29]. Based on a carbon budget evaluation of the electric power sector, a balanced market mechanism [30] and green finance can promote CN [31]. In addition, other studies highlight productivity growth and investment in the green energy sector [32,33,34] and the social diffusion of new energy products [35,36].

Research on the effectiveness of CN in China primarily focuses on the policy field. For example, Zhang et al. [37] evaluated the potential benefits of an energy-consumption permit trading policy, and Wang et al. [38] examined the effectiveness of the nationwide implementation of the carbon trading market. However, different economic, industrial, and social structures in different regions influence CN; thus, specificities in regional policy must be considered as well [39]. An appropriate level of energy efficiency [40] and control of the speed of energy conversion are factors that increase the effectiveness of CN [41]. Evidently, ensuring the effectiveness of CN through pilot city operations [42] and an appropriate evaluation index system [43] is possible. However, these initiatives must be accompanied by proper investment such as green finance [44,45].

Finally, in terms of studies related to the practice of CN in China [20], based on a comparison of data between China and developed countries, the implementation of CN is a process of hardship and a series of strong pressures at the same time. In particular, a relatively low economic level could lead to a crisis in the process of rapid low-carbon policy transition. Therefore, the optimization of industrial structures and the rapid progress and positive role of related technologies are emphasized [46]. Scholars have presented the industry-standard implementation strategy in the building industry in detail [47,48], the bottom-up carbon reduction roadmap in the cement sector, which results in high levels of environmental pollution [49], and the spread of hydrogen-fueled vehicles in the transportation sector [50] as representative plans for the implementation of CN.

To summarize, the research on CN in China is generally progressing on the basis of the three abovementioned perspectives. However, CN can be achieved through changes in the social system and continuous practice and cooperation of citizens and industries. Therefore, in terms of content and methodology, expanding the scope of analysis using various categories and diversified measurement tools and scrutinizing the relationships between the actors that promote CN are necessary tasks.

2.2. Carbon Neutrality in China: Why Did China Refrain from Announcing Its CN Goal until 2020?

CN is receiving worldwide attention as an essential countermeasure against climate change, and many countries and organizations have pledged to participate in achieving CN. As a major carbon-emitting country, China is obligated to present its nationally determined contributions, leading to necessarily seeking a path for CNPs with Chinese characteristics. Similarly to the Chinese economic system, which accepted capitalism and established a socialist market economy system, China is building a development roadmap that fits its situation regarding CN. The CN development process in China can be divided mainly into internal and external processes. In terms of external processes, first, China set a greenhouse gas reduction target and presented the goal of reaching its CP by 2030 at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference [51]. In September 2016, China joined the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and strengthen climate change response capabilities [20]. At the 2020 United Nations General Assembly, President Xi Jinping pledged that China would be carbon neutral by 2060, suggesting a stronger drive toward zero carbon emissions and achieving CP [21]. At the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference, China submitted new intended nationally determined contributions, the main contents of which are to reduce carbon intensity to 65% by 2030, to decrease the share of non-fossil energy in the energy structure by 25%, and to achieve CN by 2060 [52].

Regarding internal processes, the actual promotion and development of climate governance in China began early. Environmental pollution and energy consumption rapidly increased as China’s economy developed after the reform and opening-up [53]. However, the country implemented greenhouse gas emission control and CNPs as part of pollution reduction and energy conservation (PREC) strategies at the universal and casual level due to the urgent need for economic development [54]. At the time, the problem of climate change was generally recognized as a scientific and technological problem rather than one requiring national policy or social change. In 1990, the National Coordination Group on Climate Change was launched with the support of the State Council [54], and publicized the development and institutionalization of national policies on climate issues in earnest [17]. Afterward, in the FYP of the government, a series of measures, such as climate, environment, and energy conversion, began to be reflected in the policies.

During the 11th FYP, the central government presented targets for energy conservation and greenhouse gas emission reduction [51] to local governments and other central ministries. When the goals were disseminated to the local governments, each government presented and obtained approval for solutions that fit their local conditions within the guidelines provided by the central government [55]. During the 12th FYP, energy consumption and carbon emissions increased rapidly due to economic growth, industrialization, and urbanization [56]. Accordingly, the response of the government to economic and environmental issues became a top priority [57]. Therefore, climate change was an essential national planning agenda during this period. Energy saving and greenhouse gas emission reduction were used as legally binding indicators and were included in the long-term plan for national economic development. Subsequently, in the 13th FYP, China enacted a series of carbon reduction policies and evaluation indicators to achieve its target for carbon reduction [58]. Among them, the energy intensity and share of non-fossil energy were used as the main measurement indicators to establish the screening criteria [59,60]. The reason for this is that they benefit energy efficiency and diversification and promote the development of renewable and low-carbon energy [51,61]. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic provided a window of opportunity to adopt more favorable CNPs in the 14th FYP. China was the first major economy to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic [62,63]. Thus, the 14th FYP focused on securing sustainable development [64] by promoting high-quality development and green growth methods to cope with the enormous energy consumption caused by economic growth.

