From “Nourish the People” to “Sacrifice for the Nation”: Changing Responses to Disaster in Late Imperial and Modern China

2014 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 447-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Jean Edgerton-Tarpley
Keyword(s):  
North China ◽  
Yellow River ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Late Qing ◽  
Late Imperial ◽  
The North ◽  
The People ◽  
River Flood ◽  
Nationalist Government ◽  
Desperate Attempt

This article seeks to spark a conversation about shifting conceptualizations of disaster under modernizing states. It employs case studies of two major disasters, the North China Famine of 1876–79 and the Yellow River flood of 1938–47, to map changes and continuities in Chinese responses to disaster. State approaches to the late-Qing famine both drew on a millennium of Chinese thinking about disaster causation and anticipated new issues that would become increasingly important in twentieth-century China. The catastrophic Yellow River flood occurred when China's Nationalist government deliberately breached a major dike in a desperate attempt to “use water instead of soldiers” to slow the brutal Japanese invasion. The Nationalist state's technologization of disaster, its rejection of cosmological interpretations of calamity, and its depiction of flood victims as heroes sacrificing for the nation mark departures from late-imperial responses to disaster, but foreshadow features of the devastating Mao-era Great Leap Famine of 1958–62.

Famine in Imperial and Modern China

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Edgerton-Tarpley
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Famine Relief ◽  
State Legitimacy ◽  
Late Imperial ◽  
The People ◽  
Relief Operations

Famines have played an important role in China’s history. Because the Confucian classics interpreted natural disasters as warnings from Heaven, in ancient and imperial China feeding the people in times of crisis was viewed as an essential part of retaining the mandate to rule. Formative famine-relief measures were codified in China’s first imperial dynasty, the Qin (221–206 bce). The importance assigned to famine relief increased in the late imperial era, when a diverse array of local elites worked in tandem with officials to manage and fund relief operations. The Qing state (1644–1912) devoted an extraordinary amount of resources to famine relief, particularly during its 18th-century heyday. Beginning in the 19th century, however, the beleaguered late-Qing state increasingly lost the capacity to prevent droughts and floods from resulting in major famines. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, China’s nascent modern press drew national and international attention to frequent famines, leading to the burgeoning of foreign and nonstate relief activities in what came to be called the “land of famine.” After the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912, famines continued to be a test of state legitimacy. But Chinese modernizers largely rejected Confucian interpretations of famine in favor of the claim that modern science and technology would provide the best defense against disasters. By the 1940s, both the Chinese Nationalists and their Communist rivals called on people to sacrifice for the nation even during famine times. The Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949 promising that under Communist rule “not one person would starve to death,” but within a decade it presided over the most lethal famine in Chinese and world history. The horrors of the Great Leap Famine of 1958–1962 forced Chinese Communist Party leaders to make changes that ultimately paved the way for the rural reforms of the 1980s.

Rediscovering the Yellow River and the Yangtze River: the Circulation of Discourses on the North–South Dichotomy between Late Qing China and Meiji Japan

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-51
Author(s):  
Fei Chen
Keyword(s):  
Yangtze River ◽  
Yellow River ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
The Yellow River ◽  
Meiji Japan ◽  
Late Qing ◽  
Liang Qichao ◽  
The North ◽  
Southern Chinese ◽  
Late Qing China

AbstractMany novels, poems, and academic works produced in the last decades of Qing China were characterized by a structure of North–South dichotomy. While existing studies have investigated the root of this narrative structure in Chinese traditions, this article tries to uncover Japan's lesser-known role in the revitalization of traditional discourses. It first discusses how Japanese intellectuals, such as Shiga Shigetaka and Naitō Konan, reconfigured Chinese discourses on the North–South dichotomy as theories to assert Japan's superiority over China. It goes on to examine how Liang Qichao appropriated Japanese theories to mobilize southern Chinese to participate in state politics. It then explores how Chinese revolutionary students in Japan exploited Japanese intellectuals’ and Liang's discourses to promote a cross-provincial consciousness by representing China as a river-based region writ large. Lastly, it reveals how the restructured discourses on the North–South dichotomy were manipulated by revolutionaries after they flowed back to China.

