The Evolution of China’s Environmental Protection Inspection System

The environmental protection inspection system has undergone four stages of evolution: the initial cultivation phase of "bureaucratic transmission", the trial period of "regional corporate monitoring", the mobilization and transitional phase of "national government oversight", and the accelerated transitional phase of "party and government co-inspection". Examining the environmental protection monitoring framework through the lens of historical institutionalism, it has been discovered that the inspection system in my country has been impacted by broader changes in history. There are four crucial junctures of institutional transformation, including the passing of the "Environmental Protection Law" and the establishment of regional monitoring centres. The maintenance of system stickiness is reliant on factors influencing the paths of sunk cost and internalization. Drawing on historical experience, the environmental protection inspection system should adopt an active approach to exploring both "bureaucratization" and "de-bureaucratization" bi-regulation coupling mechanisms, while simultaneously enhancing relevant legal safeguards and the external inspection and participation systems.