GMO controversy: How orthodox science lost control

Full text

Science in Movements
This book analyzes and compares the origins, evolutionary patterns and
consequences of different science and technology controversies in China,
including hydropower resistance, disputes surrounding genetically modified
organisms and the nuclear power debate.
The examination combines social movement theories, communication studies,
and science and technology studies. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, the
book provides an insight into the interwoven relationship between social and
political controls and knowledge monopoly, and looks into a central issue
neglected by previous science communication studies: why have different con-
troversies shown divergent patterns despite similar social and political contexts?
It is revealed that the media environment, political opportunity structures,
knowledge-control regimes and activists’strategies have jointly triggered, nur-
tured and sustained these controversies and led to the development of different
patterns. Based on these observations, the author also discusses the significance
of science communication studies in promoting China’ssocialtransformation
and further explores the feasible approach to a more generic framework to
understand science controversies across the world.
The book will be of value to academics of science communication, science and
technology studies, political science studies and sociology, as well as general
readers interested in China’s science controversies and social movements.
Hepeng Jia is a professor of communication at Soochow University, Suzhou,
China. He has worked as a leading science journalist for 20 years and is also
a pioneering researcher in the field of science journalism and communication
in China.

Chinese Perspectives on Journalism and Communication
Series Editor: Wenshan Jia is a professor of communication at Shandong
University and Chapman University.
With the increasing impact of China on global affairs, Chinese perspectives
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series focuses on theory and research-oriented scholarship on journalism and
communication broadly defined from Chinese perspectives, aided by a variety
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Titles in this series currently include:
From Cyber-Nationalism to Fandom Nationalism
The Case of Diba Expedition in China
Hailong Liu ed.
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Convergent Journalism
Chinese Approaches
Woody Bing Liu
Chinese Internet Buzzwords
Research on Network Languages in Internet Group Communication
Zhou Yan
Science in Movements
Knowledge Control and Social Contestation in China’s Hydropower, GMO
and Nuclear Controversies
Hepeng Jia
For more information, please visit https://www.routledge.com/Chinese-Perspec-
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Science in Movements
Knowledge Control and Social
Contestation in China’s Hydropower,
GMO and Nuclear Controversies
Hepeng Jia

First published 2022
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Jia, Hepeng, 1972- author.
Title: Science in movements : knowledge control and social contestation in
China’s hydropower, GMO and nuclear controversies / Hepeng Jia.
Other titles: When science controversies encounter political opportunities
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. |
Series: China perspectives | Revision of author’s dissertation
(doctoral)--Cornell University, 2019, titled When science controversies
encounter political opportunities : comparing GMO, hydropower and
nuclear power contentions in contemporary China. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021006436 (print) | LCCN 2021006437 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367749095 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367765293 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003160212 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Communication in science--China. | Science and
state--China. | Science--Social aspects--China. | Social movements--China.
Classification: LCC Q223 .J52 2022 (print) | LCC Q223 (ebook) |
DDC 306.4/509510905--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021006436
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021006437
ISBN: 978-0-367-74909-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-76529-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-16021-2 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160212
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Taylor & Francis Books

To Haiyan, Jay and Daniel.

Contents
List of illustrations viii
Acknowledgements x
List of abbreviations xii
1 Science controversies encounter political opportunities 1
2 Research method and data 19
3 Science controversies in transitional China 36
4 Hydropower, fragmentation and knowledge-making 66
5 GMO controversy: How orthodox science lost control 101
6 The nuclear power debate in a narrow political opportunity
structure 135
7 Why are science controversies so different? 168
8 Synergy of different theoretical traditions in a comparative lens 184
9 Conclusion 188
Appendix 192
References 202
Index 226

Illustrations
Figures
1.1 The intersecting elements of social movements 8
4.1 Hydropower reporting by the four sampled Chinese media
(1980–2017) 72
4.2 High-impact BBS posts focused on hydropower (2003–2017) 79
4.3 Google search trends (2004–2018) 79
4.4 Combined hydropower reporting by four sample Chinese media
(2004–2017) 79
5.1 Number of the four sampled media’s combined articles on GMO
in China (1995–2016) 106
5.2 Attitude of sampled media articles to GMOs in China 1995–2016 109
5.3 Percentage of sampled media articles adverse to GMOs in China
1995–2016 110
5.4 Baidu media index of GMOs in China (2011–2018) 110
5.5 Baidu search index for GMOs in China (2011–2018) 111
5.6 Google search index for GMOs in China (2004–2018) 111
5.7 High-impact BBS posts on Tianya (2003–2017) 112
5.8 Political opportunity structure, framing and mobilization in
China’s anti-GMO activism 128
6.1 Number of the sampled media articles on nuclear power in China
(2000–2017) 140
6.2 Combined four sampled Chinese media nuclear power articles
(2010–2017) 147
6.3 Chinese media articles mentioning nuclear power searched
through Baidu Index (2011.01–2019.01) 148
6.4 Baidu users’online search of the keyword “nuclear power”
(2011–2018) 149
6.5 Google Trend showing the online search of the keyword “nuclear
power”(in Chinese and China) (2004.01–2019.01) 149

6.6 The frequency of high-impact BBS posts on “nuclear power”(in
Chinese) on Tianya.com (2003–2017) 150
6.7 Narrow political opportunity structure, unfriendly framing and
low mobilization for China’s anti-nuclear activism 156
Tables
1.1 Characteristics of hydropower, nuclear power and GMO, and
controversies surrounding them 14
2.1 Downloaded media articles and their publishing time 22
2.2 Mass media theme coding of the three studied subjects 31
4.1 SW’s hydropower articles between 2000 and 2017 and their
attitudes 73
4.2 XEN’s hydropower articles between 2002 and 2017 and their
attitudes 74
4.3 PD’s hydropower articles between 2000 and 2017 and their
attitudes 75
4.4 The main themes of SW and XEN’s hydropower articles 76
4.5 Some of CPPCC or NPC’s actions against hydropower since 2003 85
4.6 Hydropower controversies through the lens of social movement
theories 88
4.7 Themes of the People’s Daily hydropower articles between
1980–1999 92
4.8 Main themes of the four sampled media’s hydropower articles,
article attitude, visibility of controversies and their percentage 95
4.9 Noticeable public intellectuals against hydropower (excluding
ENGO members) 97
5.1 Main themes, article attitude, visibility and percentage of
coverage of the four sampled media’s GMO articles 107
5.2 Analysis of Cui Yongyuan’s recent anti-GMO tweets (12/20/2018–
01/06/2019) 114
5.3 Major GMO controversial events in China in recent years 119
6.1 XEN’s nuclear power coverage (2002–2017) 141
6.2 People’s Daily nuclear power coverage (2000–2017) 142
6.3 China Science Daily nuclear power coverage (2007–2017) 142
6.4 Southern Weekend nuclear power coverage (2002–2017) 143
6.5 Main themes of the sampled media articles on nuclear power in
China (2000–2017) 145
7.1 Different patterns of hydropower, GMOs and nuclear power
controversies 181
List of illustrations ix

Acknowledgements
This book is based on my doctoral dissertation resulting from a challenging
7-year academic journey. For the journey, I am so lucky to have worked with
my advisor and committee chair Professor Bruce Lewenstein, who has offered
everything needed to allow me to start a new era in my academic life.
I started my doctoral studies at a time when I had achieved a certain level
of professional excellence as a science journalist. However, professional
excellence soon proved to be a significant burden to my academic pursuit. A
thriving science journalism career had made me focus on analyzing specific
sociopolitical factors for my news stories while an academic career forced me
to pursue cross-cultural generalizability. This tension is particularly true in
American communication scholarship, where the Chinese landscape has always
been dimmed. For the first two years of my doctoral studies, I struggled
between the objectives.
In the situation, I should say special thanks to Professor Lewenstein, who was
always generous in sharing his instructions and insights with me. As a result, I
gradually marched to a clearly-tasked, yet balanced zone for academic research.
My committee members, Prof. Katherine McComas, and Prof. Stephen Hil-
gartner from Cornell and Prof. Fa-ti Fan from SUNY Binghamton, also offered
great support to me. Among them, Prof. Hilgartner has been particularly help-
ful. He guided me to begin my research from social movement theories during
an independent study course with him. The independent study finally shaped my
dissertation direction. Prof. Fan and Prof. McComas, on the other hand, offered
tremendous help by instructing me on how to link my research to China and risk
communication.
In my academic shift from a working journalist to a science communication
scholar, the essential supports of several tutors have played fundamental roles. I
would particularly thank Prof. Xue Lan of Tsinghua University, who always
created unique opportunities and instructive suggestions for me –from referring
me to work for SciDev.Net’s science communication initiatives to starting doc-
toral work. The late Harvard Prof. Calestous Juma, who himself was an
exemplary model of journalist-turned-scholar, also gave me tremendous help.
Professor Caroline Wagner, my advisor at the Ohio State University, where I

