Green Politics in China is a timely book that provides a succinct summary of China's state–society relations in light of the country's increasingly tense environmental politics. In this nicely written short book, Joy Y. Zhang and Michael Barr set out to examine "significant but less talked-about issues" (p. 2) by identifying "a series of innovative mobilization strategies" (p. 4) at the grass roots. In doing so, they argue that environmentalists in China are not only good at negotiating with the state but are also creative in engaging a wide range of audiences. While their case studies shed new light on our understanding of China's environmental movements, their ambition to "challenge a static view of state–society relations" (p. 16) falls short of expectations. The fluidity of power dynamics in state–society relations has been well studied in and beyond China Studies, and the modest arguments found in this book may come as a disappointment to scholars who have a long-standing interest in China's environmental politics.