Hence, China declared its goal for CN to the international community at the end of 2020; however, based on its recent active participation in international climate activities and the environmental issues addressed in the FYPs, CNPs are, in fact, old policies that began much earlier. The term PREC has become more familiar than CNPs due to economic development and political choices. Therefore, in the analysis of discriminating the process of CN in China and the driving actors, we focused on policies enacted after the 11th FYP, which is relatively recent, and included PREC, a relaxed expression of CN, as targets of analysis. On this basis, we pose the following research questions.

RQ1: What patterns of change has CN undergone in the long run in China?

2.3. Policy Actor Analysis

China, which is viewed a latecomer to CN compared with other developed countries in Europe and the United States, is facing a serious challenge in achieving its goal. Many factors, such as setting target indicators, practical social change, and cooperation with the international community, are promoted simultaneously; the government is leading the charge in efficiency promotion within a tight time frame. Accordingly, scholars who support environmental authoritarianism [12,13] and developmental state theory [65] frequently argue that the Chinese government is a crucial player in the field of climate governance [66].

However, CN in China is not necessarily a government-led policy when viewed from a macroscopic perspective. In other words, a perception exists that top-down design and policy induction are insufficient for achieving the CN goal. In particular, the policy-making process in China is becoming increasingly open [67]; the Chinese government is intentionally encouraging the public to participate in decision making [68]. The participants of policy and decision making in each sector of society provide various improvements that range from forming public discourse systems as significant governance elements to ensuring policy establishment, implementation, and evaluation [69,70]. Therefore, in an increasingly open structure for policy participation, the state and other social actors gain the opportunity to participate in CNP.

The policy actors in the environmental field can be classified into three types [71,72]. The first is the public sector, which includes the government; the second is civil society, such as the market; and the last is the private sector. This theory is also applicable for CN (Figure 1).

In addition to this typical classification, actors participating in CN can be considered at an expanded level [70]. According to international and domestic as well as governmental and nongovernmental criteria, policy actors in CN generally include the national government, intergovernmental organizations, local governments, international NGOs, and domestic nongovernmental participants [70,73]. In addition, other bodies for climate governance at the national level, as well as city networks, enterprises, and the public, act as key policy actors according to the participation criteria [74,75,76,77]. In China, CN is a key government task, differentiating it from previous economic growth policies and actively inducing participation from all levels of society. However, the abovementioned NGOs, social organizations, and city networks display a robust governmental character in China and are highly dependent on the government regarding finances and human resources. Therefore, reflecting the peculiarity of the social structure in China, we select the government, enterprises, and the public as the main actors of CN in China and examine which roles have been emphasized over a period of time.

2.3.1. Government

In China, each member of society participates in the policy process through various means; stakeholder participation in policies is becoming increasingly important in enhancing the transparency of government affairs. Nevertheless, state actors (e.g., the Party, central government, local government, public institutions, and state-owned enterprises) continue to occupy a leading position [67,78]. The main structure of China is composed of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the National People’s Congress (NPC), and the central government (State Council), with 31 and 333 local and municipal-level governments, respectively [79]. The CCP has the highest decision-making authority in the field of policy, and information and technology organizations provide their expertise as support for policy and decision making [57]. To respond to climate change, the CCP presents environmental protection, ecological civilization, CN-related, and energy-related guiding opinions in policy goals and major national plans. The NPC, as China’s most powerful authority, enacts binding laws on energy conservation and sets targets for greenhouse gas emission reduction and other climate actions through the national FYP. The central government (State Council) translates the goals and guiding opinions of the CCP into work policies, distributes tasks to subgovernmental organizations, and controls local governments through a performance appraisal system [57,80]. Therefore, CNPs in China comprise a structure led by the CCP at the government level, the regulatory power of the central government (State Council), and the practices and political incentives of local governments [12].

2.3.2. Enterprise

In the past, Chinese business actors, especially enterprises, considered the additional cost incurred in solving environmental problems a risk. Therefore, they passively participated in government environmental policies [81,82] at the level of risk management. This is because fines and penalties due to environmental pollution or carbon emissions were significantly lower than those due to corporate profits and did not threaten the survival and sustainable development of companies. However, as the government designed supportive policies that encourage technological pursuits and market expansion [65,66,83,84], environmental issues gradually changed from constraints to stimuli for the sustainable development of enterprises. The government and enterprises gradually formed a consensus on the transition to a low-carbon society and the development of green technology to cope with climate issues. With the emergence of various industries and market expansion related to climate issues and CN, information asymmetry between policy control and implementation actors accelerated. The government determined that predicting the outcome and impact of new policies was difficult, because it was unable to obtain market information in a timely manner [66]. Therefore, enterprises were inevitably required to participate in the establishment and implementation of policies related to CN. Thus, business actors can influence policy implementation and decision making through invitations to policy consultation meetings, such as the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the NPC, which emerged as a vital actor [66]. At the same time, they develop technologies for CN, produce ecofriendly products, expand related markets, and are actively involved in energy-saving practices.