Water shortage and needs for wastewater re-use in the north China

2006 ◽  
Vol 53 (9) ◽  
pp. 35-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
X.C. Wang ◽  
P.K. Jin
Keyword(s):  
North China ◽  
Yellow River ◽  
Water Shortage ◽  
Water Withdrawal ◽  
Present Condition ◽  
Treated Wastewater ◽  
Annual Rainfall ◽  
The Yellow River ◽  
The North ◽  
Huai River

This paper analyses the present condition of the water shortage in north China where annual rainfall is low and per capita water resource is below the line of regular water stress, or even the line of absolute water scarcity. Of the available water resources, the percentge of water withdrawal in all the north basins is high – the Yellow River and Huai River basins being greater than 80% and the Hai River basin mainly depending on interbasin water transfer. Over-withdrawal of water also results in serious water environmental problems including “flow cut-off” of the Yellow River main channel and water pollution of many rivers. The paper also analyses the potential of wastewater as a resource and the demand for treated wastewater re-use. In north China, due to low rainfall and high potential evaporation environmental re-use, gardening, afforestation, etc. is considered as the main usage of the treated wastewater. Considering the economic restrictions in the less developed area, a decentralised system can be taken as an important option in formulating water re-use strategies.

The Yellow River, the Chinese State, and the Ecology of North China

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Pietz
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
North China Plain ◽  
North China ◽  
Yellow River ◽  
Groundwater Resources ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
Hybrid Approach ◽  
The Yellow River ◽  
The North ◽  
The North China Plain

Flowing through the North China Plain, one of China’s major agricultural regions, the Yellow River has long represented a challenge to Chinese governments to manage. Preventing floods has been an overriding concern for these states in order to maintain a semblance of ecological equilibrium on the North China Plain. This region’s environment is heavily influenced by seasonal fluctuations in precipitation, leading to a long history of famine, particularly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when water management structures disintegrated with the deterioration of the imperial system. In the 20th century, new civil and hydraulic engineering techniques and technologies held the promise for enhanced management of the region’s waterways. After 1949, the new government of the People’s Republic used a hybrid approach consisting of the tenets of multipurpose water management combined with the tools of mass mobilization that were hallmarks of the Chinese Communist Party. The wide-ranging exploitation of surface and groundwater resources during the Maoist period left a long shadow for the post-Mao period that witnessed rapid consumption of water to fuel agricultural, industrial, and urban reforms. The challenge for the contemporary state in China is creating a system of water allocation through increased supply and demand management that can sustain the economic and social transformations of the era.

Early Pleistocene integration of the Yellow River I: Detrital-zircon evidence from the North China Plain

2020 ◽  
Vol 546 ◽  
pp. 109691 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guoqiao Xiao ◽  
Yuqi Sun ◽  
Jilong Yang ◽  
Qiuzhen Yin ◽  
Guillaume Dupont-Nivet ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Detrital Zircon ◽  
North China Plain ◽  
North China ◽  
Yellow River ◽  
Early Pleistocene ◽  
The Yellow River ◽  
The North ◽  
The North China Plain

Lake Evolution during the Last 3000 Years in China and Its Implications for Environmental Change

1993 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jin-Qi Fang
Keyword(s):  
North China Plain ◽  
North China ◽  
Land Reclamation ◽  
Yellow River ◽  
Lake Basin ◽  
Climatic Fluctuations ◽  
The Lower Yellow River ◽  
The North ◽  
Lake Evolution ◽  
The Ancient Chinese