studied science policy before moving to Cornell, is also on the list of those life-
long mentors.
Many Chinese collaborators’supports are crucial to my project and should
be acknowledged. Professor Deng Lifeng of Sun Yat-sen University has gen-
erously shared his contacts and insights on China’s nuclear power controversy.
Sun Yat-sen University also gave a small grant to help my field study in
China. Dr. Liu Kai of Beijing Jiaotong University has offered decent data
supports to my dissertation during his visit to Cornell. I have made repeated
consultation with Dr. Miao Weishan of the Chinese Academy of Social Sci-
ences, my long-time friend and collaborator, on the dissertation outline and
many detailed data analyses. Dr. Li Yang of Tsinghua University munificently
provided her unpublished social network analysis data on China’s GMO
debates. Many others supported me either by receiving my interview or pro-
viding critical information during my field study. Due to ethical considera-
tion, I cannot disclose their names.
Then, for turning my dissertation into the current book, I am particularly
grateful to Professor Jia Wenshan of Shandong University, whose encour-
agement and recommendation made this book possible. Lian Sun and
Xiaoyin Feng, two editors at Taylor & Francis China, helped me streamline
the revision of the book. The three anonymous reviewers’suggestions also
played a crucial role in guiding me to go through the book proposal. My
employer Soochow University’s generosity should also be mentioned and
thanked. The university funded the open-access publication of this book, so
that more people are able to access to the book and many of its insights.
Finally, but perhaps most importantly, my wife Haiyan’s great sacrifice,
understanding, and support are the unreplaceable resource I have always had
in finishing my Ph.D. training and academic shift. Without her tolerance, I
really could not have completed this trip.
Acknowledgements xi

Abbreviations
AEC Atomic Energy Commission
AMMS Academy of Military Medical Sciences
Bt Bacillus thuringiensis
CAAS Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
CAE Chinese Academy of Engineering
Caltech California Institute of Technology
CAMS Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences
CAS Chinese Academy of Sciences
CAST China Association for Science and Technology
CCP Chinese Communist Party
CGNPC China General Nuclear Power Corporation
China CDC Chinese Center for Disease Control
CIAE China Institute of Atomic Energy
CNEA China Nuclear Energy Association
CNNC China National Nuclear Corporation
CNS China Nuclear Society
CNTA China National Tourism Administration
CPPCC Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
CRAES Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences
CSD China Science Daily, published by the Chinese Academy of
Sciences
CSHE China Society for Hydropower Engineering
CTGC China Three George Corp
CUSBEA China-US Biochemistry Examination and Application
DRC Development Research Center of the State Council
EIA Environmental impact assessment
ENGOs Environmental non-governmental organizations
EPA The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
EPR European Pressurized Reactor
FDA (US) Food and Drug Administration
GDP Gross domestic project
HGP Human Genome Project
HUST Huazhong University of S&T

HZAU Huazhong Agricultural University
IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency
IHEP Institute of High-energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
IRRI International Rice Research Institute
ITER International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor
IWHR China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research
MEE Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China
MEP Ministry of Environmental Protection
MOA Ministry of Agriculture of China (Renamed to Ministry of
Agriculture and Rural Affairs in 2018)
MOAR Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs
MOH Ministry of Health of China
MOST Ministry of Science and Technology of China
MWR Ministry of Water Resources of China
NDRC National Development and Reform Commission of China
NEA National Energy Administration of China
NFA National Forestry Administration of China
NIRP National Institute for Radiological Protection under the
Chinese Center for Disease Control
NNSA National Nuclear Safety Administration of China
NPC National People’s Congress of China
NPP Nuclear power plant
NRC Nuclear Regulatory Commission
OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
ORNL Oak Ridge National Laboratory
PD People’s Daily
PIOs Public information officers
PR Public relations
PUS Public understanding of science
PWR Pressurized water reactor
R&D Research and development
RUC Renmin University of China
SACH State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China
SASTIND State Administration of Science, Technology, and Industry for
National Defense of China
SEPA State Environmental Protection Administration of China;
Renamed in 2008 to Ministry of Environmental Protection
(MEP), and then reshuffled to become the Ministry of Ecology
and Environment (MEE) in 2018
SNPTC State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation
SNWTP South-North Water Transfer Project
SOEs State-owned enterprises
SW Southern Weekend
TGP Three Gorges (Dam) Project
TNC The Nature Conservancy
Abbreviations xiii

UIBE University of International Business and Trade
USTC University of Science and Technology of China
VPN Virtual private network
WCD World Commission on Dams
WTO World Trade Organization
WWF World Wildlife Fund
XEN Xinmin Evening News (Shanghai-based metropolitan tabloid)
xiv Abbreviations

1 Science controversies encounter
political opportunities
1.1 Introduction
Science and technology (S&T) controversies are an essential research topic in
science communication scholarship (Lewenstein, 2017). However, despite the
effort to systemize scientific controversy studies (Martin, 2014), two critical
dimensions remain underexplored. First, why have different controversies
shown divergent patterns? Second, most controversy studies were performed
in Western democracies, which are insufficient for us to understand scientific
controversies in broader social and political contexts.
Indeed, S&T controversies have been spreading worldwide, including in
authoritarian regimes like China where science traditionally enjoys an ideologi-
cally paramount status (Cao, 2014; Ding, 2014). Since February 2016, when I
began to prepare the current project, more than a dozen major science-related
controversies have flooded the Chinese media and Internet. They ranged from
the role of nonprofessional researchers in observing gravitational waves (Y. Tang
& Wang, 2016) and the replicability of a dubious cutting-edge genome editing
technology (Cyranoski, 2017) to new developments of long-lasting controversies
surrounding genetically modified organisms (GMOs) (Financial Times, 2016),
hydropower projects (J. Li, 2016) and nuclear power (Buckley, 2016a). The most
recent one is the well-publicized genomic editing of babies manipulated by Chi-
nese scientist He Jiankui at Shenzhen-based Southern University of S&T
(SUSTech).
As in Western contexts, S&T controversies in China demonstrate highly
divergent evolution patterns, ranging from the massive and long-lasting public
rejection of genetically modified (GM) foods to the collective efforts of environ-
mental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) to resist hydropower devel-
opment and the low-profile internal elite strife surrounding nuclear power. How
should we understand the high frequency of S&T controversies and their differ-
ent patterns? Have social, political and economic factors contributed to their
occurrence and development? The current project tries to answer these questions
by combining different theoretical traditions empirically.
In addition to science communication scholarship, science and technology
studies (STS) utilize controversies to reveal science’s hidden operation rules
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160212-1

(Pinch, 2015; Pinch & Leuenberger, 2006). However, while STS intensively
explores the central status of knowledge in scientific controversies, it has
under-investigated macro-political factors which play a crucial role in
influencing the development of such disputes (Jasanoff, 2017), particularly
in developing countries (F.-t. Fan, 2007).
Social movement theories, particularly the political process theory proposed
by McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly (2001), seems to have a powerful advantage in
exploring the divergent patterns of the widespread S&T controversies in China,
where specific political opportunity structures, a central theoretical component
of the political process theory, open up in some disputes, leading them to break
out and become sustained, but not in others.
However, as STS scholars point out, social movement theories ignore
knowledge and epistemic issues (Breyman, Campbell, Eubanks & Kinchy, 2017;
Hess, Breyman, Campbell & Martin, 2008; Martin & Groth, 1991), resulting in
a crucial neglect of the social and political order science co-produces with its
epistemic authority (Jasanoff, 2004b, 2017).
Absorbing science communication scholarship, STS, social movement the-
ories, East Asian probes into the science-society-state interaction (W. Anderson,
2012; F.-t. Fan, 2012; Fu, 2007), and studies on China’s sociopolitical transi-
tions, this book examines and compares controversies surrounding GMOs,
hydropower development and nuclear power. Based on intensive field studies
and multilevel data analysis, I will reveal a wide range of communication,
sociopolitical and knowledge factors contributing to the occurrence and sus-
taining of controversies despite science’s ideological importance in China.
1.2 Literature review
1.2.1 S&T controversies in science communication landscape
According to sociologist Dorothy Nelkin (1987), growing concerns over the
social, moral or religious implications of scientific advances, tensions between
environmental value and technological development, worries about health
hazards of emerging technologies, and declining public trust in scientists and
public institutions have contributed to the surging number of controversies of
this kind in the public domain. In a sense, the public debates on these tech-
nologies are fundamentally controversies over political control (Nelkin, 1995).
Like Nelkin, Brian Martin has systematically studied scientific controversies.
In his Controversy Manual, Martin (2014) summarized the main dynamics
underlying controversies, including actors’(scientists, the media and activists)
confirmation bias, their vested interests, the repeated reinforcement of assump-
tions, and the debated nature of scientific evidence. For example, in the GMO
controversy, several studies (Cook, Pieri & Robbins, 2004; Cuppen, Hissche-
möller & Midden, 2009) found biotechnology scientists generally thought public
resistance to GMO was because of their ignorance, their naïve requirement of the
impossible “zero risks”and their heavy reliance on emotion to make decisions.
2Science controversies