2.3.3. The Public

The political participation of citizens in everyday life and in climate governance influences public participation in the transition toward a carbon-neutral society [85,86,87,88], indicating “the state of an individual linked to climate change issues” [89,90,91]. In particular, environmental authoritarianism and government-led governance in China are strong; thus, ordinary citizens consider climate and environment-related issues and the construction of a carbon-neutral society as areas where the government should take responsibility and regard them as separate issues [92]. In other words, individuals recognize economic issues as more important than environmental ones. However, as previously emphasized, CN requires overall changes in the social system; the public, as a key policy actor, should be considered [93]. In particular, since 2000, the relevance of the private sector in environmental policy has increased significantly, and the awareness of the public about climate governance, environmental governance, CN, and energy conversion has strengthened due to the spread of education and the development of social media. Awareness in civil society and the practice of CN can provide a stronger foundation for achieving the climate and environment governance goals of China [17]. In addition, NGOs, which are civil society organizations, can contribute resources, expertise, and legitimacy to carbon-neutral governance [94]. Purely private NGOs, which do not represent the character of the government, can be viewed as a public domain and primarily serve two roles. First, they inform public opinion and cause a change in public awareness of a carbon-neutral society through energy conservation and low-carbon development projects [17]. Second, they conduct various monitoring activities and play an active role in climate-related education with local governments [95].

In summary, the development of CN in China requires the coordination of different actors; however, a long-term exploration of what entity promotes CN is needed. In line with the changing roles of a strong government, business actors (the subject of rapid economic growth), and the public (the real driving force of changes in the social system), CN requires constant rational adjustment according to the context, the domestic and external circumstances, and the global health situation. Therefore, we pose the second question:

RQ2: What actors play key roles in driving CN in China?

3. Data and Methodologies

3.1. Data

This study aims to identify the long-term patterns in CN implementation in China and the key driving actors in the process. To this end, we employed the methodologies of [72,96,97] to pursue solutions to the abovementioned research questions. Online text data were collected using a Python algorithm. For our textual data collection, we selected the three subject words “CN”, “CP” and “PREC” to stand in for China’s CN. According to prior research, carbon neutrality is the core response to climate change. Over the past 15 years, scholars have highlighted that China’s primary way of coping with climate change is ‘PREC’ (e.g., [3,6,7,8,9,10,12,15,58], etc.). The Chinese State Council has also released comprehensive work programs for “PREC” for each FYP and evaluated the performance of local governments. After 15 years of successful ‘PREC’ target plans, China was confident that it could propose a ‘CN’ target in 2020. Therefore, based on many previous studies, policy documents, and policy instruments, we believe that ‘PREC’ can also replace CN in the 11th–13th Five-Year Plan period.

Textual data were collected by grouping the three keywords by year from 2006 to 2022, and Baidu and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) were used as collection channels. Baidu is China’s largest portal site where discourse on various topics is formed, and CNKI is a platform that provides comprehensive Chinese papers, journals, and reports. In these two channels, we looked at the original/interpretation/criticism of policy documents, and they were evaluated as useful routes for collecting discourse data on specific issues [97,98]. The 11th (2006–2010), 12th (2011–2015), 13th (2016–2020), and 14th (2021–present) FYPs were constructed according to the objective of the study. China is a country with strong policies; thus, the five-year development plan was established as the unit of analysis that can macroscopically and effectively grasp policy trends [98]. As a result, we secured 17,526, 18,740, 17,102, and 5806 CN discourse documents, respectively, per FYP.

3.2. Text Mining

In text mining, “text” is defined as symbols stored as numbers [99]. Text mining involves extracting previously unknown, understandable, and ultimately usable knowledge from large amounts of textual data. At the same time, it refers to structuring the extracted information, such that this knowledge can be better used in the future. Textual data are highly unstructured and contain ambiguous and multiple meanings. In general, textual data can be transformed into a relational structure [100]. Special linguistic processing methods can transform the data and proceed with further analysis to derive valuable information [101]. Therefore, using text mining, we analyzed the frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) values and degree of centrality values of the words extracted from policy discourse documents related to CN. Through these values, the practical importance of words can be identified and, from a long-term perspective, the pattern of change in CN can be determined [98]. For the textual data of documents collected by period, we performed refinement, stopword processing, morpheme analysis, and part-of-speech tagging, and obtained 6679, 6160, 6109, and 5306 words for each FYP. Using these words, the study calculated the TF-IDF and degree of centrality values for each period and conducted text mining for the top 50 words. In particular, we paid attention to the selection of words related to actors that promoted CN for each period. We reviewed and extracted words referring to government-, market-, and public-based actors and additionally substituted similar words that matched the characteristics of these actors.

3.3. Network Analysis

Network analysis aims to verify the relationship between text components based on the meaning of the words. The importance of each word in the network is determined based on the interconnection between nodes [102,103,104], and the dataset collected using the same subject is analyzed for a specific period. Further, it classifies and examines the pattern of discourse flow from a long-term perspective [97,98]. CONCOR analysis is a representative network analysis method [105] and derives the clustering of words in the network by employing convergent correlation or convergence of the iterated correlation for the data. This process can be used for group nodes with similar positions in a network to explain the relationship between groups [105,106].

After this, we conducted core–periphery analysis to classify key nodes that lead policy discourse in the network and analyze their roles. Core–periphery analysis is one of the most efficient models among various methods for grouping big data to recognize core actors and analyze meaning [107]. This analysis places a random node in the network core, measures the coreness by repeatedly measuring the correlation between other nodes, recommends nodes with the highest coreness scores, and designates them as core actors. In addition, through multidimensional (MDS) analysis, core and peripheral actors are visualized for intuitive understanding [108,109]. In this manner, we obtained the core actors that lead CN in China per period and examine their roles in the relationship between core and peripheral words.

