China - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 242

Because of the silt, the riverbed is higher than the surrounding land, so
once it floods, it cannot return to its original bed. It has flooded 26 times
in the last 2000 years. The middle reaches near Xi'an have been called the
cradle of Chinese culture. Since ancient time, the emperor has assumed
responsibility for constructing dikes and repairing breeches, a nearly
impossible job.
Another environmental feature dating to ancient time is the Chinese
garden. These originated in the Shang Dynasty, 1766-1027 BC, and con-
tinued nearly to the present day. Often known as scholars' gardens, they
are small, naturalistic, and artificial. The “scholars” were frequently gov-
ernment officials, who had earned their positions by passing rigorous
examinations, so they were powerful and wealthy. Their gardens, which
adjoined their homes, served as a place for relaxation, reading, and writing.
Each would asymmetrically combine plants, rocks, and water. Plants were
symbols: bamboo was strong but resilient, pine represented longevity,
and the lotus meant purity with a white flower nourished by muck at
the bottom of the pond. The flowering plum represented renewal and
strength, and peonies represented wealth. When accounts of the Chinese
garden reached England and France in 1692 and 1749, many Europeans
promptly adopted the form in contrast to their existing formal, sym-
metrical gardens. These gardens are an early example of the international
transmission of environmental ideas.
The ancient Imperial management of rivers attracted the attention of
an early theorist of comparative government. In 1926 Karl Wittfogel
published his first major analysis of China, concluding that the Empire's
control over water had given it a particular form of government character-
ized by strong central authority, a powerful bureaucracy, and forced labor,
labeled a hydraulic empire. 1 He noted similar examples of what he called
Oriental Despotism in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India.
Unlike India, China successfully resisted European colonization, at least
for about 300 years. Since the days of the Roman Empire, a trickle of contact
was maintained through central Asia over the Silk Road. Marco Polo had
taken this route east in 1271. Although the European Age of Discovery is
the great historical event of the modern era, it almost happened the other
way around. In 1405 the Chinese launched their own age of discovery. The
Ming Emperor sponsored a series of seven armadas that sailed throughout
the Indian Ocean. From their home port of Nanjing, these treasure ships
visited as far as India, Arabia, and East Africa. he admiral was Zheng He,
a Muslim eunuch from western China. He commanded a fleet of two to