China - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 240

southeast coast. Much of the soil is loess, making the land there fertile,
and it enjoys good rainfall. The northern portion is temperate in climate,
and the southern is tropical.
Several large rivers originate on the Tibetan Plateau and flow to the east.
The Yellow River, 5,500 kilometers long and named for its yellow sus-
pended sediment, has caused centuries of environmental problems. It is
prone to disastrous floods, giving it the sobriquet of China's Sorrow. The
flood in 1887 drowned one to two million people and the flood in 1931
drowned one to four million people. No one knows the exact number.
The river's last 500 kilometers flow across an extremely flat plain, making
it prone to change course, sometimes hundreds of kilometers. To the south
of the Yellow River, the Yangtze River flows 6,300 kilometers through nar-
row gorges and fertile plains to the South China Sea. It is the longest river
in Asia, and third longest in the world. In the past, its dangerous rapids
made navigation nearly impossible. Still farther south, the Pearl River is
2,200 kilometers long with a volume second only to the Yangtze.
Chinese civilization began along the Yellow River about 4000 years ago.
The earliest written records are of the Shang Dynasty of 1700 to 1046 BC,
making it more than a millennium younger than Mesopotamia and Egypt.
About 1066 BC the Zhou Dynasty arose. For part of this time, the Zhous
dominated central China, but at other times, the unity collapsed and the
country split into multiple states. Historians label the years 476 to 221 BC
as the Warring States Period. All of central China was unified in 221 BC
by the king of Qin (pronounced Chin) who proclaimed himself the first
emperor. In fact, his reign only lasted 15 years. The following dynasty, the
Han, lasted until 220 AD. (It is often compared to the Roman Empire in its
time and achievements.) The emperor adopted Confucianism, extended
his territory, and fostered science and inventions. The population grew
to 60 million due to migration to the south, better strains of rice and
irrigation, and adding arable land by terracing and draining wetlands.
Adding this land was hard on the natural environment. By this time, the
mega-fauna like elephants and rhinoceroses were killed off. Today, a few
elephants still exist in the jungles and mountains of the extreme south.
Ancient beliefs and practices both favored nature and exploited it.
Daoism, the oldest religion, connected to primitive folk religions in
finding peace and oneness with nature. It taught that humans should
live simple lives as farmers in the countryside. Spirits and ghosts scat-
tered about need to be propitiated, and certainly not disturbed. Kong
Fuzi (Confucius), who lived 551-478 BC, taught mostly about human