Politicization and State-building, 1949–1977

The first and most fundamental aspect of Chinese water politics is the critical role played by water conservancy in strengthening the legitimacy of the PRC during its early years. During this period, the state sought to re-shape China's hydrology as a symbol of the New China. This importance was reflected in a series of high-profile work conferences convened by Party leaders soon after taking power. In 1949, Premier Zhou Enlai proclaimed to delegates at one such conference that “to enrich the nation and benefit the people, we must start constructing water conservation works.”Footnote ²⁰ This conference was followed by a second the following year that proposed a nationwide programme of water works, including dams, reservoirs and canals. The key role that water resource development played in legitimizing the new government is illustrated by the fact that following the Korean War, cadres were exhorted to re-double their efforts to promote water conservancy as a means of “bringing peace and stability to the country” (anbang dingguo 安邦定国).Footnote ²¹ A Yellow River Conservancy Commission (YRCC) history leaves little doubt as to the scale of the state's hydraulic ambitions during this period: “In short, we wanted to conquer the Yellow [River], and transform the Yellow [River] basin's natural condition … in order to satisfy with Yellow River resources the demands of socialist construction and the coming communist transformation of the national economy.”Footnote ²²

China's post-1949 leaders tied their legitimacy closely to the control of flooding, historically one of China's most deadly natural hazards. This was seen as especially important in parts of the Yellow River (Huanghe 黄河) basin: “The lower reaches of the Yellow became some of the most politically important liberated areas for the Party.”Footnote ²³ A 1955 publication further proclaimed that “With the coming of People's Democracy, a remarkable change has been brought about in the lower reaches. A stubborn fight against the calamities caused by the river has been waged by the masses under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Government.”Footnote ²⁴ Indeed, as such proclamations suggest, the state intended to rely on large-scale mobilization of peasant labour to build the necessary water works, which the same publication observed would require “all-round cooperation between government and people.”Footnote ²⁵

The struggle to control flooding quickly became the chief priority of water policy in early Communist-era China. A 1955 edition of Renmin ribao 人民日报 set the tone by pledging to “struggle” and “spare no effort” to control flooding along the Yellow River.Footnote ²⁶ The priority accorded to water policy, and particularly flood control, is also reflected in the re-organization of administration at both central and local levels. Authority for flood control and other water resource management tasks in the Yellow River and Yangtze River (Changjiang 长江) basins was atypically ceded by line ministries to special regional authorities known as the Yellow River Conservancy Commission and Yangtze River Planning Office, respectively.Footnote ²⁷ The State Council, meanwhile, established a separate National Flood Control Headquarters with branches in each province to directly manage flood emergencies.Footnote ²⁸ Local governments, too, adopted special administrative arrangements to reflect water policy priorities. By 1955, every riparian county and township in Shandong had established a dyke protection committee (hudi weiyuanhui 护堤委员会) and, in an indication of their importance, county-level committees were chaired by the second-highest ranking official in the county.Footnote ²⁹

But while its flood control efforts demonstrated both the determination of the PRC to eliminate one of China's longest-standing natural hazards and its ability to capably mobilize peasant labour in the service of state-building, the Sanmenxia 三门峡 Dam controversy in the 1960s demonstrated the extent to which bureaucratic and ideological conflict could undermine its objectives. The dam was intended to simultaneously control flooding and siltation in the lower reaches of the Yellow River and enjoyed Mao's personal support and patronage. However, despite his exhortations to “play on the same team” (quanju yipanqi 全局一盘棋), Mao's allies ignored the warnings of hydrologists and engineers. Consequently, the sedimentation rate was greatly underestimated, and within four years of commencing operation sediment filled half the reservoir, prompting the hydropower plant to be taken out of operation.Footnote ³⁰ Because of the dam's high profile, the challenge was raised to senior levels, and in 1964 Zhou and the State Council convened a special meeting on the Sanmenxia problem. The tensions of the Cultural Revolution period were in full display at the meeting: water resource engineers, who adamantly argued that the problem would only be solved through extensive erosion control efforts, were pitted against ideologues, who supported the construction of additional sluice gates as it promised a quicker fix.Footnote ³¹

