Learning through international cooperation: a case study of two Chinese counties implementing the Grain for Green project

China's remarkable economic development has been achieved at the cost of its environment. Scholarly attention on international norm diffusion and policy learning asserts that international influence could make a positive impact on China's environmental politics. However, the policy process in China still retains the campaign style, which dates back to Mao's era. This case study of two inland counties in Shaanxi province provides empirical material that partially challenges the so-called international influence approach. County B and W, which were involved in an international forestry cooperation project with the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KFW), both learned from their partner in subsequently implementing the Grain for Green project, but with different levels of learning and, consequently, different institutional changes. The findings based on these two counties indicate an important factor other than the structure of international influence, one which definitely affects policy learning and the resultant changes made by local bureaucrats, namely local learning agents; thus, a locality with a strong local learning agent is more likely to induce learning and substantive institutional changes. The findings also underscore the difficulty in spreading new norms and knowledge from international actors to the Chinese government. The impact of international influence in enhancing domestic governance cannot be taken for granted.