The Water Kingdom

Title: The Water Kingdom – A Secret History of China

Author: Philip Ball

Publisher: Vintage, 2017 (First published 2016)

ISBN: 9781784701543

Pages: 341

China is a huge nation with the geographical features of a continent. It houses the largest homogeneous community of people within its borders, but is also compensated by nature with mighty rivers and abundant natural resources. The country’s social, political, literary, artistic and economic milieus were closely aligned historically with proper management of its rivers and lakes. Water thus quite literally forms a significant undercurrent in every aspect of Chinese life. Negligence or incompetence of water control produced a punishing outcome in the form of floods that breached man-made dykes and dams. In the old times, bungling with water management was a sure recipe for a ruler to lose his kingdom as it was construed by his subjects as an indicator of the loss of heaven’s mandate. As China modernized in the last century, widespread application of scientific techniques has somewhat put the rivers under check. There has been no flooding on the Yellow River since 1949. But the other side of excessive control of hydraulic resources is now becoming painfully apparent. The Three Gorges and other gargantuan projects are wreaking havoc with the ecosystem. Added to this is the issue of pollution caused by lax rules and the state’s thrust to produce more and more whatever be the cost. All major rivers in China are afflicted with the scourge of contamination with industrial waste products. Philip Ball examines water as a major factor that influences Chinese society and culture over the ages. Ball’s obsession with water is amply showcased by his other work ‘H₂O – A Biography of Water’, reviewed earlier in this blog. The author writes regularly in scientific and popular media and had worked for many years as an editor for physical sciences in the magazine ‘Nature’. This history of China from a watery perspective is a labour of love the author feels for the country, but it is not very obvious how the word ‘Secret’ in the subtitle is relevant.

This book claims to be a grand journey through China past and present and opens a window through which one can begin to grasp the potentially overwhelming complexity and teeming energy of the country and its people (p.5). The worst nightmare for a ruler of China – from the dawn of history to its current administrator in the person of Xi Jinping – is about losing control of the people and a descent into chaos and eventual dissolution. Water was always seen as a potent symbol that demarcates a ruler’s merit. The administrators were greatly helped in this venture by philosophical works which professed a practical concern with the business of daily life and the structure of society. Unlike their Greek counterparts, Chinese philosophers didn’t dwell on abstract metaphysical questions. China has a long history and an equally long list of dynasties which make it troublesome for readers to keep track of which is which. The Qin dynasty, from which the appellation ‘China’ evolved, was surprisingly short-lived, but its first emperor Shi Huangdi is well known to us as the man who built the Great Wall. It is the Han dynasty which followed the Qin that appeals more to Chinese national sentiment, as its society is often called the ‘People of Han’. In all these dynasties such as Song, Tang, Yuan, Ming and Qing, water shaped the political organization of the state. Management of water was also the key to maintaining social order. Large hydraulic engineering projects such as the Grand Canal were conceived and implemented without deference to cost in terms of material and labour. This serves as the backdrop to the origin of the disparaging epithet ‘oriental despotism’. Property rights were secondary to communal interests and a mercantile class was slow to evolve.

Mastery over water was not confined to the control of inland river dykes, but to the vast blue ocean as well. Ball takes great care to describe the series of Chinese naval expeditions in the Ming period under its able admiral Zheng He. Chinese ships dwarfed Vasco da Gama’s vessels which appeared in the Indian Ocean nearly a century later. Some of the larger trading vessels of Chinese merchants weighed 1500 tons against Sao Gabriel’s meager 300 tons! They overstepped the European ships in technique too. Sails of Chinese boats were usually made not of cloth, but of woven bamboo matting. A slew of technological innovations put Chinese navigation in the forefront. Magnetic Compass was invented in China and the Mercator projection for map-making was used almost five centuries before it was developed in Europe in 1569. Zheng He made a total of seven voyages starting in 1405 CE. There are claims that he reached the Americas, but a vigorous naval activity up to Africa is historically attested to. These voyages were not interspersed with imperialist overtones, but when the need arose, Zheng He didn’t hesitate to fight. Vira Alakeswara, the ruler of Sri Lanka, refused to pay tribute. The Chinese fleet fought with him in 1405 and the Lankan king was captured and taken to the Ming capital in chains. Isn’t this a prescient pointer to Xi Jinping’s vision of a maritime silk road in the twenty-first century, especially in view of the debt trap in which Sri Lanka finds itself in related to the Chinese development of Hambantota port? Only time can tell. The Ming adventures suddenly ended with the eighth visit in 1434. This created a power vacuum in the Indian Ocean, which was filled by the Portuguese seven decades later. Many reasons are attributed to the sudden demise of maritime ambition, but power struggles and intrigues between the court eunuchs and Confucian officials in the Ming court are the most plausible.

A large portion of the book is dedicated to an analysis of the large-scale hydraulic programs initiated by the Communist regime which took over in 1949. Between 1950 and 1990, about 80,000 dams and reservoirs were built on China’s rivers. The Three Gorges dam is the largest of its kind in the world with a reservoir that is 600 km long which can be seen even from outer space. The electricity generated from the site is enough to cater to 10 per cent of China’s total power demand. Another grandiose scheme of North-South Water Transport that envisages carrying water of the Yangtze to Beijing is on the drawing board. However, environmental concerns don’t bother the Chinese policymakers much. Silting, pollution, damming, overuse, land reclamation and climate change issues go unnoticed. Ball makes it a point to present the problem of polluting factories on riverbanks. Ancient temples in the reservoir of Three Gorges were relocated brick by brick to higher elevations, but this was mostly done with commercial interests in mind in the form of tourist revenue.

China had the good fortune not to fall under the imperial yoke of a foreign power like what happened in India. It had suffered crippling defeat in the Opium Wars against the British, but sovereignty over the territory was not lost. It was only for a brief time that the Japanese could impose their rule on China around World War II. However, barbarian neighbours had overrun China many times in the past. The Yuan dynasty of the Mongol hordes and the Qing dynasty of Manchurians reigned for centuries in the mainland. The Qing Empire, which was the last in the long line of ruling houses and was dislodged only in 1911, was especially humiliating for the people. They insisted that all male citizens adopt the Manchurian shaven head and long pigtail as a sign of allegiance to the Qing state. This was considered unmanly, but refusal to comply carried the death penalty. Seldom do oppressive regimes intervene in personal attire, especially of men. The Taliban’s insistence on men mandatorily growing beards is a case in point.

The book is somewhat difficult to read and the small typeface has not at all helped matters. Readers who are not familiar with Chinese names of persons and places find it difficult to follow the author in the long narrative. A lot of sketches and pictures are included which helps to lessen monotony. Ball is an expert in depicting art and explaining it smoothly. A chapter is reserved for the influence of water on China’s painting style. The author’s predilection to art is understandable as was eminently noticed in his other book titled ‘Bright Earth – Art and the Invention of Colour’, which was also reviewed earlier in this blog. So, it is not surprising that he gives a decent summary of Chinese art as well. In the earlier part of the book, Bell quotes other scholars and offers oblique criticism of authors like Jared Diamond and Karl Wittfogel.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star