The controversy was eventually resolved through a compromise policy known as “storing clean water and draining the muddy” (xuqing paihun 蓄清排浑): during winter, when sediment loads were low, Sanmenxia's gates would be opened only during high-flow periods, alleviating pressure on the dam. However, the compromise proved unsatisfactory as it failed to address the underlying problem of soil erosion. In the meantime, increased water demand and competition between the provinces began to strain the central state's ability to increase water supplies to thirsty northern cities.Footnote ³² By the mid-1970s, as a result of these growing pressures, diversions began to be put in place in the lower reaches to provide drought relief in the North China plain, and particularly to aid urban water users in Tianjin municipality.Footnote ³³ From 1972 to 1973, the State Council ordered the diversion of some 1.6 million cubic metres of water from Henan to Tianjin, stoking discontent in poorer Henan.Footnote ³⁴ These new demands and tensions set the stage for the second phase of water resource policy and politics in modern China, one most accurately referred to as developmental.

Plumbing the State for Growth and Development, 1978–1997

Despite Party leaders’ efforts to demonstrate their legitimacy through flood control and other water works, water resource management under the PRC has also always been motivated by a less ideological developmental mission. This developmental aspect of water policy in the early years of the PRC is well illustrated by the comprehensive development plans issued after the mid-1950s for each of the country's major river basins. These plans were aimed at promoting regional economic development, often through the construction of multi-purpose dams such as Sanmenxia that would provide water storage, hydropower production and flood control.Footnote ³⁵ Perhaps the best example was a 1954 report, commissioned by the State Planning Commission, on the comprehensive development of the Yellow River. The report proposed the construction of 46 dams along the whole length of the river for flood and erosion control, irrigation and hydropower development. A second, related focus of such plans was the development of large irrigation districts to support the expansion of collective agriculture.Footnote ³⁶ Throughout the Cultural Revolution period, however, the developmental aspect of water policy was obscured by its ideological, nation-building dimension.

Only with the end of the Cultural Revolution and the beginning of the reform period did the developmental mission gain precedence, largely as a result of increased water demand and flood risk in China's more densely populated areas. Although the construction of dams like Sanmenxia had alleviated China's historical flood risk, a major 1982 flood event in the Yellow River reinforced the need to further develop flood-control infrastructure to protect the centres of China's nascent economic reforms.Footnote ³⁷ Water scarcity also become a major concern for China's economic planners during this period. In 1981, diversions from the Yellow River to Tianjin had to be suspended owing to drought conditions.Footnote ³⁸ Throughout the 1980s, water use grew with astonishing speed (see Figure 1), particularly for municipal use.Footnote ³⁹ By the end of the decade, continuing water shortages for Tianjin and other urban areas in the north-east led the MWR to entrust the Shandong government with investigating water transfer schemes to meet this added demand.Footnote ⁴⁰ This move presaged a shift from a reliance on mass mobilization, so prevalent during the state-building period, towards large-scale water diversions and the contentious politics of coordination and allocation that they entail.

Figure 1: Increasing Water Use in China during the Reform Period

The approach of the central government to managing China's water resources during the developmental period was notably collaborative. In contrast to the nation-building period of water governance in China, which relied principally on mass labour and individual prestige projects like the Sanmenxia Dam, the developmental period returned to an emphasis on integrated and collaborative development. Stressing the “intimate relation” (jinmi guanxi 紧密关系) of water use in different parts of the basin, the MWR and the YRCC initiated an ambitious effort to revise earlier inter-provincial water resource allocations to reflect new economic realities.Footnote ⁴¹ Accordingly, in the Yellow River basin the YRCC engaged provincial governments in extensive consultations regarding present and future water demands, attempting to account for factors such as Shanxi's future demand for water for coal extraction and processing.Footnote ⁴² This approach set the stage for a regional approach to water policy and water resource management, in which attempts were made to balance the demands of different provinces and economic sectors.