4. Result

4.1. Text Mining Result

We refined and classified the collected words using the text mining method and ranked them according to their TF-IDF and degree of centrality values. The TF-IDF value indicates the importance of word frequency, and the degree of centrality value pertains to the strength of the connection between words. If the degree of centrality rank of a word is higher than its TF-IDF rank, the actual status of the word in the document is higher than the frequency of mention of the word, and vice versa. This study summarizes cases where the difference between the degree of centrality and TF-IDF rankings are more than 10 levels above or below.

Table 1. Result of text mining.

Subject Words	Carbon Neutrality (CN); Carbon Peak (CP); and Pollution Reduction and Energy Conservation (PREC)
Period		11th FYP	12th FYP	13th FTP	14th FTP
Significant Words	Words (1 > 2)	Policy (7/17), Recycle Economy (11/32), Resource (12/34), Efficiency (14/26), Legal System (17/43), Energy Efficiency (23/42), Jiangsu (26/47), and Assessment (27/45)	Green Development (8/21), New energy (12/22), Solar energy (17/35), Shanghai (18/40), and Fall Behind (32/45)	Standard (11/34), Photovoltaic (12/41), Lifestyle (14/30), Coordination (16/31), Jiangsu (18/40), and Shanghai	Public (19/23), Environmental Protection (12/24), Green Transformation (21/36), Consumption (22/35), Responsibility (29/44), Carbon Neutrality (32/42), and Publicity (34/49)
	Words (1 < 2)	Carbon Trading (28/13), Tianjin (30/12), Countryside (31/19), Logistics (34/22), Environmental Protection (37/7), Carbon Footprint (40/20), Dale (42/10), Financial Crisis (47/21), Green Olympics (48/33), and Light out (49/37)	Aviation (28/4), Informatization (35/25), Pilot (41/18), Countryside (48/31), Carbon Credits (49/11), and Wind Energy (50/34)	Carbon Trading (19/3), Expert (26/11), Sichuan (33/12), Infrastructure (37/26), Operation (44/16), Tsinghua University (47/28), Industrial Park (48/38), Community (49/29), and Economic slowdown (50/23)	Recycle Economy (27/17), Solar Energy (30/9), New Energy Vehicles (39/8), Unemployment Rate (42/20), Patent (43/28), Digital Transformation (48/33), and Research Institute (50/19)

Note: 1 and 2 refer to the degree of centrality and TF-IDF rankings, respectively. Significant words are when the ranking of 1 is 10 steps higher than the ranking of 2 or vice versa.

presents the results.

In summary, energy-related terms, such as energy efficiency, new energy, solar energy, and photovoltaics, ranked higher in degree of centrality than TF-IDF values in the CN discourse. In other words, the limitations of the existing energy sources and environmental problems are highlighted, and the development of new energy, which is characterized by eco-friendliness and reuse, is inevitable. In particular, as uncertainty increases in the global economy, industry, and security, the transition to a low-carbon society can only be promoted when energy dependence on other countries is reduced, and supply security is increased by upgrading energy technology and production lines. In addition, words related to cities, such as Jiangsu and Shanghai, displayed higher centrality than TF-IDF rankings. The reason for this is that the policy expansion in China is characterized by being promoted in pilot cities and expanding the results to surrounding areas and the entire country. Jiangsu and Shanghai, as China’s representative open economic cities, are suitable test beds for CNP due to their excellent resource allocation, advanced economic development model, and transformation of production methods.

During the 11th FYP period, words such as policy, recycling economy, resource, efficiency, legal system, energy efficiency, and assessment exhibited a higher degree of centrality than frequency. China’s economic development was emerging during this period, and the need for energy conservation was recognized nationally. However, the policy stance of the prioritization of economic development remained unchanged. The government carefully pursued energy conservation and CN while proposing various approaches. In particular, interest in energy efficiency, the circular economy, and the legal system received relatively more attention than before. As the climate and environment problem became severe, the Chinese government exerted efforts to enhance the environment-related production capacity during the 12th FYP period. Scholars proposed that green development can help resolve the problems of an industrial economy, which was developed at the cost of excessive energy consumption and environmental sacrifice. Active industrial restructuring was conducted in the manufacturing sector, where environmental destruction and carbon emissions were severe. Companies recognized that conducting sustainable business while covering carbon and environmental issues was no longer difficult. In addition, they realized that promoting resource-saving, ecofriendly management will ultimately help promote the realization of a low-carbon society.

During the 13th FYP period, a standardization system for technology, management, and work was established with a gradual increase in the intensity of energy saving and greenhouse gas emission reduction. It promoted the realization of energy savings and greenhouse gas emission reduction and helped to optimize the industrial structure. To establish a standardized low-carbon system, the coordination and participation of various actors, such as the government, enterprises, and the public, are required. In addition, comprehensive cooperative governance was gradually accepted as the ideal model for realizing CN. The implementation of PREC evolved into gradual green transformation and formed the basis for setting the CN target during the 14th FYP. This period was characterized by increasingly strong applications of low-carbon practices and responsibilities of the individuals. As a result, the environmental protection awareness of the public continued to improve. The response to climate change and the environmental problem became a universal social value—that is, the responsibility of individual citizens and not only the government.

