China’s Growing Deserts
June 10th, 2006 | by Ken Grandlund |And they say that man has no major effect on nature. Tell that to China. Environmental experts in that country are searching for ways to halt the expansion of two major desert regions in its northern districts, deserts whose expansion of 1500 square miles a year (about the size of Rhode Island) is threatening villages and towns as it makes its way closer to the Chinese capitol of Beijing.
While China has always had desert regions within its borders, the current expansion can be tied to the 1950’s and the Maoist government’s Great Leap Forward program that attempted to increase the amount of arable land by diverting rivers in the region and forming reservoirs. Also included in the program was the intentional deforestation and over cultivation of lands in that area.
Now with over one billion people, it is easy to understand why China needed to increase food production, but the solution, while briefly successful, has now created a situation where food production is being hampered and all efforts to stave the growing sand dunes have proved ineffective. Sometimes, you can’t turn back the clock no matter how hard you try.
Indeed. Every time man tries to harness nature to serve his needs, the results tend to create an opposite effect. Maybe not immediately, but certainly eventually. And when man seeks to reverse the effects of his meddling, we find that you can’t always put the puzzle back together like it was before. (America suffered from a similar fate in the 1930’s Dust Bowl disaster, which largely occurred because of similar agricultural endeavors. The difference in America though was that development was encouraged not purely for logistical reasons (feeding people) but for economic ones.)
Wang Tao, who heads the 937 Project, said the only viable strategy to save arid land in Gansu, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia is to move people out, reduce production, form conservation parks and let nature heal itself.
“Minqin is not going to get more water,” he said in a telephone interview from his base in Lanzhou. “It needs fewer people.”
Easier said than done I’m afraid. Even with China’s one child policy, their population is still growing. As China, which has one of the world largest populations, moves to become more modernized, we feel the squeeze in oil availability. Will we soon be feeling the squeeze on water availability too? Or will China seek to expand their own borders in order to find the resources it needs to assure a minimum supply of water, food, and land for its people? I’ve said before that our economic imbalance with China is going to cause us problems at some point. I still believe that is the case. But perhaps China’s water problems, and loss of livable land, will become a bigger problem, one that will create instability to all of Asia as their need for land and water increases. What then?
[tag]China, Dust Bowl, Environment, Natural Resources[/tag]
4 Responses to “China’s Growing Deserts”
By Matt Browner-Hamlin on Jun 10, 2006 | Reply
The problem China faces goes beyond mere civil policy. Beijing is being engulfed by the Gobi. City weather forcasts are defined by pollution and sand storms. This is not the image of a modern, developing city.
Instead of focusing on creating the perfect city, Beijing would benefit from a real majority very son.
By ken grandlund on Jun 10, 2006 | Reply
Agreed, but it was civil policy that began this course, or at the least acted as a catalyst to increase encroachment faster than might have naturally occurred. And of course, the expansion of desert only feeds on itself to make the problem larger as time moves forward. Add to this the effects of global warming, many of which are only now being quantified, and the problem for China grows.
My question is how will China choose to react to the loss of arable land and water? Will they form trading partnerships or resource sharing councils or just decide to take what they need from others?
By China Law Blog on Jun 10, 2006 | Reply
What about man made rain? China has done this elsewhere, but I am guessing this would not work in these regions. This desertification is a major problem not just for China but also for its neighbors. A few years ago I was stuck in my hotel room for a few days and all schools were closed and all flights were cancelled due to blowing sand/dust from China. This was in Korea!
China Law
By Matt Browner-Hamlin on Jun 10, 2006 | Reply
OK so the last line of my comment, I notice, is incoherent. I think what I was trying to say was that rather than gussy itself up for the Olympics, spending massive amounts of money at the expense of development that actually benefits the millions of impoverished and disenfranchised people, the PRC should honestly confront this pending disaster. As Chai says in the quote above, the government is trying to solve a problem with the methods that helped create a problem.
The larger point I was trying to make in that mangled sentence was that democracy and a government comprised of the people’s interests might be able to address massive problems like this in a more open and beneficial way. China is petrified of presenting itself as anything other than flawless, despite the fact that the realities it tries to cover up are simply too big to hide.
I was at a conference on the state of China’s economy about a year ago and one of the panels digressed into a discussion on the ecological impact China’s governmental policies for economic development have had. The speaker pointed out that the Gobi Desert, once hundreds of miles away from Beijing, is increasing in size by about 30 km (I think, it might be miles though) a year. Now the desert is less than 200 miles away from the city limits of Beijing. The speaker said that the PRC government has entertained the idea of literally moving the entire city of Beijing out of harms way. I’ve never seen that verified in the western media, but his sources were informed by high-level government officials.
Ken your economic and policy questions are important ones. The unfortunate truth his that we’ll be seeing the answers long before the problem is truly recognized by the world. The one factor that might speed things up is the Olympics. Beijing is at risk of losing the Games because of the level of pollution caused by sandstorms; I don’t expect the IOC will actually put their athletes health and performance over billions of dollars in business in China, but it’s a real possibility.
I posted on the desertification of China a couple of months ago. One thing to note from it is at that time, mid April, it had yet to rain in Beijing for the year.
The situation is dire and I don’t expect the solutions the CCP produces will make many Western observers happy.