Download - Lecture 01_The Lay of the Land_draft2

8/6/2019 Lecture 01_The Lay of the Land_draft2

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The Lay of the Land: Geography

and its Role in Chinas Society

Lecture 1


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Total Land

Area

Cultivated

Land Area

Cultivated as

Percent of

Total

Popula-

tion

Cultivated

Land per

capita

(M. km--2) (M. km2) (2)/(1) (Million) (hectares)

China

1996

9.6 1.3 13.5% 1,224 .106

India 3.29 1.41 43% 931 .19

USA 9.17 1.70 19% 243 .70

USSR 22.27 2.20 10% 284 .77

Same as other nations but oh so different!


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Geographical Forces

Location in Asia (latitude next Thursday)

Mountains

Deserts Rainfall Patterns

Temperature and Other Factors


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Creation of Chinas Realm

Plate Tectonics the defining force of

China


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Plate Tectonics Shaping Asia


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China after the collision:

One big mountainous mess

and a lot desert elsewhere


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Rainfall in North China

Low

Variable

All Concentrated in the Summer

Determinants: A combination of Siberia /the Himalayas / and sunspots


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WinterWeather Driven by Siberian Land Mass

1. Cold creates very high pressure

2. All winter /

spring strong

winds out of NE

3. Mountains block all

moisture from Indian Ocean

4. All moisture from

South China Sea is

blown out of NorthChina

5. Therefore: does not rain all winter in

North China or Central Asian Steppe


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SummerWeather Also driven by Siberian Land

Mass Plus Sunspots

1. Heat creates low pressure

2. By mid-summer warm

air mass rises enough and

starts sucking in moisture

from South China sea

3a. But, rainfall can be variable: If

sunspots (that is, extra hot), moisture

from Indian Ocean can come in

abundance -- floods

4. By spring, every

year, as NE winds die

down, moisture fromSouth China Sea flows

in Yangtze Valley

plum rains

5. Therefore: most rain in North China

comes in July and August, but variable

3b. If cooler weather,

little or no moisture

can make it -- drought


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Drier and Drier

Wetter and

wetter


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Abundant water in South China


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The Desert of Mongolia and

Central Asia


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Creation of Chinas Realm

Plate Tectonics the defining force of

China

Division from Europe desert in west and

north

Division from rest of South Asia peaks

and canyons

Mountains in South China


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Barriers of Geography

Mountains and

canyons

Deserts

Coves and

ocean andhostile

pirates

Why is China less imperialistic than other powers Who are Chinas traditional enemies?


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Geography and Institutions

Deserts of the Northwest: Need for

irrigation and rise of Imperial China

The Himalayas and Moisture of SoutheastAsia: The mid-China swamp, the discovery

of rice and expansion of an empire

Mountainous terrain and isolated coves:

The isolated south havens for pirates

and patriots


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7000 BC to 5000 BC: arrival of wheat / barely / sorghum


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First irrigation systems


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Need for the creation ofa bureaucracy to

manage irrigation system

Oriental Despotism


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Geography creates Chinas Yellow Earth

And, creates a

landscape where 30

million people still live in

caves

Windblown soil from Gobi

desert deposited 1000s of feet

thick in Northwest China


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North China Water Crisis

Not enough water in the

Yellow River; Huai River orHai River to support both

booming agriculture and

rapidly expanding cities

Hai River Basin

LowerReaches of

Yellow River

Places of real

shortages


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Agricultural Expansion on the North China Plain mainly from

2 season wheat corn largest increase in Chinas food

output in the post-WWII era


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Not enough surface water so, tapone of the richest fresh water aquifers

in the world with pumping

But, pumping itself is going on so fast,

groundwater table is falling at 1 meter

per year in some places

Yellow River (full of loess silt), millions of years ago

Yellow River (full of loess silt), nowMountains in Hai River Basin

First filled in by silt overflow from

flooding Yellow River and then

filled with fresh water

Ground level


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Creation of 1000s of Years of

Conflict Mongolian Plain nomads

Xiongnu / Mongolians /

Manchurians

China, proper --

farmers


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How long is the Great Wall?

