environmental carrying capacity in many parts of China. Large public projects
- such as the Great Wall and Grand Canal – ruined ecosystems, yet the overall
record of early dynasties was mixed. After all, China heralds the world’s
earliest water diversion project at Dujiangyan, and dike construction not only
controlled flooding for two millennia but also enhanced biodiversity in the
region. From late in the Sung Dynasty to the fall of Imperial China in 1911,
population pressures stimulated over-cultivation and deforestation, which
further tipped the ecological balance.
Republican China was an interregnum environmentally as well as
politically. Leaders paid some attention to flood control and irrigation systems,
but were overwhelmed with domestic instability and invasion by Japan. After
Japan’s defeat in 1945, communists again fought with nationalists for the
control of China. When the KMT lost the civil war in 1949 it retreated to
Taiwan, furthering the isolation of that island (which had been under Japanese
control from 1895 to 1945) from China.
In China, Mao’s domination over the polity allowed him to launch war
against the environment. Both the Great Leap Forward and Cultural
Revolution had devastating environmental effects; increasing deforestation
and overcultivation and destroying habitats of many threatened and rare
species. The failed political and economic policies of Maoism brought
mainland China close to collapse. Then Mao died and Deng Hsiaoping took
the reins of power and reformed China’s economic system. The economic
reform focus, accompanied by some political liberalization, continues to the
present. Exuberant economic growth rates are now the challenge to China’s
environment, yet the successful curbing of population growth occurred in this
era too. Finally, the environment has entered consciousness of leaders since
the late 1980s.
Meanwhile, Taiwan under KMT rule took off economically and by the
twenty-first century has entered the small club of economically developed
nations. This occurred at the expense of Taiwan’s environment, and protests of
environmental activists – joined by the chorus of those opposing authoritarian
controls on labor and social groups – prompted political reforms, liberalization
and eventually democratization. The success of both economic and political
development (including indigenization) gave leaders confidence that Taiwan
could remain outside the orbit of China’s power, which increased friction
between China and Taiwan.
The public in both China and Taiwan are increasingly aware of degradation
to the environment. Survey research suggests that mainland Chinese still agree
with the regime’s emphasis of economic development before environmental
preservation. Notwithstanding its rapid economic growth of the 1980s and
1990s, China does remain a developing country with a huge rural poverty
problem. Attitudes of Taiwan’s residents reflect a greater willingness to
Historical patterns 35