The best example of this regional, developmental approach is the Yellow River Quantity Allocation Plan, which was approved by the State Council in 1987 and replaced an earlier, 1950s era development plan for the basin. Unlike earlier policies, the Allocation Plan envisioned a strategic allocation of water among provinces according to anticipated future water needs as a result of planned economic development. These needs were assessed through intensive consultations with provincial-level officials; however, they focused almost entirely on economic development and ignored environmental water requirements. Initial discussions on an inter-provincial allocation took place at a 1984 conference of all Yellow River basin provinces at which it was intended to produce a plan to “fully utilize” the Yellow River's flows. Employing common practice for important policy issues, the MWR established a “leading group” to produce a report based on these consultations. This report would form the basis for an initial plan. Revisions were discussed at a major conference in 1988, and only after obtaining the agreement of provincial officials that the plan was “basically correct” were implementing instructions for the Allocation Plan issued.Footnote ⁴³

Despite the emphasis on consultation in plan formulation, the developmental period was characterized above all by large-scale infrastructure construction. After 1978, construction of large dams more than 150 metres in height accelerated rapidly (see Figure 2).Footnote ⁴⁴ The best example of China's reliance on large-scale infrastructure during the developmental period, however, is the “south–north water transfer project” (SNWTP). Planning for long-distance, inter-basin water transfers began as early as 1959 when a workshop to examine its feasibility was convened in Beijing with representatives from the YRCC and several provincial governments.Footnote ⁴⁵ The project was finally endorsed at the 1978 Party Conference, when a decision was made approving in principle a plan to construct three separate water-diversion channels, termed the eastern, central and western routes, which would together compensate for the growing pressures on the Yellow River basin and other northern water resources by providing water security for agriculture, industry and urban use throughout the north.Footnote ⁴⁶ The influence of the developmental mission in this decision was indicated by the additional decision to give priority to the eastern route, which was to be constructed first as a means of addressing chronic water shortages in the lower Yellow River basin. Traces of the older nation-building mission in Chinese water policy were clearly evident in the discussion; representatives at the 1978 Party Congress noted with satisfaction that the eastern route would rejuvenate parts of the ancient Grand Canal, which had historically linked northern and southern China.Footnote ⁴⁷

Figure 2: Growth in China's Water Infrastructure during the Reform Period

Large-scale water infrastructure construction after 1978 was critical to China's economic development. However, the emphasis of water resource policy on infrastructure during the period did little to address more complex management challenges, such as pollution or the maintenance of minimum streamflow, which became increasingly prevalent towards the end of the 20th century. These challenges were visibly illustrated by the desiccation of the lower Yellow River, which by the late 1990s rarely reached the sea, a fact that attracted significant international media coverage and became a source of considerable embarrassment to the Chinese government.Footnote ⁴⁸ The government's policy response to this challenge moreover signalled a shift from the collaborative process embodied in the 1987 Yellow River Water Quantity Allocation Plan. Instead of following the model of inter-provincial consultation, the central government's Yellow River Framework Plan for Administration and Development, issued in 1997, established a framework of strict central control, stressing “overall control” and “strict supervision” of local officials and enterprises.Footnote ⁴⁹ This centralized regulatory approach was subsequently strengthened through a process introduced in 1998 whereby provincial governments were required to submit water withdrawal plans in advance for approval by the YRCC and MWR.Footnote ⁵⁰ In the third and most recent phase of water policy under the PRC, this centralized approach would be greatly tested by the demands of addressing the country's worsening water pollution.

Pluralization and Ecological Crisis, 1998–Present

The emergence of water quality issues signalled the nascent beginnings of the third and most recent period in Chinese water policy and politics, which is distinguished by several characteristics. First, water policy since 1998 has sought to balance human and environmental water needs and also to incorporate, to a limited degree, the interests of non-governmental and state actors. Second, during the ecological period the government has relied increasingly on legislation to achieve its water policy objectives, even as it has continued to execute large-scale water infrastructure projects like the SNWTP. Third, and perhaps most significantly, Chinese water policy during the ecological period has been informed by a sense of almost existential risk; perhaps no statement better defines it than the 1998 warning, attributed to Premier Wen Jiabao 温家宝, that the “survival of the Chinese nation is threatened by the country's shortage of water.”Footnote ⁵¹ This sense of importance has ensured that while tentative steps have been taken to increase the role of non-governmental actors in water resource management, the state remains in firm overall control.