But structural differences between science communities, the media and the
public also contribute to scientific controversies. Flipse and Osseweijer
(2013) found scientists and the biotechnology industry’s often slow response
to GMO-related controversial events resulted in their having a far lower
presence in the media than challenging activists. When they did respond, the
media attention to the events decreased, and most of the public did not have
a chance to learn the mainstream scientific conclusions through the media.
Science communication scholars have also intensively investigated the role
of the media in controversies. Cook, Robbins and Pieri (2006) found the UK
media have widely cited public representatives and NGOs to counterbalance
scientists’and the government’seffort to frame GMO in S&T terms. The
second dimension is to reveal how the media’s pursuit of dramatic effects
intensifies controversies. For example, studies have demonstrated that the
media’sefforts to balance scientific consensus on climate change with climate
skepticism create opportunities for skeptics to speak out (Antilla, 2005;
Boykoff&Boykoff, 2004).
A third dimension is to show the effect of media reporting on public attitudes
to the controversial technologies. Bauer (2002) found that the media trend of
favoring medical biotechnology more than agricultural biotechnology is sig-
nificantly associated with the European public’s divergent opinions on the two
biotechnologies while Frewer, Miles and Marsh (2002) demonstrated evidence to
support the social amplification of risk framework, which claims that different
amplifier stations including media determine the consequences of a risk event.
Overall, the media selection of information and their preference of conflicts
have increased public rejection of controversial S&T (Mazur, 1981; M. C.
Nisbet & Huge, 2006). Mazur (2016) further claimed that it is the amount of
media coverage of S&T controversies rather than its frames or contents that
determines the public rejection of the controversial technologies.
Science communication scholars have also traced how S&T controversies
are staged in the media arena (Hilgartner & Bosk, 1988) and how the
media facilitate controversy development (Brossard, 2009; Lewenstein,
1995). They found that the media, instead of being a passive platform to
deliver controversy actors’voices, actively promoted the process of the
controversies.
A large body of science communication literature investigates public atti-
tudes to controversial technologies and the social, psychological and cognitive
factors that shape individual attitudes. There is no substantial evidence to
support the assumption that more knowledge leads to stronger support for
disputed S&T items (Akin & Scheufele, 2017). Compared with knowledge,
trust (or more accurately, trust in scientific institutions) is a much stronger
predictor of people’s positive attitude to S&T, especially in controversial set-
ting (Chryssochoidis, Strada & Krystallis, 2009). Other cultural cognitive
constructs like political ideology have been found to cause people’s biased
selection of information and biased attitude to controversial S&T (Kahan,
Jenkins‐Smith & Braman, 2011).
Science controversies 3

Although science communication scholarship has identified and measured a
wide variety of social, organizational, communication and individual factors
that affect people’s attitudes to science controversies, it has not done enough to
examine the dynamics of scientificdebates.Asaresult,wedon’t know why, in
similar situations, people reject science A but keep silent on equally controversial
science B. Why have some controversies lasted while others were short-lived?
To answer all these questions, one needs to take a more in-depth view of
the controversies, a critical examination of its actors and a comparative
approach across nations, political systems and cultures.
1.2.2 Epistemic roots of S&T controversies
From social institution to epistemic constructionism
Relying on the epistemological relativism suggested by Bloor’s (1991) Strong
Program, sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) scholars have widely
examined science controversies. The so-called strong program symmetrically
treats all knowledge claims, scientificorunscientific, true or false, and
mainstream or marginalized.
Absorbing the essence of SSK but stepping out of its lab settings, other STS
scholars have investigated public science controversies with constructionist
approaches. In his study on the controversy surrounding the HIV-AIDS link,
Epstein (1996) showed in his Impure Science that Peter Duesberg’sunsuccessful
challenge of the orthodoxy of the link between HIV infection and AIDS
became salient partly because of the campaigns by AIDS activists who were
still young and active when diagnosed with viral infections. The challenge was
finally rejected because the “viral hypothesis satisfied the interests of various
players, both ‘insiders’and ‘outsiders’” (p. 321). Combining resource mobiliza-
tion theory (McCarthy & Zald, 1973, 1977) and STS, Impure Science initiated
the endeavor to investigate science controversies as a social movement, though
the effort has not been widely followed among either social movement or STS
scholars (Breyman et al., 2017).
In her seminal book Design on Nature (2011), Sheila Jasanoffdemonstrated
how different cultures, risk regulations and science-government-business links
shaped divergent biotechnology governances in the United States, United
Kingdom and Germany. The US style of relying on experts, numbers and its
distrust of the public constitutes a risk governance regime sharply different
from those of Britain and Germany, which either employ an experience-based
consultation (Britain) or focus on rationality, ethics and experts’professional
skills (Germany).
From civic epistemology to knowledge-control regime
In Design on Nature, based on the comparative analysis of the policymaking
process, Jasanoffproposed the idea of civic epistemology, which “refers to
4Science controversies

these culturally specific, historically and politically grounded, public
knowledge-ways”(2011, p. 249). The concept, advancing Irwin and Wynne’s
(1996/2003) effort to justify layman knowledge to confront the monopoly of
experts’views, stresses that “convergence in scientists’understanding of the facts
is not the same thing as public assent to those understandings”(Jasanoff,
2011b, p. 129). The public knowledge-ways is not to understand the main-
stream scientific truth as imagined by the public understanding of science
(PUS) model, but to “yield to the social reality of sciences that are more
problem-driven and politically accountable”(Jasanoff,2011b,p.130).
Civic epistemology is a concept highly relevant to public S&T controversies
because, in the controversy setting, activists or the general public often raise
issues well beyond the mainstream scientific conclusions. The concept of civic
epistemology allows an in-depth analysis into the contexts in which these
anti-establishment “knowledge-ways”were brewed.
Although Jasanoffraised the idea of civic epistemology in the Western
democracy setting, there is no reason to question the concept’s applicability
in authoritarian regimes like China where political control, the political
importance of S&T and civil understanding of them coexist, just like in the
West (J. Y. Zhang, 2015). This similarity is indicated by many studies that
have explored how orthodox scientists and unscientificlaymenepistemically
treat controversial S&T in China in different means (Cao, 2018; L. Deng &
Jia, 2019; Hansen, 2017b). Based on these studies, it is also clear that poli-
tical power and the politics-science alliance have played a more significant
role in shaping civic epistemology in China than in the West. This book will
clarify the science-politics union.
Meanwhile, in addition to macro politics, it is also essential to understand
what other factors have differentiated controversy actors in making their
knowledge-ways. One such differentiating factor –often unnoticed –could be
cultural characteristics, such as the idea of national sociotechnical imaginaries
Jasanoffand Kim (2009, 2015) raised while analyzing the different fates of
nuclear power in South Korea and the United States. The concept represents
a national memory and imagination on the role of specific technologies in
influencing a nation’s historical development and steering its future. Jasanoff
and Kim demonstrated that nuclear power is imagined as significant S&T
progress and national pride in South Korea while mostly an uncontrollable
monster needing to be contained in the United States. Despite its broad
scholarly impact, the idea has not yet been systematically used to examine
different science controversies.
The current book attempts to assess the applicability of the concept by
treating the imaginaries as resources for civic epistemology. For science con-
troversies, the other side of the coin is social control revealed in epistemic
form. Following Michel Foucault’s concept of biopower which refers to
modern states’regulation of their subjects through numerous and diverse
techniques to subjugate bodies and control populations (Foucault, 1978),
many scholars have explored how social institutions such as medication and
Science controversies 5