Alternatively, the connectivity degree of the centrality ranking of words such as carbon trading, carbon footprint, and carbon credits was lower than that of TF-IDF. In other words, China endeavored to benchmark the standardized carbon emission system of developed countries, but it was relatively less noticeable as a policy discourse. In addition, China needs to build a carbon-neutral path that suits itself, because the CN and development status of advanced countries, such as Europe and the United States, are different. In other words, the CN process in China remains in its infancy; establishing a standard evaluation system that fits its context is essential. Discussions of digital transformation were frequently mentioned during the 14th FYP, related to the rapid transition of China to a digital society after the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to the non-face-to-face economy, digital transformation in industries and societies played an important role in the promotion of low-carbon development and provided an essential basis for helping to achieve CP and CN goals.

4.2. Network Analysis

Network analysis helps us to find meaning based on the connection between keywords appearing in discourse. After clustering based on basic network analysis between words, we found hub nodes and significant words and interpreted their implications. We built a correlation matrix for each period using the top 50 words according to the degree of centrality value, visualized the basic network between words, and simultaneously verified the significance of the data used in the analysis. The density of 5000 networks was calculated by randomly rearranging the words through bootstrapping, and an average bootstrap density was created from the calculated density sampling distribution. For the sampling distribution of the entire network data, values of 37.5451, 15.847, 9.5478, and 7.6489 were calculated for each period, respectively. The Z-score values were calculated as 3.8912, 2.6467, 4.0326, and 4.7055 for each period, and the difference between the absolute and observed values was 0.001, 0.0134, 0.001, and 0.0004, respectively. The relationship between data was statistically significant at the 5% level.

Table 2. Result of network significance test.

	Hypothesis Test for Density
Period	11th FYP	12th FYP	13th FYP	14th FYP
Number of bootstrap samples	5000	5000	5000	5000
Estimated standard error for density	9.2818	5.8312	2.3399	1.6106
Z-score	3.8912	2.6467	4.0326	4.7055
Average bootstrap density	37.5451	15.847	9.5478	7.6489
Proportion of absolute differences as large as observed	0.001	0.0134	0.001	0.0004

presents the statistical significance test of the entire network’s data.

Next, we performed a CONCOR analysis of the network for each period. The number clusters derived by period was six, five, six, and six; the average degrees were 20.48, 11.2, 13.04, and 20.72; and the clustering coefficients were 67.796, 46.126, 20.641, and 13.323, respectively. The average degree represents the strength of the structural position of nodes in the network. If this value is large, the words in the network can be said to have high practical influence in the discourse. Among the four FYP periods, the value of the average degree exhibited a strong discourse in the first five years and a low value after that, which gradually became more influential as a discourse.

In the early days, the discourse in China on CN and PREC seemingly raised social issues. However, environmental issues were buried behind economic issues over time, and their influence as a discourse decreased. However, in the recent 14th FYP, environmental issues emerged as a national issue and gained a strong discourse influence. In other words, an initially bright issue developed over time, with related policy arrangements, strong PREC enforcement, carbon trading pilot work, carbon emission and evaluation system and platform improvement, and carbon finance product development. Furthermore, by the 14th FYP, one can see that presenting CP and CN goals was possible. The clustering coefficient indicated the degree to which nodes are clustered with structural equivalence in the network. If this index is high, large and strong clusters are formed in the network; if it is low, diversified clusters with weak cohesion are revealed. The study found that this value gradually decreased over time. In other words, the discussion on CN gradually shifted from a focused and unified topic to a diversified topic during the four FYPs. In the early stage of CN, the focus was primarily on the relatively unified theme of promoting PREC through government-led macrocontrol measures and policy promotion. This top-down approach typically lacked public participation and resulted in a unified policy discourse. However, the improvement of transparency in government work, popularization of environmental education, informatization, development of network platforms, and strong publicity for energy conservation and environmental protection increased public participation and enriched related discussions. Therefore, the size and direction of the discourse also appeared to be separated and detailed in various dimensions.

The number of clusters per period was then maintained at approximately five or six. During the 11th FYP, the data were classified into two relatively large clusters and four small clusters. The major hub nodes of clustering were government, development, small- and medium-sized enterprise, policy, technology, and target, and the notable words were Beijing, public, lifestyle, pilot, environmental protection, and gross domestic product (GDP) (Appendix A, Figure A1). During the 11th FYP, we found that the conflicts between economic and social development and between resource and environmental constraints were increasingly prominent; environmental protection faced increasingly serious challenges. Accordingly, it proposed a target for the reduction in energy consumption per unit of GDP by approximately 20% and the reduction in the total emissions of major pollutants by 10% during the same period.