(Hint Chinese name: wanli changcheng 10,000 li wall)

Hint on hints: hints are not always right: over

course of Chinas history, more than 20,000

kilometers of wall have been built


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But, much less today


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Culture from the North


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Although most of real wall is gone

today there is a population wall

of land

6 percent of

population

of land

94 percent of

population


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In fact, the geography of the

North indirectly has created

Chinas ethnic mosaic

Chinaa non-Han minorities areall over . Yet almost no

where: only about 8% of

population are non-Han

So how did geography create

todays China? Have to look back

nearly 1000 years


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Geography begats Genghis

"The greatest happiness is

to vanquish your enemies,

to chase them before you,to rob them of their wealth,

to see those dear to them

bathed in tears, to clasp to

your bosom their wives

and daughters"-GENGHIS KHAN


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Where did Genghis Khan come

from?

Pastoral society that evolved on the edge of

Chinas northern borders

Grass versus Cultivation

Grass horsemanship / bow technology / strategy for

warfare during a pre-fire arms era

Why the evolution?

Chinas wealth provided the motivation to produce

better/faster horses stronger bows and more effective

strategies

And ultimately


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the Mongolia Empire 1206 to 1294


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What is

effect onChina?


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Empire before

the Yuan Dynasty


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Xinjiang / Qinghai

Tibet

Inner Mongolia

HLJ

Jilin

Liaoning

Yunnan


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Chinaa non-Han minorities are

all over . Yet almost no

where: only about 8% of

population are non-Han

Uygur /

Kazakh /(altais or turkie)

Tibetan

Mongolian(altai)

Man +Korean (altai)

Miao Yao / Tai /

Tujia (sino-tibetan)Most of Chinas

Minority Areas

are actually

added by non-

Han dynasties

Tajiks (indoeuropeans


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Distribution of Minorities because

of nature of isolated geographies

most of Chinas 55 ethnic minority

groups are in the South and

Southwest .


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Muslims around 8 million (Uygurs) and other

Muslims (about 20 million altogether) dominate

Northwest China (and the worries of Han Leaders)


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Most concentrated minorities in

population terms are actually in

Northeast Man (10 million) and

Korean (2 million) difficult to tell

apart from Han agriculturalist mixed marriages


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Deserts of the Northwest: Need forirrigation and rise of Imperial China

The Himalayas and Moisture of

Southeast Asia: The mid-China swamp,the discovery of rice and expansion ofan empire

Mountainous terrain and isolated coves:The isolated south havens for piratesand patriots


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Yangtze: Chinas largest river

and geographic heart of Middle

China

Second in water flow (to Amazon)

Second in length (to Nile)

First in vertical drop (from more than 5000

meters to sea-level)


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Source:

about 5000

meters on

Tibetan

Plateau

Into the sea

near

Shangahi

The long journey down the Yangtze

and a land dominated by water


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80% of

population in

the South

80% of

population in

the North


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Reasons for

population shift:

Pull: Big

breakthroughwhen paddy rice

came from

Vietnam (via

India? Via China?)

in around 1200

AD)

Push: Ghengis

Khan


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The Grand Canal of China () is the largest ancient

artificial riverin the world, from Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province to Tianjin near

the Bohai Bay, where it unites with the Hai He, and thus may be said to extend

to Tung-chow in the neighbourhood ofBeijing.


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The flip side of a lot of water not

drought, but floods


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The ultimate floodprevention project

maybe?


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And, produces a lot of culture

From the late Song

(after Genghis) to

Ming and today?

Center of Chinese

Culture


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and Shanghai which has helped produce

Chinas economic growth!