public health realized political control (Conrad, 1992). Epistemically advancing
the ideas, Jasanoff(2004b) developed the concept of “co-production”of
knowledge and social order which argues that how the world is known and
how social relations are disciplined are deeply interconnected, and the change
of established social orders has to undergo processes in which knowledge and
social relationships mutually adjust each other.
Absorbing Jasanoff’s idea of co-production, Hilgartner (2017) advanced
the concept of “knowledge-control regimes”in his book Reordering Life to
analyze the formation and evolution of the Human Genome Project (HGP).
According to Hilgartner (2017, p. 9), a knowledge-control regime can be
defined as “a sociotechnical arrangement that constitutes categories of
agents, spaces, objects and relationships among them in a manner that
allocates entitlements and burdens pertaining to knowledge.”Such regimes
allocate epistemic authority, distribute credit, create a property, spread
knowledge, ensure quality, construct professional jurisdictions, and even
protect national security.
There are many regimes for such knowledge-controls, which constitute
modes of control that apply to specific actors, entities and jurisdictions, but
they vary in the extent to which they are formally codified. Hilgartner (2017,
p. 12) also argued that the conceptual structure of a knowledge-control
regime is encoded as a “governing frame,”which promotes an official view-
point that endows agents with specific entitlements and burdens pertaining to
other agents or to control over spaces, objects and actions.
Knowledge-control regimes should be considered a regular type of epis-
temic management. A journal publication process is a typical example of
such a scheme. Authors must abide by a series of norms, such as blinding
author information, to submit their papers. These papers, then, are sent to
peer reviewers to decide academic originality. It is expected that the
author will not release the paper before journal publication. These and
other expectations are part of the knowledge-control regime. In the process
described here, journal editors implement multiple controls of the knowl-
edge contained in the paper.
In publicly controversial science, dissenting scholars and activists have to
try to break such knowledge-control regimes, while mainstream scientists try
to maintain them with all means, including laws, rules, authority, norms and
institutionalized arrangements. But a knowledge-control regime does not
necessarily mean an intentional effort to hide the truth. A central tenet of the
concept is that specific knowledge presented in social life is always a result of
the interaction between epistemic management and multiple social, political
and institutional factors. While the epistemic management in some areas
might be stronger than in other regions, the knowledge-control regime is
embedded in a networked social context which prevents us from saying the
knowledge-control regime in one sector is stronger (or weaker) than in
another. What makes the difference is the effect of such control regimes,
whose strength varies across different schemes.
6Science controversies

In his study on the HGP case, Hilgartner did not specifically analyze
“knowledge-control regimes”in the public controversy setting, which is the
goal of this current monograph. Meanwhile, the dynamic interaction between
politics and knowledge-making will also be probed.
Exploring state power in S&T controversies
Although multilevel knowledge-control regimes cover the state’s jurisdiction
power, like other STS scholars who examined “movements”in science and
medicine (Epstein, 2008; McCormick, 2006, 2007a; K. Moore, 2009;
Schurman & Munro, 2010), Hilgartner’s central interest lies in knowledge
making. Generally, STS scholars pay much more attention to the role of
knowledge, expertise and expert-layman alliances/tensions and “often seek
changes in institutions beyond the state”(Breyman et al., 2017, p. 299), but
the constructionist approach of science studies has understudied political
power or the so-called macropolitics (Jasanoff, 1996, 2017). This negligence
is an apparent flaw for studies into science-society relationships in non-
Western settings, where government and political leaders often have a more
significant say in science issues (Jasanoff& Kim, 2009). The emerging East
Asian STS scholarship may offer a chance to fill the gap (W. Anderson,
2012; F.-t. Fan, 2012).
In term of macropolitics, East Asia has manifested a strong interplay
between government and knowledge. In Japan, techno-nationalism used to
drive its nuclear power program (Kelly, 2015) just like in South Korea
(Jasanoff& Kim, 2009). In the latter, the representation of macropolitics is
linked to a robust S&T nationalism, as evidenced by Hwang Woo-Suk’s
stem cell research scandal (Hong, 2008; T.-H. Kim, 2008; Leem & Park,
2008). In China, a strong sense of techno-nationalism and the inadequate
research capacity in the 1980s jointly pushed scientists to explore super-
natural human functions as a possible route to scientific breakthroughs
(Palmer, 2007).
These unique aspects of East Asian STS scholarship contribute to and
expand our understanding of S&T controversies. Besides, East Asian STS
scholars are actively involved in socially heated S&T controversies. For
example, while highlighting the inherent capitalistic feature of epidemiology
whose stress on traceable causal links between illness and environmental
factors naturally disfavors victims and the working classes (H.-H. Chen,
2011; Y.-P. Lin, 2011), Taiwanese STS scholars allied with the disadvantaged
workers suffering from their former employer’s toxic pollutant emission in
their juridical fights.
While macropolitics has been brought into East Asian STS, political
science theories, such as those about social movements, have not been
present. As a result, East Asian STS scholarship so far has failed to trace
the dynamic processes of S&T controversies and their sociopolitical roots.
Science controversies 7

1.2.3 S&T disputes from the perspective of social movement theories
From resource mobilization to political opportunity
Since the 1960s, three major types of rational choice theories of social move-
ments –resource mobilization theory (McCarthy & Zald, 1973, 1977), fram-
ing and collective identity theory (Snow, 2013), and the political process
approach –have been developed.
Tilly, Tarrow and McAdam developed the political process approach
(McAdam, 1982; Tarrow, 1994; Tilly, 1978), which focuses on the idea of poli-
tical opportunity structures proposed by Tarrow (1994, 1996, 2011). “Structure
of political opportunities”means “consistent –but not necessarily formal or
permanent –dimensions of the political environment that provide incentives for
people to undertake collective action by affecting their expectations for success
or failure”(Tarrow, 1994, p.85). As shown in Figure 1.1, three intersecting ele-
ments –political opportunities and threats, cultural artifacts and frames, and
mobilization networks and organizations –were proposed as the most important
ones for social movements to happen (Tarrow, 2011).
Polical
opportunies/constraints
Networks and organizaons
Cultural artefact and frames
Figure 1.1 The intersecting elements of social movements
Source: Drawn by the author; Tarrow, 2011, p.121
8Science controversies

Tarrow and colleagues (2001) also traced interaction mechanisms under-
lying social movements. To Tilly and Tarrow (2015), mechanisms mean a
class of changes that alter relations among specified sets of elements in identical
or closely similar ways over a variety of situations (Tilly & Tarrow, 2015, Kindle
Locations 685–686). The most common mechanisms in social movements are
brokerage, diffusion and coordinated action. Others include social appropria-
tion, boundary activation, certification/decertification and identity shift.
Social movement theories’relevance for analyzing S&T controversies
The dynamic process examined by Tarrow and colleagues can be beneficial for
investigating the outbreak, development, intensification and closure of S&T
controversies. As discussed above, current science communication and STS
approaches to science controversies often fail to answer why some potentially
disputable technologies become publicly controversial while others do not, or
why some debates last longer than others. With the dynamic analysis, we can
say the outbreak of S&T controversies may be associated with certain kinds of
[political] opportunity structure. For example, the continued food safety crisis
in Europe in the late 1990s offered an opportunity structure for activists to
mobilize the public against GMOs (Bonny & Sylvie, 2003). But the United
States has not provided such an opportunity structure due to its product-based
risk regulatory preference and stronger industry-government alliance (Jasanoff,
2011b; Schurman & Munro, 2010).
In addition to political opportunity structures, political scientists like
Ronald Herring (2008, 2010a, 2010b) have adopted mechanisms like broker-
age, framing and diffusion to explain public resistance to GMOs. However,
only limited science communication and STS studies (Delborne, 2008;
Martin, 1998, 2004, 2010, 2014; Martin & Groth, 1991) have examined
mechanisms (and certainly not those mentioned by Tarrow) involved in S&T
controversies.
The resource mobilization approach can also help understand the strength
of activism. Epstein’s study of activists’efforts to change the clinical trial
process for HIV drugs, in his Impure Science (1996), is an excellent example
of combining constructionist epistemic examinations and the resource
mobilization approach.
Another useful approach is to adopt social movement framing to analyze
S&T controversies. The four framing mechanisms –frame bridging, frame
amplification, frame extension and frame transformation –identified by Snow
and colleagues (Snow & Benford, 1988; Snow, Rochford Jr, Worden & Benford,
1986) can be used to observe and analyze S&T controversies.
But for my purposes, social movement theories do have limits. Scholars
in the field do not pay much attention to S&T controversies and the role
of knowledge or issues of expertise (Hess et al., 2008; Martin & Groth,
1991). The latter is often a crucial factor influencing such controversies. As
I will show in this monograph, actors’dominance of knowledge-making or
Science controversies 9

