Environmental Degradation and Security in Maoist China: Lessons from the War Preparation Movement

　

Judith Shapiro

　

Abstract

　

        In Chapter 5 Judith Shapiro turns our attention to China. She is particularly interested in the lessons we can learn from the environmental history of 20th-century revolutionary China. During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), the Chinese state displaced millions of people and relocated them to the hinterlands. Hundreds of factories and entire work forces were moved to regions inhospitable to human habitation. Coercive and semi-voluntary relocations of people to pristine wilderness areas damaged or destroyed ecosystems even as they created enormous human hardships, exemplifying the link between the suffering of people and the abuse of the land characteristic of the Mao years. Shapiro’s case study provides a stark example of the environmental and human repercussions of policies based on narrow conceptions of national interests – in this case, international security concerns. She demonstrates how a preoccupation with perceived external threats can shift attention from other priorities and, specifically, have profoundly negative effects on the environment.