Chairman Mao's War on Nature.

• Author: Saoshiro, Uta
• Position: Interview - Interview

China's recent economic boom is frequently blamed for the country's mounting environmental dilemmas--its cities are among the most severely polluted in the world, much of its original forestland has been cleared, and water shortages are a growing concern. Judith Shapiro, author of Mao's War Against Nature, argues that many of china's current ecological problems will persist until the government addresses the environmental legacy of Mao's drive to "conquer" nature.

World Watch: What drew you to do research on China?

Judith Shapiro: I was one of the very first Americans to go to China to teach English right after U.S.-China relations were normalized in 1979. China was just coming out of the cultural revolution, Mao had died only three years earlier, and stories of tremendous suffering were everywhere. The teachers and students I dealt with had all undergone incredible upheavals in their lives.

Hundreds of people told me their stories, and I began to notice a pattern: when the abuse of people became severe, the abuse of nature also tended to become severe. So I wanted to explore the notion that human rights problems and environmental issues were linked during this period.

WW: How closely linked are they?

JS: While the stories are not perfectly parallel, they are similar. For example, in the late 1950s a number of intellectuals in China were arguing that population was becoming a problem and that certain big dams shouldn't be built. Those intellectuals were labeled as rightists, and essentially silenced. So individuals suffered, and the environment suffered as a result of China's population explosion and the construction of big dams that silted up and destroyed ecosystems.

WW: In your book you mention four different social and political elements that influenced the way the Chinese and the government related to their environment.

JS: The first dynamic that I isolated is political repression--such as the 1957 anti-rightist movement and the persecution of intellectuals, which really carried through the whole period. What's different about the effort to conquer nature or transform nature in this period is the notion that Maoist thought in and of itself would be enough to overturn the laws of science. Scientists who said, "wait a minute, the laws of physics don't suddenly change just because you say so" -- those scientists were essentially silenced.

The second dynamic I called "utopian urgency," which characterizes the Great Leap Forward at the end of the '50s. During this time China was trying to catch up with the West and industrialize virtually overnight. Mao knew the country needed iron and steel to industrialize, so he set the people...