Despite these distinctive characteristics, the roots of the recent emphasis on environmental issues lie firmly embedded in the developmental period. While water quantity issues, particularly flooding and regional shortages, dominated the developmental period of Chinese water policy, water quality issues also began to emerge as a significant challenge for local authorities. As early as 1972, the Henan Provincial Health Bureau established a group responsible for pollution control, and in 1978, it established a water-quality monitoring centre. These putative environmental protection bureaucracies were gradually empowered with the ability to administer orders to prevent pollution, install pollution control technologies and to institute financial penalties for non-compliance.Footnote ⁵² With passage of the Water Pollution Control Law in 1984, by the late 1990s pollution control absorbed most of the energies of local water resource bureaus, particularly in the more developed parts of China.Footnote ⁵³ Urban areas like Xi'an and Lanzhou experienced particularly rapid growth during this period, creating large clusters of highly polluting industries. In the Lanzhou stretch of the river alone, some 500 million tons of pollutants were released annually by the early 2000s.Footnote ⁵⁴ Crucially, however, the decentralized nature of Chinese water governance offered few mechanisms to address water pollution across jurisdictional boundaries.Footnote ⁵⁵

Such challenges made it increasingly apparent that Chinese water policy had to move beyond the emphasis on infrastructure and regulation that characterized the developmental period. Beginning in the 1990s, this realization led the government to undertake significant reforms to the 1988 Water Law, which hitherto had formed the basis of China's water policy.Footnote ⁵⁶ While the 1988 law had sought to lay a foundation for water use regulation and allocation and water project construction, revisions embodied in the 2002 law sought to promulgate a far more comprehensive legislative framework that would fulfil environmental protection goals as well as water resource management objectives. Table 1 summarizes several of the most notable differences between the 1988 and 2002 laws, including new provisions to protect aquatic ecosystems, strengthen enforcement and account for environmental water requirements.Footnote ⁵⁷

Table 1: Summary of Differences between 1988 and 2002 Water Laws

But while defined in large part by this new legislation, the ecological period has also been shaped by a growing role for market mechanisms in allocating water among different users. Indeed, market mechanisms form the core of the government's attempts to create a “water-saving society.”Footnote ⁵⁸ In urban areas, the Chinese government has adopted a tiered pricing structure, which will increase the direct cost of water for many users in an attempt to spur greater conservation, while in agricultural regions the government has instead established water markets in which the rights to use a set quantity of water under an overall cap are distributed to irrigation districts and water user associations, who can then buy and sell their water rights. During the summer of 2014, Beijing appeared to double-down on the use of a market-based approach by announcing that pilot water rights trading systems would be established in seven provinces, including Ningxia, Inner Mongolia and Gansu.Footnote ⁵⁹

The government's enthusiasm for implementing these market-oriented reforms has subsequently been dampened by a number of acute challenges. First, water pollution in many parts of the country approaches crisis levels. According to the most recent data available from the MWR, about one-third of China's waterways remain unfit even for indirect human uses like irrigation.Footnote ⁶⁰ Second, a growing number of inter-jurisdictional disputes, particularly over pollution, have seriously challenged China's water governance system, in some cases requiring emergency State Council intervention.Footnote ⁶¹ Third and finally, several well-publicized incidents, such as the 2005 Songhua River 松花江 benzene spill and severe water quality problems associated with the SNWTP, undermined public confidence in China's water quality standards.Footnote ⁶² To combat the sense of crisis, China has in recent years adopted one of the world's most ambitious regulatory frameworks for water. Formally referred to as the “most stringent water resource management system” (zuiyange shuiziyuan guanli zhidu 最严格水资源管理制度), the policy is also known as the “three red lines” (santiao hongxian 三条红线) in reference to its three chief objectives, namely, strictly controlling total water use, establishing water use efficiency standards and preventing water waste, and finally establishing nationwide water quality standards and more stringently controlling effluents entering waterways.Footnote ⁶³ First mentioned in the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee's No. 1 Policy Document of 2011, the policy was formally promulgated in State Council Opinion No. 3 in 2012, which further quantified the “three red lines.”Footnote ⁶⁴