their capacity to produce alternative, yet credible knowledge affects the political
opportunities available to them. Besides, like mainstream STS scholarship, most
social movement theories are based on Western democratic contexts,
neglecting southern or Asian experiences (Fadaee, 2016) or adopting a
stereotype of these countries’situations, such as losing sight of the dynamic
public sphere in an authoritarian state like China (Y.-W. Lei, 2018).
1.2.4 Understanding S&T controversies in transitional China
S&T enjoy an ideologically paramount and unquestionably important status
in China (Cao, 2014). Since the 1980s when the country began its opening-up,
however, there have been consistent S&T controversies in public discourse –
ranging from the gigantic Three Gorges Dam Project (TGP) (Lee, 2013a) and
Qigong (a type of mystical exercise to strengthen and control spiritual force
(Palmer, 2007)) to GMOs (Cao, 2018) and trash incineration (Lang & Xu,
2013). After the 2000s, the controversies involved more and more actors,
including ENGOs, academics, journalists and often contingently organized
citizen groups.
The authoritarian regimes often more tolerated scientific or technological
debates in China. In the 1980s, S&T controversies, including harsh discussions
on the TGP, emerged from the country’s budding liberalism (H. L. Miller,
1996). The situation necessitates an investigation of the political structure of
these S&T debates in the country.
From fragmented authoritarianism to consultative authoritarianism
A classic model developed by political scientists to understand the tension
between China’s authoritarian rule and public protests or resistance to policies
is “fragmented authoritarianism”(FA), which argues that differently-tasked
government departments and their conflicts result in policy results and delay
(Lieberthal & Lampton, 1992). Adopting the model, Mertha (2008) has con-
vincingly examined China’s anti-dam protests. Among the three anti-dam cases
examined by him, the protest in Dujiangyan that could mobilize more support
from the fragmented ruling system while framing itself as a cultural contention
succeeded, while the rally without any endorsement from the ruling group was
clamped down.
Facing the booming Chinese civil society and more diversified political
players, Mertha (2009) introduced a modified FA (fragmented authoritarianism
2.0) framework, which allows more actors such as journalists and NGOs to
play a role in the model. Others, noticing that FA seldom considered scientists
and scientific knowledge, tried to introduce these elements into the framework
(e.g. Hansen, 2017b). Some observers also maintained that the Chinese Com-
munist Party (CCP) leadership remains tightly controlling and can frequently
adapt to the situation despite bureaucratic fragmentation (Mertha &
Brødsgaard, 2017; Shambaugh, 2008).
10 Science controversies

Despite these modifications, there remain some loopholes in the FA fra-
mework. Given the existing fragmentation within the Chinese bureaucracy,
what types of fragmentation can lead to social protests and their success? What
external conditions are needed? Is there a threshold value of fragmentation in
the FA framework to break the rule?
Besides, a dimension neglected in current studies that use the FA
framework is the central-local government relationship, which is considered
a crucial aspect of Chinese politics (Hao, Lin & Chung, 1994; Zheng, 2007;
Zhong, 2015). When and in what conditions will the tension between central
and local governments lead to social movements? How does this central-
regional tension affect public S&T controversies? Another less discussed
aspect in FA scholarship is the rise of new leftism in China. Should we be
able to identify an ideological FA framework? These questions will be
empirically addressed through Chapters 3 to 5.
The observation that some social protests achieved their goals in China due
to policymakers’apparent encouragement of different opinions led Teets
(2014) to conclude that the Chinese system would be better consistent with a
consultative authoritarianism in which authorities try to seek professional
expertise from organizations and individuals outside the official system, such
as ENGOs (F. Wu, 2009; J. Y. Zhang & Barr, 2013).
Rejecting State- and market-centered causal effect explanations, G. Yang
(2005) found that the development of ENGOs accompanied four institutional
factors including changing political conditions, the media, the Internet and
international NGOs expanding in China. In the process, Chinese academics
have played a vital role, working as ENGO organizers, policy entrepreneurs
or sometimes brokers (J. Y. Zhang & Barr, 2013).
Both diversification (and partial liberalization) of traditional media and
the penetration of the Internet are associated with China’s civil society
takeoff. For traditional media, the professionalization of investigative
journalism (H. Wang, 2016), revenue-seeking through attention-grabbing,
and harsh media competition (Y.-W. Lei, 2011) all cause the expansion of
the public sphere, which, due to political censorship, tend to evolve in the
environmental protection areas (G. Yang & Calhoun, 2007).
The Internet has been hailed as providing an online public sphere for the
nation’s activists, fueling opinionated citizens (Y.-W. Lei, 2011) and over-
coming the regime’s tight control on traditional media (DeLuca, Brunner &
Sun, 2016). Social media, ranging from blogs to Weibo to WeChat, expanded
the contentiousness of the online public sphere (Harwit, 2016; Leibold, 2011;
Lu & Qiu, 2013; Rauchfleisch & Schäfer, 2015).
Amidst the selective censorship on social media by the Chinese regime
(Cairns, 2017; King, Pan & Roberts, 2013), many subjects on social media
have to be apolitical (Sullivan, 2012) but contentious enough to attract
attention (Y.-W. Lei, 2018). Censorship avoidance should make science and
environmental controversies welcomed topics by news portals and social
media editors.
Science controversies 11

1.3 GMO, hydropower and nuclear controversies in China
1.3.1 Theoretical case selection
The above sections reviewed various theoretical traditions and approaches to
studying S&T controversies. It is necessary to compare these aspects across
different S&T disputes. Studies have found that contemporary S&T debates in
China demonstrate quite different patterns. For example, opposition to trash
incineration (Lang & Xu, 2013) has spread across Chinese cities but most of
them were spontaneous local activities without nationwide organization while
in other controversies, such as the anti-hydropower movement, ENGOs are
the main actor (H. Han, Swedlow & Unger, 2014; T.-c. Lin, 2007).
The case selection was based on theoretical necessity and the relevance to
studied targets: they should all involve debates on science and technology,
they should have relatively broad or perceivable social impacts, they should
have lasting duration, and they should have public policy impacts. When
doing case studies, researchers want their research subjects highly typical in
the studied aspects (Small, 2009). They should examine the theoretical rele-
vance of the case they choose in various perspectives as the situation unfolds
(R. K. Yin, 2009). Meanwhile, constant comparison is critical for conceptual
development (Glaser & Strauss, 2009).
Based on my personal experience as a science journalist in China in the
past 20 years and online search of topical news stories, I selected a batch of
candidate cases, which are all socially impactful and related to S&T issues,
including Qigong and the supernatural human function debate, food safety
scandals (particularly food additive disputes), the GMO controversy, the anti-
dam movement, public protests against Paraxylene (PX) (Jia, 2014a), collec-
tive resistance to trash incineration facility building, the nuclear power debate
and the air pollution control controversy (particularly the sources of PM2.5
(Jia & Wang, 2017)). I screened media coverage and social media mentions. I
consulted Chinese peer scholars, journalists and activists to help avoid my
personal bias in the initial selection. They agreed that these selected cases
could be considered significant enough and related to contention on S&T
issues in the public domain.
Many cases, such as the public protest against Paraxylene (PX) (Jia,
2014a), collective resistance to trash incineration facility building, and food
additive disputes, were stochastic and lacked constancy. Therefore, I elimi-
nated them from consideration.
After extensive consultation, I decided to choose the GMO controversy, the
anti-dam movement and anti-nuclear power conflicts. They all had milestone
impacts on Chinese society since China began to adopt opening-up in the 1980s.
Meanwhile, these controversies displayed knowledge contention and involved
political powers. These characteristics enabled them to be readily defined as
social movements. I also tried to pursue international comparison so that the
12 Science controversies