Moreover, small- and medium-sized enterprises became an important part of national economic growth with the development of the market economy and, simultaneously, emerged as major targets for carbon emissions. Thus, the government promoted more vigorous enforcement of PREC tasks through technology, policy, and other measures. As the capital, Beijing became a pilot for implementing policies on CN and PREC. During this period, Beijing achieved significant PREC, ranking first in the country in terms of the reduction in electricity consumption per RMB 10,000 of GDP. In addition, Beijing citizens were able to change their lifestyle more easily than citizens in other regions; environmental protection was encouraged mainly through water conservation, electricity use, and ecofriendly travel. During the 12th FYP, three large and two small clusters emerged. Public, technology, environmental protection, subsidy, and green finance were found as the main hub nodes of the cluster, and new energy, R&D, investment, consumption, and public were found as significant words (Appendix A, Figure A2). During this period, the awareness of citizens about public environmental protection increased, and green technology subsidies and green finance were promoted. As a result, market demand for energy conservation and ecofriendly industrial development was observed. Therefore, an increasing number of enterprises were motivated to conduct research and develop new energy technologies and began practicing CN. In addition, the increased demand for new energy consumption from the public drove investment in related industries and enabled companies to actively promote R&D. In the 13th FYP, two clusters of large/medium/small size were found in the network. New energy vehicles, energy-efficient buildings, photovoltaics, solar energy, public, and responsibility were the main hub nodes that connect inside or outside the cluster, whereas new energy, agriculture, industrial parks, standards, and green transformation were the significant words (Appendix A, Figure A3). During this period, China made remarkable progress in new energy technologies, such as new energy vehicles, energy-efficient buildings, photovoltaics, and solar energy through aggressive new policies for energy development, the continuous improvement of environmental regulations, and the implementation of global sustainable development strategies. Moreover, it gradually strengthened its environmental voice in the international community. In addition, public access to environment-related information improved, ecofriendly awareness increased, and environmental protection gradually became the natural responsibility of individuals due to urbanization and the development of the information and communications technology industry. As China is an agricultural powerhouse, the issue of carbon emissions in agriculture was always a focus of attention. Promoting green development in agriculture, constructing rural new energy, and developing agricultural and rural environmental protection standards helped to strike a balance in overall food security through CN and PREC.

In addition, industrial parks across the country actively implemented green transformation under the guidance of national green development policies, becoming an important engine that led to the high-quality development of the local economy. Finally, in the 14th FYP, two large/medium/small clusters were found in the network. The major clusters were the central government, carbon intensity, enterprise, patent, and policy as hub words. Meanwhile, Tsinghua University, public, think tank, CN, and research institute (Appendix A, Figure A4) were found as significant words. During the 14th FYP period, as China officially set CN goals for the first time on the global stage, the central government endeavored to promote green and low-carbon development with strong policy enforcement. Accordingly, improvement in carbon intensity was used as a national target standard for the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Various patents were registered as achievements related to R&D in the green technology field of enterprise. In addition to the energy system, concerted efforts from all sectors of society were required to achieve the CN goal. For example, Tsinghua University established and operated a representative carbon-neutral research institute, which served as the major hub that connected the government, schools, industries, citizens, and education. This phenomenon was viewed as the creation of a carbon-neutral think tank with international influence, which together responded to the challenge of global climate change and sought the future of low-carbon green development.

Table 3. Result of CONCOR analysis by period.

Subject Words	Carbon Neutrality (CN); Carbon Peak (CP); and Pollution Reduction and Energy Conservation (PREC)
Period	11th FYP	12th FYP	13th FYP	14th FYP
Number of clusters	6	5	6	6
Average degree	20.48	11.2	13.04	20.72
Overall clustering coefficient	67.796	46.126	20.641	13.323
Major hub nodes	Government, development, small- and medium-sized enterprises, policy, technology, and target	Public, technology, environmental protection, subsidy, and green finance	New energy vehicles, energy-efficient buildings, photovoltaic, solar energy, public, and responsibility	Central government, carbon intensity, enterprise, patent, and policy
Significant words in the major clusters	Beijing, public, lifestyle, pilot, environmental protection, and GDP	New energy, R&D, investment, consumption, and public	New energy, agriculture, industrial park, standard, and green transformation	Tsinghua University, public, think tank, carbon neutrality, and research institute

presents the results of the CONCOR analysis.

4.3. Core–Periphery Structure Analysis

Through core–periphery structure analysis, we examine what actors and policy keywords lead the CN discourse per period. The results recommend that the top 13, 5, 6, and 12 core nodes have the highest coreness per period, respectively. Subsequently, we performed MDS analysis with two dimensions using a matrix generated by multiplying the coreness of each node. The findings indicate that nodes at the center of the network are placed in the center of the graph, and nodes at the periphery are located externally. Through this method, distinguishing whether the nodes are central or peripheral and observing on a continuous line whether the nodes are located on the boundary of the center or at a certain point between the center and the periphery is possible.

First, among the major actors related to CN, enterprises were found to be located at the core of the network for all periods. Enterprises are key players in the market, and the implementation of CNP directly impacts their operations. In the short term, environmental regulations increase the production costs of a company. As environmental protection standards have increased, enterprises have found that compulsive fixed investment and spending for environmental protection exert a negative impact on business development and market capacity. However, in the long term, environmental regulations are helpful for the environmental, social, and corporate management of companies. In particular, concepts such as green, ethical, and appropriate consumption emerged in the market with the increase in the carbon emission reduction and ecoconsciousness of the public. Therefore, consumers select companies that value environmental protection to improve their image and social responsibility and secure the continuity and stability of their management, which accompany them throughout their lifecycle [108].

