Individual Submission Summary
Share...

Direct link:

The Concealed Connection Communist China’s First Nature Reserve and Its American Roots

Fri, April 1, 8:30 to 10:00am, Westin Seattle Hotel, Grand Crescent

Abstract

Dinghushan Nature Reserve is located in Zhaoqing, Guangdong province of southern China. In 1956, when China was undergoing the “Great Leap Forward” and the “Great Steel Making” campaign, five scientists proposed to establish the Dinghushan Arboretum to preserve its natural species. This proposal passed the first National People’s Congress, and the arboretum has been officially recognized as the first nature reserve founded in communist China. The tension between China and Soviet Union then was already looming, but in the field of natural sciences and engineering, Russia still provided the model for China to emulate. It is widely believed that China’s early nature reserves followed the USSR’s system, and the idea of American national parks did not start exerting its influence on China’s nature conservation until the 1990s.

But the background of the advocates of the early nature reserve reveals an unexpected connection between communist China and its Cold War rival, the United States of America. Three of those five scientists who claimed that they were inspired by the “scientific advanced nations” had received their education in botany or biology in the US. And the other two were their students. Was the USSR or the US the more advanced nation to emulate in their mind when they made the proposal? How did the intellectual flow cross the harsh political boundary and affect the natural landscape of China’s southern border? This paper intends to investigate these questions through tracing the history of the establishment of the Dinghushan Nature Reserve, in order to reflect the trajectory of China’s nature conservation. It will suggest, more broadly, than in tracing transnational connections we must always look at both “official” and “unofficial” networks and see beyond the ideological as well as nation-state boundaries we draw on our maps.

Author