theoretical findings of my case studies could have a more extensive theoretical
application.
For example, GMOs have suffered massive public rejection in China, with
73% of people opposing GMOs used as foods (G. He, Liao, Shi, Zhang &
Zhao, 2017). This attitude echoed the resistance to the technology in both the
developed world (Motta, 2014; G. D. Stone, 2010) and developing countries
(Scoones, 2008). The anti-hydropower movement can be traced to the harsh
debate on whether to construct the Three Gorges Project (TGP) to build a
massive dam in Three Gorges in the mid-Yangtze River in the 1980s.
Recently, scholars have widely examined anti-hydropower activities to study
emerging Chinese civil societies and ENGOs (Buesgen, 2008; F. Wu, 2009; G.
Yang, 2005). For the nuclear power controversy (Jia, 2016a), two recent
NIMBY activities led to the suspension of nuclear fuel recycling facilities
proposed for Guangdong Province’s Jiangmen (J. Dai, Zeng & Huang, 2015)
and Jiangsu Province’s Lianyungang (Buckley, 2016a). Earlier, another
proposed nuclear power plant in Shandong Province’s Rushan was also
suspended due to local resistance (Zeng, Dai & Wang, 2015).
1.3.2 Divergent patterns of selected cases
While the three examples –GMO controversy, anti-hydropower debates and
nuclear power disputes –satisfy the criteria for theoretical orientation, they
demonstrate very varying patterns. The hydropower and nuclear industries
and biotechnology research also show different characteristics.
For example, despite the harsh citizen outcries against GM foods and
Greenpeace’s highly successful campaign to reverse the commercialization of
GM crops in China, nearly no domestic ENGO is involved (see Chapter 5 of
this monograph). For nuclear power, as a whole, public support for the
technology remained high even after the Fukushima accident (Y. Wu, 2017)
in spite of sporadic NIMBY protests. Unlike in Europe and the United
States where anti-nuclear campaigns had been widespread, sparking national
coalitions of environmental groups (Kasperson, Berk, Pijawka, Sharaf &
Wood, 1980), there was no nationwide anti-nuclear campaign and no single
Chinese organization, including local branches of international NGOs like
Greenpeace, committed to anti-nuclear power activism (see Chapter 6).
The hydropower controversy showed a different landscape. Indeed, there is
no other science-related dispute in China like anti-hydropower activism that
has lasted so long and promoted such unified voices from ENGOs and their
joint protests (see Chapter 4).
The cases of GM crops/food, nuclear power and hydropower that are con-
tested in contemporary China each have a set of different characteristics.
Table 1.1 below lists their geographic locations, history and heritage, different
media presentations of the industries/sector, relationship to the public, and the
time, scale and actors of the controversies.
Science controversies 13

Table 1.1 Characteristics of hydropower, nuclear power and GMO, and controversies
surrounding them
Hydropower Nuclear power GMO
Locations TGP: in central
China
Contended dams in
the 2000s: south-
western China
Mostly in eastern and
southern coastal
areas near major
cities
Nationwide
History Long debated across
Chinese history No history of open
contention Technology is new,
but food supply
concerns are a
long-standing issue
in history.
Industrial
legacy and
strength
Dominantly State-
owned sector; lack of
publicity tradition
Completely State-
owned sector; strong
publicity tradition
both in military
weapon and civil
technology develop-
ment eras
Fragile industry;
lack of publicity
tradition
Military link Part of the origin of
the industry due to
the involvement of
engineering troops.
No connection now
Originated from atom
bomb development;
remaining an active
link
Completely civil. No
military link
Relationship
to the pub-
lic’s daily life
Low Low High
Media
presentation
Moderate Moderate High
Time of
controversy
The 1980s, then 2003
through mid-2010s 2008 and then from
after Fukushima to
now
From the early 2000s
to now
Scale of
controversy
National, but few
southwestern locals Primarily selected
media platforms and
internal debates
Nationwide, various
media, social media
and online portals
Actors of
controversy
For: Energy sector,
hydropower industry;
Against: ENGOs,
ecological & environ-
mental experts, envir-
onmental agencies;
Various media and
journalists; CPPCC
(China’s upper house)
For: Energy sector,
nuclear power
industry; mainstream
scientists;
Against: Small circle
of dissenting experts
and activists; Limited
residents against
nuclear fuel recycling
projects
For: Mainstream
scientists; science
communicators;
foreign companies
Against: Various
anti-GMO activists;
non-science experts;
STS scholars;
Maoists; and many
of the general public
(Source: Author’s categorization)
14 Science controversies

1.3.3 From pattern difference to the theoretical comparison
Selecting GMOs, hydropower and nuclear controversies does not exclude the
importance of other S&T disputes, such as the widespread public protest
against Paraxylene (PX) (Jia, 2014a) and trash incineration (Lang & Xu,
2013; Standaert, 2017). But compared with the three selected controversies,
the other cases are either too China-specific or lacking scientific relevance, so
that temporal and international comparisons are hardly possible.
For the three selected controversies, different theoretical traditions reviewed
above can each offer intriguing explanations. As indicated in Chapter 6, these
theoretical explanations are entirely consistent across the various disputes. No
doubt the individual characteristics of these controversies should contribute to
the difference in the theoretical account. For example, the widespread concern
about food safety distinguishes the GMO controversy from hydropower and
nuclear power contentions in terms of the level of public attention. But this does
not mean the characteristics per se can replace theoretical probing or illegitimate
theory-oriented comparisons between cases. Instead, these characteristics
need to interact with other factors which will be theoretically analyzed in the
following chapters.
For example, people’s everyday concern with food safety is one factor
leading to the GMO controversy’s longevity and widespread expansion, but the
fear has to be combined with other social movement and knowledge factors,
such as activists’negative framing and orthodox knowledge’s low credibility, to
initiate and intensify the controversy.
On the other hand, not every item raising people’s daily concern will lead
to widespread public controversy. For example, the debut of China’s high-
speed train was accompanied by a disastrous crash that killed at least 38
people and injured 192 in Wenzhou in July 2011 (Branigan, 2011). The public
anger against high-speed train management and the government’s cover-up,
however, soon gave way to applause for China’s S&T achievement in becoming
world leaders in high-speed train development. Similarly, despite sporadic
protests against (improper use of) food additives, they have never evolved into
an extensive public controversy.
Besides this, although the three controversy cases primarily examined in this
book have different characteristics, they still share many common features. For
example, both hydropower and nuclear power are low-carbon energies
dominantly invested by State-owned enterprises (SOEs). Therefore, comparing
their different evolution pattern is meaningful in revealing their theoretical
difference.
My study is not a mechanical comparison of different controversies. To have a
holistic understanding of public S&T controversies, one must more system-
atically observe and compare them. This synthetic approach is particularly cru-
cial to studying China’s S&T controversies, because while the profound political
interference in social life necessitates an analysis on variables like political
opportunities, the paramount status of S&T in China calls for an integration of
Science controversies 15

science communication and STS scholarship in our understanding of people’s
perception and utilization of such political opportunities. Thus, S&T con-
troversies cannot be solely examined with structural sociopolitical factors.
1.4 Research questions
Based on the above theoretical review and the proposed synthetic
approach to analyze S&T controversies in China, I asked a series of
working research questions. The first set of research questions addresses how
science communication scholarship can help us understand the selected con-
troversies. They ask:
Research Question 1a (RQ1a): What are the communication elements,
such as the media, Internet and public attitudes to science, involved in the
process for GMOs, hydropower and nuclear power to become
controversial?
Research Question 1b (RQ1b): How do the communication elements,
such as the media, spur and/or maintain the controversies of GMOs,
hydropower and nuclear power?
Research Question 1c (RQ1c): Have the communication elements, such as
the media, caused the controversies of GMOs, hydropower and nuclear
power to develop differently?
The second set of research questions addresses how social movement and
other political theories can be integrated into our understanding of the selected
controversies. It will look at the science-politics relationship, and the com-
munication elements asked above.
Research Question 2a (RQ2a): Can political opportunity structures
explain the different patterns of controversies surrounding GMOs,
hydropower and nuclear power in China and why?
Research Question 2b (RQ2b): Can networks and mobilization explain
the different patterns of controversies surrounding GMOs, hydropower
and nuclear power in China?
Research Question 2c (RQ2c): Can cultural artifacts and frames explain
the different patterns of controversies surrounding GMOs, hydropower
and nuclear power in China?
Research Question 2d (RQ2d): Can fragmented authoritarianism explain
the different patterns of controversies surrounding GMOs, hydropower
and nuclear power in China?
The third and last set of research questions explores STS components of
the selected controversies that have been analyzed politically. These questions
link STS, science communication and political process theory.
16 Science controversies