A notable change apart from enterprises was that the main actors included “Enterprise” and “Public” during the 12th and 13th FYP periods. During these periods, the public, along with enterprises, played a major role in achieving CN. In other words, in the previous period, the public considered that environmental problems and CN issues should be resolved at the level of government regulation, because business sectors were the source of environmental destruction. However, as the prevailing perception became that environment and carbon emission issues are no longer the problems of particular members of society, the active participation of the public emerged as a more important factor for achieving the goal of CN. This change in public consciousness impacted green consumption and the demand for low-carbon public goods. Specifically, the demand for green products helped to promote market transformations and upgrades to green technology. Meanwhile, the demand for public goods urged governments to improve public services and provide enhanced green public goods in a continuous manner. In response, the Chinese government promulgated the Environmental Protection Law in 2015 to lay the institutional foundation for the participation of the public in environmental governance and decision making.

During the 14th FYP period, two actors, namely the central government and enterprises, were located at the core. In contrast, the role of the public weakened, and the central government was the core actor, reflecting the appearance of environmental authoritarianism. Prior to 2020, CN in China was said to have achieved full-scale change and goals through three pillars, namely, the participation of various stakeholders, gradual change in the social system, and public practice. However, with China officially announcing its 2030 CP and 2060 CN targets to the world at the end of 2020, carbon-neutral governance was officially added to the agenda of the domestic political administration. In other words, the country presented a relatively urgent goal of CN to the world. CN promotion required the coordination of the participants in different roles and changes and adjustments in the long term. However, this process can be viewed as a result of determining that the strong enforcement power of the central government is advantageous to realize the urgent goal of CN due to the uncertainty, complexity, longevity, and crossover of carbon-neutral governance. Figure 2 depicts the result of the visualization of the continuous core–periphery model for each period with MDS.

5. Discussion

This study demonstrates the trend of changes in CN over time, the core actors, and key policy keywords of CN in China using text mining and network analysis. Further, we endeavored to obtain results at the long-term level. Thus, we present the following implications.

First, one can see that the intensity of the implementation of CN in China is gradually increasing by examining the overall trend of CN development derived from text mining by period. The 11th FYP remained in a situation of loose environmental governance centered on economic development. However, various action plans for CN, such as regulation, consultation, cooperation, participation, induction, subsidy, and tax incentives, were promoted over time. This trend illustrated that the various discussions related to environmental issues were gradually standardized and institutionalized during the 14th FYP period, which, finally, led to the establishment of a CN system. This period can be viewed as the overall flow of the carbon-neutral development discourse undergoing the leap process of “exploration–demonstration–industrialization–digitalization.” This process possessed path-dependent characteristics similar to the “dot–line–plane development model,” which is one of the policy promotion models for economic growth in China.

A notable change in the trend is the combination of digitization and CN. The development of carbon-neutral technologies evolved from the encouragement of the development of early energy-efficient technologies to the current digital carbon-neutral development. Technologies related to environmental issues were a key driving force for the realization of CN. Through the development of technology during the 14th FYP, digitalization development routes (e.g., Internet+, blockchains, cloud computing, and big data technologies) are expected to be combined with CN goals to promote sustainable development of the environment and economy. This view is in contrast with those of previous studies (e.g., [110,111,112]), which found that previously, the environment was compatible with the economy. In other words, the investment of enterprises in environmental issues must be conducted in parallel with the increase in corporate profits. In the long term, guaranteeing the continuity of companies that share an entire lifecycle with the market or public is possible.

Second, according to the CONCOR analysis, the study found that the area of discourse in the CN discourse network gradually diversified. In the early days, discourses related to CN focused mainly on PREC targets. During this period, the effective spread of the policy was not achieved due to the opaqueness of the government and the coercive nature of environmental governance in China. This scenario resulted in limited opportunities for the business sector and the public to naturally form CN discourses. However, the increased government transparency and establishment of digital information platforms greatly improved the willingness of the public to participate in governance. Simultaneously, various environmental and energy issues apart from those of the economy formed discourses and provided feedback regarding policies. Notably, institutionalization continued to be promoted in CN discourse. In the 11th FYP, the government underwent various publicity and leading processes to achieve the goal as a preemptive action in the institutionalization process. During the 12th FYP, measures for institutionally supporting technology development, technology guarantees, and patent technology promotion were implemented. CN then seemingly underwent the process of being established in a legal system to achieve carbon emissions targets.

Third, the study employed core–periphery analysis and observed the key driving actors who led CN in China by period and the key policy keywords that were present per period. The 11th FYP period was one of high-speed development of the Chinese economy. At this stage, technology-oriented emerging industries were upgraded. At the same time, the goal of “Made in China 2025” (2015) emphasized the independence of Chinese technology. Enterprises generally played the leading role in technology development regarding energy efficiency and carbon emission reduction. After the 12th FYP, the public became one of the key players influencing the development of CN. The main reason was that the publicity and propaganda of the government and the demand for a low-carbon lifestyle induced active participation from the public in the formation of CN.