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Deserts of the Northwest: Need forirrigation and rise of Imperial China

The Himalayas and Moisture of Southeast

Asia: The mid-China swamp, the discoveryof rice and expansion of an empire

Mountainous terrain and isolated

coves: The isolated south havens forpirates and patriots andentrepreneurs


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Innumerable Scenes from the South


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The mountains are everywhere giving

refuge to pirates and patriots the

Mongols / Manchurians / Nationalists couldnever defeat the rebels in the South


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Geography under fiscal scarcity creates theultimate choice

The Ming is wealthy lots of trade peace

and expansion of economic activity

Zhu Di (second emperor) with help of a eunuchnamed Zheng He (Zhu Diindirectly actually

made Zheng He a eunuch; then he made him

his closest advisor), began a series of

enormous projects to lay the foundation of a

true Chinese empire (including rebuilding

Peking; widening the Grand Canal; etc)

GREATEST PROJECTS f Zh Di/ Zh H BUILD th


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GREATEST PROJECTS of Zhu Di/ Zheng He:

A. Create a permanent defense against the

Barbarians out of the north

B. Build a fleet that could conquer the world

or at least master it with trade (this is, of

course, more than 100 years before

Columbus) under fiscal scarcity creates

the ultimate choices

But, few countries can fight two wars at onetime and, there are two wars (Mongols /

Manchus continue to attack northern

borders + pirates attacking ocean going

shipping)

Geography raises the stakes can not raise abig enough army to destroy Barbarians in

the north (why? Desert is too big and too

far from supply lines) and can not build a big

enough coast guard/navy to protect ocean

going vessels (why? Too many coves and

islands for hiding)

BUILD the

GREAT WALL

a real one

BAN OCEAN GOING shipping

cant afford both (forces

China to turn inward


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Geography also creates thousands

of isolated villages thousands of

dialects and customs andfoods (hunan chicken sichuan

ribs cantonese dimsum

peking duck xian lamb soup

mongolian bbq neverending)


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Also creates governance-with-

Chinese characteristics

Remember the structure of Chinas

government? Created in response to the

demands of irrigation [see next slide]


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Need for the creation of

a bureaucracy tomanage irrigation system

Oriental Despotism


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Also creates governance-with-

Chinese characteristics

Remember the structure of Chinas

government? Created in response to the

demands of irrigation [see next slide]

Problem: how do you run a huge,

DIVERSE (with many areas isolated by

geography) county in a pre-internet

(telephone) era?DECENTRALIZATION

What is the nat re of the


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What is the nature of the

contracts between upper and

lower levels in Chinas governmentbureaucracy?

The Center (Emperor

(e.g., Qian Long) or theChairman (e.g., Mao)

or the General Party

Secretary (Hu Jintao)

KEY QUESTION: Could Qian Long give an

orderand have it carried out in all 22 provinces

189 prefectures 1500 counties and

22000 towns?

NO Geography dictates a decentralized

government system:

County magistrate does:

X, Y and Z (submit taxes / maintain dikes /

keep peace)

Center does not care how governance is

carried out [effect? Enormous

heterogeneity in institutions / culture /

foods / etc]

provinces

Prefectures

Counties

Towns

The New Heart of Chinas Industry-Machine


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The New Heart of China s Industry-Machine

different models in different places

Township and

village

enterprises in

Southern

Jiangsu

Pure

private

enterprisein

Wenzhou

JVs between overseas

Chinese and domestic

entrepreneurs in Guangdong


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Although it makes policy making

from the center difficult it allows

for safe experimentation:

First Special Economic Zones in

the South areas isolated from the

rest of China

How else could


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How else could

you get:

Shenzhen: the

symbol of Chinas

miracle growth

From 1980

until 2000


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The many faces of China

Each influenced by

geography

And more


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Lessons

I didnt know what plate-tectonics were yesterday, andtoday I know it has shaped the world that I am living infully!

Geography is powerful: Chinas culture is not what

makes the middle kingdom special, the middlekingdom (that is, Chinas position in East Asia surrounded by mountains; deserts and coves) is whatmakes Chinas culture

The power of geography and the legacy of the culture

(which was shaped by the geography) live on today: China is not hegemonic (it never has been only those nasty

barbarians from the north were)

The state plays an important role in the economy (it always has)

China is a diverse and decentralized place (it had to be)

Download - Lecture 01_The Lay of the Land_draft2

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