About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

12 Rev. Eur. Stud. 1 (2020)

handle is hein.journals/rveurost12 and id is 1 raw text is: Review of European Studies; Vol. 12, No. 1; 2020 ISSN 1918-7173 E-ISSN 1918-7181 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education Exploiting Shangri-La: Assessing the Tibetan Plateau's Natural Resources and the Work of Karl Wittfogel Brock Ternes Correspondence: Brock Ternes, PhD (Corresponding Author) SUNY Cortland, Sociology/Anthropology Department, P.O. Box 2000, Cortland, NY 13045, USA Received: November 13, 2019 Accepted: December 7, 2019 Online Published: December 17, 2019 doi:10.5539/res.vl2nlpl URL: https://doi.org/10.5539/res.vl2nlpl Abstract This paper applies Karl Wittfogel's theory of hydraulic societies to China's relationship with Tibet. It argues that the Chinese are interested in control over Tibet not only for its land, location, or wealth of natural resources, but also for control of its headwaters. Hundreds of millions of people rely on the numerous large rivers that start in the Tibetan plateau, making the region a critically important water supply for Asia. Wittfogel's work theorizes that China's territory and authority has expanded with the need to secure water for its large population and food production. The paper contains two sections: the first summarizes Wittfogel's arguments, a history of Tibet, and China's control of it; the second describes China's attempts to modernize Tibet, specifically through river development, and the environmental damage caused by such efforts. Tibet's rivers are crucial for the entirety of Asia, and the Plateau's massive supplies of water are just one of its many resources. By focusing on rivers, this article describes the importance of Tibet and how increasing levels of resource extraction legitimatize Chinese centralized authority. Keywords: river development, natural resources, Karl Wittfogel, critical theory If water is the essential ingredient of life, then water supply is the essential ingredient of civilization. David Sedlak, Water 4.0 (2014, p. 1). 1. Introduction Freshwater scarcity has become a growing concern in Asia, where drought and desertification have jeopardized large swaths of the continent. Extreme climate shifts have stressed water supplies across the continent, leaving its ecosystems and societies struggling to secure sufficient supplies of water. In an attempt to augment its water supplies, the Chinese have advanced a decades-long operation of river modification which includes some of the world's largest dams, channels, and reservoirs. To understand how surface water in Asia has been stressed by these construction projects, this paper applies the work of the critical theorist Karl Wittfogel to Sino-Tibetan relations. Tibetian headwaters feed several rivers on which hundreds of millions of people rely, and China's investment in grandiose hydro-projects in the region lends credence to Wittfogel's notion of hydraulic societies. Rivers and societies comprise an interconnected socio-ecological system, and understanding China's efforts to access and manipulate the most in-demand rivers in Asia can provide insight into the relevance of critical theory in the context of environmental degradation and resource depletion. Arguably no nation on earth has fought as hard to secure its water as China, and Wittfogel's work offers important insight while explaining China's drive to control the waters stemming from the Plateau. Asia as a whole contains large desiccated landscapes and has a relative disadvantage compared to other continents: it has to provide water for two-thirds of the world's population with only a third of its runoff, 80 percent of which is concentrated in the short monsoon season (Pearce, 2006, p. 22). The challenges of slaking China's thirst derive in part from the uneven distribution of water within the country. Southern China (which is generally defined as the area of Yangtze River basin, and territory to the south) holds four-fifths of China's available freshwater and has roughly half of China's population. The North China Plain is much more water-stressed and suffers the severest shortages; it has 45 percent of the population, two-thirds of the farmland, and only one-fifth of the nation's water (Bochuan, 1991; Liu, 2002). China now has over a dozen megacities, each with at least 10 million inhabitants, and nearly half of China's 600 largest cities are projected to face severe water shortages (Gall, 2015). As a result of this placement of settlements and farms, cities in the arid north like Beijing are rapidly exploiting their groundwater. Rural and urban water usage are in rife competition, as the water needed by rural communities has been diverted to the ever-growing megacity Beijing. Beijing's expanding suburbs now boast over 40,000 wells, which supply two-thirds of the city's water, but excessive groundwater withdrawals have led to land subsidence and fractured pipes 1

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most