Conversely, the central government emerging as a key driver influencing CN during the 14th FYP, which is surprising. It is generally understood that enterprises and the public should lead the transition into a genuinely carbon-neutral society in the long term. Notably, however, the central government emerged as a key actor in this period. The reason for this is that, unlike the strong top-down leadership of the government in the majority of policy promotion processes in the past, the government intends to promote policies based on the private sector and the market regarding environmental issues and transform the social system in the long term.

The implications can be traced at various levels, because of the urgency of time and the intensity of the goals. There was only about 40 years from the time when China officially declared CN to the international community to achieve its goal. The Chinese economy demonstrates export-oriented growth based on the secondary industry, which will remain a vital axis of economic development in the future. This aspect requires much energy; thus, using various fossil fuels currently in reserve is inevitable. In addition, as various ways of life based on fossil fuels remain throughout society, rapidly transitioning to non-fossil energy poses risks to the national economy, the lives of the population, and energy security.

Nevertheless, China announced its carbon-neutral goal to the international community and announced that CN would proceed transparently and rapidly. The transition and time urgency of such national governance goals require strong leadership from the central government. In conditions where the effectiveness of policies led by the central government are verified through other policies in the past, the influence of the central government can become increasingly assertive. The central government emerged as a strong actor because the Chinese society needed to transition to CN in a fast and consistent manner.

The consensus for the need for a strong government has increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2020, COVID-19 has led to a shift in various perceptions, such as the relationship between people and nature, a new reflection on globalization, the transition to a non-face-to-face lifestyle, and the emphasis on strong leadership from countries globally to overcome the pandemic. Evidently, cooperation and information sharing between countries is essential in terms of global health. However, each country requires strong leaders who can face external stress to ensure the safety and protection of its citizens. In addition, in terms of quarantine, implementing rapid and robust control measures became important for the state to enable people to enjoy a safe and healthy life. The public accepted this governance method as an effective means for overcoming the crisis. Issues related to CN emphasized the effectiveness of strong government policy enforcement during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is because the central government needed to establish strong and clear indicators and guidelines, and local governments were tasked to formulate subgoals and detailed action plans that reflected local conditions while meeting these goals. Finally, these goals should be executed thoroughly and promptly according to plans. Therefore, the central government emerged as a key actor for CN after the 14th FYP.

Taken together, scholars expect that future CN participants and policy discourse topics will undergo unification–diversification–specialization with the gradual and strong accumulation of CN capacity in China. First, the diversification of participants will be promoted along with the expansion of the field of CN. In addition to governments, enterprises and the public exert significant influence on the promotion of CN. Experts, think-tanks, and researchers will provide valuable advice in the carbon-neutral field with the advancement of higher education. Furthermore, experts, entrepreneurs, and NGOs will increase their influence on CN via their presence in the private sector. The diversification of participants will promote specialization in policy fields. Enterprises are promoting the transition to a low-carbon society through technological innovations and the establishment of technological standards as establishers of carbon-neutral standardization systems. This scenario not only promotes economic and social development but also facilitates the active implementation of social responsibility. In addition, the government supports companies through policy support and financial investment through the substantial funding necessary for technological innovation and industrial upgrading. In this manner, it can provide control and policy guarantees for the development of enterprises. The demand for green products will energize the market, and CNP will stimulate interest in the consumer sector. The public actively acts as a consumer of the market and a practitioner of environmental protection. Their commitment to CN and willingness to pay for carbon reduction will be decisive factors in achieving the CN goal. Therefore, CN can be promoted as various participants specialize in diversified policy fields. Thus, the cooperative development of various participants emerges as a key factor in realizing CN.

6. Conclusions

CN in China faces a daunting challenge. In the short term, the country must actively promote economic growth, energy conversion, and industrial restructuring; in the long term, it must expand its transition to an ecofriendly social system and green production and consumption. Moreover, each actor in society must actively cooperate to achieve the goal. From this point of view, this study conducted network analysis by collecting textual data on CN in China. After text mining data across 20 years, the study derived a macroscopic trend of CN and key words related to the actors that lead the trend in CN through network and core–periphery analyses. The result implies that CN in China exhibits an exploration–demonstration–industrialization–digitalization model, and the key actors are enterprises. Meanwhile, scholars have recently discovered that the central government plays the role of a major driver in strongly promoting CN.

Nevertheless, this study has its limitations. First, securing data on channels that reveal more personal discourse (e.g., Sina blogs and WeChat) was impossible. Second, more keywords related to CN could not be applied to data analysis. This means that our findings may be biased, and different results may be obtained when more subject words are analyzed. Therefore, the results and policy proposals indicate limitations in terms of universality. In the future, when other countries promote CN, they need to reflect their own characteristics in their policies. In this regard, we are hopeful that future studies will supplement and improve upon these limitations. Thus, future studies should extend the research on the quantitative evaluation of CN using empirical data and analysis tools in various fields of CN. In addition, we hope that further analyses identifying the correlation between the practice path of CN and industries and regions will be conducted accompanied by studies that intend to measure the capability, potential, and input costs of China in relation to CN. Finally, future studies should investigate decarbonization and economic recovery perspectives after COVID-19 as well as the global war situation and conduct multidynamic structure analysis of international relations.