Research Question 3a (RQ3a): Have knowledge-control regimes influenced
the patterns of GMO, hydropower and nuclear power controversies in
China?
Research Question 3b (RQ3b): What are the sociotechnical imaginaries
related to GMO, hydropower and nuclear power controversies in China?
Research Question 3c (RQ3c): How has civic epistemology regarding
GMOs, hydropower and nuclear power impacted the evolution of con-
troversies in China?
These questions were not final tasks for this monograph to address. Instead,
they were set as roadmaps for me to organize the book and as reminders for
readers to grasp central components amidst the colorful and intricate scenes
of the studied controversies that have lasted 30 years or longer.
1.5 Book outline
My book consists of nine chapters, with this opening chapter focused on the
theoretical review and the concluding chapter exploring a dynamic social
model for scientific controversies combining different theoretical perspectives.
The second chapter presents research methods, data, and analysis process.
The third chapter is a summary of China’s major S&T controversies. This
chapter also summarizes the social, political, economic and media factors that
contributed to them. The three following chapters then address hydropower,
GMO and nuclear controversies respectively.
Chapter 4 is focused on China’s anti-hydropower movement. Among the three
subjects, it is first dealt with because it is one of the earliest S&T controversies in
contemporary China, first breaking out surrounding the construction of the
Three Gorges Project. As the project was finished long before this study was
launched, the debate surrounding the project was mostly treated as a
background, but it has paved an essential way to the later concentrated efforts by
ENGOs to oppose southwestern hydropower projects. The anti-dam cases show
different patterns, yet they jointly demonstrate features specific to hydropower
controversies, such as the difficulty to control knowledge by hydropower groups
and the effective mobilization by ENGOs.
Chapter 5 deals with the GMO controversy. Combining media content
analysis and interview data, I reveal the fragile alliance between science and
the state, the struggle among scientists, the politicization of the issue and the vast
mobilization of various anti-technology groups that eventually successfully
halted the commercial farming of GM crops.
Chapter 6 studies the nuclear power controversy. While the military back-
ground and scientific progress frame (or national sociotechnical imaginaries) of
the nuclear industry seemed to quench initial public suspicion, the monopoly of
research on the health consequence of radiation by limited players results in less
open discussions on nuclear power safety. But to some elite anti-nuclear
Science controversies 17

campaigners, the political opportunity could still be explored, though not a
straightforward utilization of the fragmented governance system.
In the seventh to eighth chapters, based on the above studies, I compare
science communication, sociopolitical and knowledge factors across the three
controversies. A table summarizing their different theoretical components and
predicting variant consequences is presented. Chapter 8 summarizes the main
findings and examines the interactions among different theoretical frameworks.
The concluding chapter, which is Chapter 9, explores this study’s
generalizations and discusses its data and theoretical limitations. I also
briefly discuss my further study plan both to overcome the current limitations
and to realize the academic contribution more fully.
18 Science controversies

2 Research method and data
2.1 Introduction
The primary research method of this book is a qualitative case study.
Qualitative research is inherently multi-method (Flick, 2009). My study is
a multi-approach, multi-method endeavor. According to R. K. Yin (2009),
the case study logic implies each case can help us gradually improve our
understanding of our research questions.
In each case I studied, I adopted theoretical sampling (Glaser & Strauss,
1967) to assure its validity. Theoretical sampling is the process of data
collection for generating theory whereby the analyst jointly collects and
analyzes his/her data and decides what data to collect next and where to
find them, to develop his/her theory as it emerges. For qualitative scholars,
the criterion to judge when to stop sampling is whether they have reached
theoretical saturation for the researched/observed cases (Adler & Adler,
1994). Theoretical saturation represents the phase of qualitative data ana-
lysis where no new information appears, and all concepts in the theory are
well developed. In my case studies, I stopped searching for further evi-
dence when I believed all the possible theoretical explanations had been
explored with the available evidence. In reality, there were always gaps that
I thought I could not solve with my current data access. For example, I
cannot reach China’s top leadership to interview their policy intentions
regarding S&T controversies.
Following the suggestions of Creswell (2007, p. 126) and Lofland, Snow,
Anderson and Lofland (2006) on evidence collection, I sampled and reached
actors/events/cases with maximum variance and/or extreme or deviant cases
to improve the project’s validity (Maxwell, 1996). With this logic, I identi-
fied cases/events/actors/evidence reflecting various theoretical components –
such as political opportunity, framing, mobilization (strategies), tech-
noscience institutions, national sociotechnical imaginaries and fragmented
authoritarianism. I also mainly looked at how science & technology (S&T)
information was produced, transmitted, learned and used in the process of
controversies for certification of actors, the transgression of the disputes,
allying with partners/campaigners, and mobilizing participants.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160212-2

Within the broad category of case studies, I adopted semi-structured
interviews with various actors involved in the GMO, nuclear and hydropower
controversies, documentation and content analysis of media coverage, social
media postings and policy documents of these technologies and participatory
observation of ongoing disputes, and triangulation of different data sources and
various types of evidence (Maxwell, 1996, pp. 86–98).
2.2 Data collection and description
2.2.1 Triangulation and qualitative interviews
I interviewed different actors so that interviews from different informants could
be used to verify each other, the primary sense of triangulation. Triangulation
also happened between interview transcripts and media coverage. There was
also triangulation between media coverage and policy documents.
In the past three years’field studies (including US-based telephone and
WeChat interviews), I conducted intensive interviews. Due to my lengthy jour-
nalistic background, I first sought help from former journalist colleagues while
interviewing them. With their assistance, I was able to reach a good number of
activists and dissenting experts who usually are more open to journalists and
researchers. As studies reveal, many activists in China originally were journalists
(H. Wang, 2016).
Using the snowball method, I asked interviewed activists to recommend
others they thought relevant and open to talk. My science journalistic back-
ground also enabled me to question many scientists and experts involved in each
controversy. I also obtained help from peer Chinese scholars who had studied
individual subjects falling in my research scope. Through them, I was able to
reach many industrial figures, particularly people in China’s nuclear industry.
However, despite my links, I was not as successful at reaching Chinese
officials, who are generally cautious of talking with journalists and interna-
tional scholars, even though I was familiar with some of them. As a result,
most officials I reached refused to speak with me or only shortly briefed me
about some basic situations.
Eventually, I interviewed 107 informants, including 26 journalists and former
journalists, 24 activists, 21 scientists, 10 industry representatives, 4 government
officials and former officials, 17 STS, communication and policy scholars who
have studied some relevant aspects of the subjects I was researching for this
project, 2 science communication practitioners and 3 public information officers
(PIOs). In the above categorization, for those having multiple roles, I only chose
their role most relevant to my research subjects.
Most in-depth interviews took about 1.5 to 2 hours, while some other discus-
sions, particularly those with my former journalist peers, took highly flexible
forms, such as face to face interview plus WeChat (a Chinese social media plat-
form) and telephone follow-up talks. For the shorter interviews, the primary
research purpose was to get or verify information. A detailed list of interviewee
20 Research method and data

characteristics (with names and affiliation intentionally deleted) is provided in
Appendix A, and in this book I use information from interviews like an in-text
citation. I give an abbreviation INT plus date (in yyyy+mm+dd format) after
using interview information or quoting informants. When on the same date there
were multiple interviews, I use the letter “a, b or c”at the end of the date number
to alphabetically distinguish different interviews.
The Cornell University IRB approved this research method on 27 Septem-
ber 2016. The protocol number was 1608006557.
2.2.2 Mass media coverage data
Sampled newspaper data
In addition to interviews, I collected several types of media data. The first
type is the mass media coverage of GMOs, nuclear power and hydropower by
four representative newspapers. Two of them –the People’s Daily (PD), which
is the official party newspaper of CCP, and the Southern Weekend (SW),
which is the most liberal Chinese newspaper published per week from
Guangzhou –are widely adopted as sample newspapers to study con-
temporary China (e.g. Y.-W. Lei, 2018). A third newspaper is the Shanghai-
based Xinmin Evening News (XEN), which is known as a relatively high-end
metropolitan tabloid. The fourth newspaper is China Science Daily (CSD),
published daily by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) from Beijing.
CSD, formerly Science Times, is widely considered to demonstrate the most
professional science journalism in China.
1
Combined, the four sampled
newspapers represent a representative portfolio of typical Chinese newspapers.
Contents from PD, SW and XEN were retrieved from Wise Search, the most
comprehensive full-text newspaper database in China, while materials from CSD
were from the newspaper’s website (password-protected), as its contents had not
been included in Wise Search or another full-text Chinese newspaper database
CNKI before 2008 (CNKI is the most famous for its Chinese academic paper
database). Both Wiser and CNKI began to collect full-text newspaper data from
the early 2000s (the starting time for different newspapers varied). As most con-
troversies studied in this book took place after the year 2000, the time range is
excellent for my purposes. But because the TGP debate, the main hydropower
controversy, mainly took place in the 1980s, it was also necessary to trace media
reporting before stories were collected and archived to the full-text databases.
Among the four sampled newspapers, only PD has such a full-text database. So,
I also downloaded PD articles from the 1980s.
All the newspaper articles were searched and downloaded by different
groups of China-based partners with keywords decided after our discus-
sions and trials. For the hydropower controversy, sample articles were
examined with the Chinese keywords meaning “hydropower”(水电或水
能), “hydroelectricity”(水电或水能), “hydraulic”(水利), “big dam”(大坝),
“TGP”(三峡工程), “Nu River”(怒江), and “dam controversy”(建坝争论、
Research method and data 21

