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100 _aFromm, Martin T.
_951688
245 _a‘Great northern wilderness’-style environmentalism: Nature preservation and the legacies of MAO-ERA land reclamation in China’s Northeast borderland
260 _aModern Asian Studies
300 _a57(4), Jul, 2023: p.1198-1218
520 _aOne of the epic national narratives of modernization and development in China is the story of Beidahuang (‘Great Northern Wilderness’) in the country’s northeast. The term ‘Beidahuang’ refers originally to state-sponsored campaigns, starting in the 1950s, that involved the enlistment of tens of thousands of People’s Liberation Army soldiers, educated youth, and Communist Party cadres. Their task was to transform the vast northeast ‘wasteland’ into productive farmland that would feed the nation while securing the nation’s borders with Russia. This article examines the significance of Beidahuang as a feature of the environmental discourse in China’s northeast borderlands, focusing on the first decade of the twenty-first century when the Chinese state was establishing more systematic measures for addressing environmental concerns. In the context of the northeast borderland, the massive deforestation that resulted from the socialist campaigns to transform ‘wasteland’ into productive farmland has left a controversial legacy for regional elites grappling with the Party leadership’s turn towards environmental conservation as an emerging political priority. This article suggests that the ongoing importance of the ‘Great Northern Wilderness’ in the Chinese cultural imagination has shaped the ways in which regional elites frame environmental issues in relation to economic development, nationalism, and border relations with Russia.- Reproduced https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/modern-asian-studies/article/abs/great-northern-wildernessstyle-environmentalism-nature-preservation-and-the-legacies-of-maoera-land-reclamation-in-chinas-northeast-borderland/A67512F639704C9D799A5403B5F6BDC9
773 _aModern Asian Studies
906 _aHISTORY
942 _cAR