Engineering a State of Nature: Hydraulic Transformations on the North China Plain, 1949-1999

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ENGINEERING A STATE OF NATURE: HYDRAULIC TRANSFORMATIONS ON THE NORTH CHINA PLAIN, 1949-99This research will explore hydraulic engineering on the North China Plain since 1949. Specifically, the project centers on two issues: 1) how hydraulic engineering was shaped by, and in turn shaped, state-building, national identity, and the pursuit of modernity, and 2) how the environment of the North China Plain was transformed by hydraulic engineering. The research will explore the state-nature nexus after 1949 by distinguishing differing state values and goals. The state pursued Soviet-style central planning for much of the 1950s, Great Leap Forward decentralization and communalization between 1958-1961, a blend of state planning and mass mobilization during the early 1960s (1961-65) and 1970s, the Cultural Revolution (1966-69), and "market socialism" of the post-Mao era (1978-). Intellectual MeritsThe project will examine hydraulic engineering projects during these periods and develop conclusions on how these projects were reflections of state goals. Comparative conclusions about the environmental consequences of these periods will be guided by examining fundamental tensions that informed hydraulic engineering, and that reflected differing assumptions about the nation, state, and modernity. These tensions included: 1) modern technology vs. mass mobilization, 2) central vs. local planning, 3) international technical cooperation vs. self-reliance, and 4) economic development vs. environmental protection. This study on the intersections between the state, hydraulic engineering, and nature is influenced by past scholarship on the social context of science and technology. Specifically, the research is heavily influenced by recent scholarship that examines the "co-construction" of nation and nature, and that recognizes the critical role of the state as actor in the discourses of modernity, technology, and nature. Broader ImpactsThis research will fill a void in science and technology studies, and environmental historical studies of China, and will offer research valuable to other comparative studies. Much of the scholarship on the relationship between states and nature has focused on western cultural regions. This research will recognize that critical elements of Chinese society indeed subscribed to fundamental twentieth-century conceptions of state, science and technology, and nature reflected in industrialized societies. At the same time, however, the Chinese state's socio-political values, goals, and institutions generated a particular cultural context of hydraulic engineering in China after 1949. The project will also foster a more nuanced view of China's contemporary reform program. Understanding how hydraulic engineering and technology were embedded in a particular historical and cultural context since 1949 allows one to recognize and understand the range of choices available to China's water policy planners. The conclusions of this study will also suggest the potential implications of resource depletion on China's role in world markets and on China's security considerations. Declining agricultural productivity, one consequence of water scarcity, will influence China's internal and external actions in important ways. The research will be suggestive of China's potential impact on world agricultural markets and its increasing presence in regional and global security arrangements.