The environmental awakening in China is quite different from environmental awakenings that westerners are familiar with. For instance, the concept of "wilderness" is much less important in the Chinese environmental movement than in the American environmental movement. There are also several differences in methods and other things. So, the presenter is saying, "as a mostly western audience, you have an idea of what an environmental awakening is. What's happening in China doesn't perfectly match that idea, but "environmental awakening" is the best term we have for it."" "of sorts" desn't always mean "a bad example"--sometimes it just means "an example that is very different from other examples" For instance: "a hovercraft is a ship of sorts that hovers above the water instead of floating on it" Here, a hovercraft is better than a normal ship--it is just very different from the standard concept of "ship."

Thanks Thomas. Yes, the Chinese translation version did the same thing as you said. Maybe I went into dead end. With Chris' explanation, I should't combine "of" and “sorts” together to treat it as a phrase. Here,"of" is just a prep. and "sorts" is just a noun.

The simplest explanation is that "of sorts" means "sort of," "kind of," or "somewhat," although these might go earlier in the sentence instead of the end.