AbstractTaking China as a whole, lake expansion occurred 500 B.C. (?)-0 A.D., 650-950 A.D., and 1250-1650 A.D. over the past 3000 yr. The expansions were mainly due to climatic fluctuations and correspond to frequent flood reports. Three regional characteristics of lake development have been recognized. (1) Fluctuations of near-coastal lakes, and those in other regions as well, were out of phase during 500 B.C.-500 A.D., which possibly resulted from out-of-phase fluctuations of climate and sea level on 10- to 100-yr time scale. (2) As the lower Yellow River channel migrated southward, the lakes in the south of the North China Plain formed and reached their largest sizes much later than those in the north. (3) For the lakes in the middle and lower Yangtze River valley, the higher a lake basin lies above a neighboring river and the further the lake is from the river's mouth, in general, the younger the lake is. Through land reclamation, the ancient Chinese have changed most of the lakes greatly. However, human activities were also constrained in certain ways by the natural changes of the lakes. Reclamation usually was banned and farmland was abandoned to repair reservoirs while lakes were expanding.

scholarly journals The Unforgettable Indus River Flood-2010: A Review

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 48-51
Author(s):  
Arshad Ali ◽  
Ghazala Nosheen ◽  
K.A. Khan
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crises ◽  
Arabian Sea ◽  
Indus River ◽  
The North ◽  
The People ◽  
River Flood ◽  
North Part ◽  
Contaminated Drinking Water ◽  
Us Dollar ◽  
The Government

Floods are the unannounced natural disasters that destroy both lives and infrastructures. In July 2010 a huge and unpredictable flood struck Pakistan, especially the catchment area of the River Indus, extending from the north part of Khyber Pakhtun Khwa (KPK) Province south to the Arabian Sea. The top five rainfall intensities recorded at Risalpur, Islamabad, Murree, Cherat and Ghari Dopatta were 415mm, 394mm, 373mm, 372mm and 346mm, respectively. The Indus Flood-2010 affected nearly 20 million people spreading over 36 districts of the country. The death toll recorded was nearly 1,800 persons. More than 10 million people were subjected to contaminated drinking water. The destruction to cotton, rice, sugar cane, and animal fodder was recorded as 3,000 km2, 800 km2, 800 km2, and 1000 km2, respectively. And about five hundred thousand tons of wheat was destroyed. The Indus Flood of 2010 caused an estimated 43 billion US dollar loss to Pakistan and adversely affected its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It brought on both the financial crises and socio-political concerns (such as infiltration of the Taliban in the form of a relief supporter). Though this flood has left everlasting impacts on the people of Pakistan, they could be better handled if the government and relief agencies were more determined, honest and committed.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/hn.v9i0.7073 Hydro Nepal Vol.9 July 2011 48-51

scholarly journals The collapse of the North Song dynasty and the AD 1048–1128 Yellow River floods: Geoarchaeological evidence from northern Henan Province, China

The Holocene ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (11) ◽  
pp. 1759-1770 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J Storozum ◽  
Qin Zhen ◽  
Ren Xiaolin ◽  
Li Haiming ◽  
Cui Yifu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Song Dynasty ◽  
North China Plain ◽  
North China ◽  
Yellow River ◽  
Henan Province ◽  
River Flooding ◽  
The North ◽  
Northern Song Dynasty ◽  
Northern Song ◽  
River Floods

From AD 1048 to 1128, Yellow River flooding killed over a million people, left many more homeless and destitute, and turned parts of the once fertile North China Plain into a silted-up agricultural wasteland. Brought on in part by climate change and the Northern Song dynasty’s (AD 960–1127) mismanagement of the environment, the Yellow River floods likely hastened the collapse of the Northern Song dynasty. Despite the magnitude of this flood event, no sedimentary deposits have yet been linked to these historically recorded floods. In this research paper, we provide archaeological, sedimentary, and radiocarbon evidence of the AD 1048–1128 Yellow River floods at the Dazhanglongcun, Xidacheng, and Daguxiancun sites in Neihuang County, Henan Province. Based on our data, we argue that the AD 1048–1128 Yellow River floods deposited over 5 m of alluvium on villages in the North China Plain, radically changing both the physical and political landscape of Northern Song dynasty China.

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