China's “three red lines” policy (TRL hereafter) is distinguished from other elements of the country's water resource policy by three main characteristics, all of which also characterize the ecological period in Chinese water policy. First, the TRL is a command-and-control regulatory policy rather than a market-based mechanism. Second, the TRL aims to set a comprehensive water policy by addressing quantity, quality and efficiency issues together. Third and most significantly, the TRL reflects a sense of ambition to match the perceived severity of China's water challenges. The TRL policy itself consists of three standards, all set to be met by 2030. First, total national water consumption will be capped at a level less than China's total renewable freshwater reserves, a figure corresponding to less than 700 billion cubic metres annually. By comparison, in 2011 China consumed about 600 billion cubic metres, a figure representing about 75 per cent of its total renewable freshwater resources. Second, 95 per cent of major waterways will meet water quality standards, which will also be made more stringent.Footnote ⁶⁵ Third, China's water productivity will be enhanced to less than 40 cubic metres per 10,000 yuan of economic value-added – a level approximating the developed-country average – and the country's average irrigated water utilization rate will be raised to 60 per cent.Footnote ⁶⁶ This represents a substantial increase from the current rate of 30–40 per cent, but is still far less than the developed country average of 80–90 per cent.Footnote ⁶⁷ Together, these elements of the TRL make it one of the world's most ambitious water policy initiatives. Indeed, as an MWR official put it, “There are no other countries that have set such detailed targets to restrict their own development by limiting usage of water resources.”Footnote ⁶⁸

However, the very ambition of the TRL raises basic questions concerning its feasibility, and whether in the ecological period of Chinese water policy it can achieve its objectives. So far, the government has signalled its determination to fully implement the TRL policy through both pilot schemes and phased implementation at local levels. In 2014, the city government of Kunming became one of the first local governments to adopt the policy when it announced that it would limit annual water consumption to 257 million cubic metres by 2015, and 370 million cubic metres by 2030, as well as increase water quality compliance of designated waterways to 65 per cent, with some key drinking water areas reaching 95 per cent compliance.Footnote ⁶⁹ Similarly, the city government of Guang'an 广安 in Sichuan issued regulations to reduce water use intensity by 31 per cent relative to 2010 levels, raise irrigation efficiency to at least 44 per cent, and limit total water use to 99 million cubic metres by 2020 before finally reaching a maximum of 120 million cubic metres in 2030.Footnote ⁷⁰ This phased implementation of the TRL has continued rapidly. In March 2014, the vice-minister for water resources, Jiao Yong 矫勇, announced that the government would soon issue water quantity allocations for all remaining provinces. Jiao also reported that about 95 per cent of prefecture-level jurisdictions and about 700 of China's counties had been assigned water quantity quotas under the TRL.Footnote ⁷¹ The state's seeming preference for an administrative control approach to meeting the water policy challenges of the ecological era are also indicated by the 2016 launch of the “river chief” (hezhang 河长) system, which makes cadres responsible for inter-jurisdictional water issues like pollution control.Footnote ⁷²

The hierarchical approach of the TRL and “river chief” systems moreover contrasts sharply with another feature of the most recent period in Chinese water policy, namely, the gradual emergence of NGOs. Such actors, usually in the form of local civic movements, had first exercised a visible role by mounting effective opposition to several dam construction projects during the 1990s and 2000s.Footnote ⁷³ NGO input was critical to informing several aspects of water policy during the developmental and ecological period, including the design of water rights trading systems and the drafting of the 2002 Water Law.Footnote ⁷⁴ However, in recent years the role of NGOs in Chinese water policy and politics has received a significant boost. First, revisions to China's Environmental Protection Law, which took effect in 2015, carved out a statutory role for citizens to “participate in and supervise” environmental enforcement, and for NGOs to bring lawsuits for environmental harms.Footnote ⁷⁵ Since then, NGOs have sued several large enterprises, although the overall record of success remains mixed.Footnote ⁷⁶ Second, NGO activists secured a major victory for conservation in late 2016 when the Chinese government abandoned plans to dam China's last free-flowing river following a prolonged campaign.Footnote ⁷⁷ However, it remains too soon to say whether greater engagement of NGO actors will definitively mark the ecological period in Chinese water policy and politics, or whether like preceding eras it will be dominated by the state.