Imagining Nature in China

The recent revival of Confucian thought in Chinese politics emphasises the need to live in harmony with nature. In this video, Professor May Tan-Mullins, University of Nottingham China Campus, suggests that this is more than just state propaganda. Similar ideas, she argues, resonate in everyday life, as people enjoy gardens or other representations of nature.

Do attempts to connect with nature aesthetically and in personal experience open up possibilities for a more ecological politics of the future? Or do you think such ritual appreciations of nature on a micro-scale a substitute that distract us from caring about the environment at large?