争坝). In English, “hydropower”is almost identical to “hydroelectricity,”
but in Chinese, the literal translation of “hydropower”(水能:shuineng or
water energy) is seldom used, and hydroelectricity (水电:literallyshuidian
or water electricity) is a much more popular term. However, there was
significant ambiguity in the Chinese context, as hydroelectricity (水电:
shuidian or water electricity) can also mean “water and electricity,”which is
used in a large amount of household utility-related media stories, which are
irrelevant to this research. Manual cleaning was therefore essential.
After the articles were found and downloaded, I manually skimmed all of
them and excluded the irrelevant stories. After data cleaning, there were 138
relevant articles for hydropower in SW, 343 in XEN, 319 in CSD and 1,211 in
PD. Taken together, there were 2,011 sample newspaper articles on hydro-
power for analysis.
For GMOs, sample articles were searched with the Chinese keyword
“GMO”(转基因), as this is a highly specific word without any significantly
noticeable ambiguity. Such items were downloaded from PD after 1995, from
SW after 2004, from XEN after 2007 and from CSD after 2000. After the
articles were found and downloaded, I manually skimmed all of them and
excluded the irrelevant pieces. After data cleaning, there were 36 relevant
articles for GMOs in SW, 97 in XEN, 321 in CSD and 152 in PD. Together,
there were 606 sample newspaper articles on GMOs for analysis.
For nuclear power, sample articles were searched with the Chinese key-
words “nuclear power”(核电), “atomic power”(原子能), “nuclear energy”
(核能), and “nuclear science and technology”(核科技), Due to the Chinese
partners lack of access to CSD’s own site, the data set could only obtain CSD
contents for nuclear from WISE after 2007. After data cleaning, I obtained
1,916 sample newspaper articles on nuclear power for analysis (619 in PD, 74
in SW, 604 in XEN and 619 in CSD).
Table 2.1 below shows the downloaded media articles across three con-
troversies after sample cleaning. Their publishing time range is also provided.
Other media articles
Besides the full-range media coverage data from the sampled newspapers,
relevant media contents were collected, mostly when interviewees or social
Table 2.1 Downloaded media articles and their publishing time
PD Hydropower GMO Nuclear power
PD 1,211 (1980–2017) 152 (1995–2012) 619 (2000–2017)
SW 138 (2000–2017) 36 (2004–2016) 74 (2000–2012)
XEN 343 (2002–2017) 97 (2007–2016) 604 (2002–2017)
CSD 319 (2003–2017) 321(2000–2016) 619(2007–2017)
(Source: Author’s calculation)
22 Research method and data

media discussions mentioned them. What’s more, with the decline of traditional
print media and the rise of online media, such as WeChat-based smartphone
publications, I collected relevant articles from smartphone publications. They
were primarily used for information purposes and triangulation.
Media coverage and public reaction patterns
Besides collecting and analyzing sampled media stories, I also explored the
overall model of media coverage of the studied subjects. In our digital era, a
reliable method to trace the pattern is to look at the frequency of media
reporting of the topics through Internet tools such as Google Trends and its
Chinese equivalent Baidu Index. With thousands of mass media and news
sites accessed by its news search engine, Baidu Index can show the frequency
of media coverage of specific keywords.
Google Trends or Baidu Index also offer a pathway to examine public
reactions to hot social events through its function to trace people’s online
search results. It has been found that the public’s interest in science as repre-
sented by their Google searches is associated with media reporting of relevant
subjects (Baram-Tsabari & Segev, 2011; Segev & Baram-Tsabari, 2012). My
method for examining people’s interests in the three target controversies –
hydropower, GMOs and nuclear power –is as follows. Using the same key-
words to search relevant stories in the four sampled newspapers and Baidu
Index (for news coverage frequency), I examined the Baidu keyword search
trends. I chose Baidu instead of Google because Google has been blocked in
China since 2009. My purpose in this book is not to examine the statistical
association between news coverage frequency and people’s online searches but
to qualitatively shed light on the general media and public reactions to the
controversies to supplement the methodological insufficiency of merely relying
on elite discourses reflected by interviews and sampled media reporting.
2.2.3 Social media data
Social media contents were also collected. Unlike mass media, social media and
information transmission channels enable observation of the communication
patterns of the studied controversies and people’s reaction to them (Brossard,
2013). Mass media often only allow elite discourses, no matter whether they are
from leading scientists, senior officials or activism leaders. But social media can
significantly expand the platform for debates, particularly in controversial issues
such as GMOs and climate change (A. A. Anderson & Huntington, 2017;
Davies & Hara, 2017; Smith, Zhu, Lerman & Kozareva, 2013). Different social
media platforms play different roles in transmitting the debates on science and
technology controversies.
Throughout this book, I categorize BBS (bulletin board systems), blogs and
social network sites like Facebook or Twitter as social media platforms due to
their common function to empower users to interact with their audiences
Research method and data 23

(Obar & Wildman, 2015). BBS is more suitable than the other two major
social media platforms in China –WeChat and Twitter-like Weibo. WeChat
posts are open only to friends, and although Weibo is an open platform, its
operator only allows one ID to download 1,700 tweets
2
for any single search,
which for research purposes are too few as compared with all postings in the
social media platform. Therefore, I collected BBS posts with appropriate
debate/discussion contents (conveniently defined as having 100 following
posts) regarding GMOs, nuclear power and hydropower in the most popular
Chinese BBS website Tianya, and individual Weibo and blog posts by main
actors involved in the controversies.
Using a web crawler software, which can automatically search online con-
tents, I downloaded Tianya posts regarding GMOs, nuclear power and
hydropower using the same keywords used in the mass media search with
multiple purposes. One purpose was to record the number of the hot BBS
posts (technically defined as the original posts followed by more than 100
comments by the time of data collection) each year to triangulate the com-
munication trends and patterns found in mass media content and people’s
online searching behavior.
Blogs
Blogs are much longer and more abundant in information than BBS or Weibo.
For this book, blog data are instrumental, because they can supplement and
triangulate interview data and serve the purpose of comparative studies. I mainly
searched three blog sites –Sina Blog, BlogChina.com and ScienceNet.cn. Sina
Blog, operated by China’s once largest online portal Sina.com.cn which also
operates Weibo, is the largest blog site in China. BlogChina.com was a very
active blog site, but due to the overall decline of the blog as a communication
vehicle, it is no longer active enough; however, for historical reasons, it was still
adopted as a sampled blog site. ScienceNet.cn, operated by the Chinese Acad-
emy of Sciences, is a leading website primarily targeting scientists but also pub-
licly accessible. Typical blogs of main actors were downloaded and analyzed.
The results are reported in individual chapters.
Weibo data
With its deep and wide penetration into everyday life and its public sphere
role (Rauchfleisch & Schäfer, 2015), Weibo could potentially be an excellent
platform to observe the public representation of science controversies (J. Fan,
Jia, Peng & Zhang, 2013). I analyzed the attitudes and behaviors of indivi-
dual actors involved in the dispute as a substitute when interviews were una-
vailable. Due to Weibo’s access and download restrictions, I could only access
a limited number of recent tweets. Therefore, Weibo search was not systema-
tic, focusing on more typical tweets, including those suitable for external
software analysis.
24 Research method and data

For GMOs, former TV anchor Cui Yongyuan, a main anti-GMO actor, reg-
ularly produced high-impact Weibo posts. His Weibo tweets became my main
research target. Besides, I retrieved data presented in my previous studies on
Weibo transmission of GMO controversy in China for analysis (J. Fan et al.,
2013; Jia, Fan & Peng, 2014; Jia, Fan & Yan, 2015).
For nuclear power, three Weibo searches in May and August 2018 and
January 2019 resulted in about 1,500 tweets, a small number which indicated
an indifferent public reaction to the nuclear power issue. Few anti-nuclear
actors opened or regularly updated Weibo accounts. Among the first 600
sampled Weibo tweets (the first 200 tweets from each search), I only identified
four tweets meeting the benchmark analysis criterion of 30 forwards set by
the external tool Weiboreach.com (conveniently defined as high-impact tweets
here). To overcome the gap, I expanded my search to topics (with hashtag #)
including the keyword “nuclear power”(核电), which resulted in nearly 2,000
such issues. Among the first 200 topics of my searched results, only 29 topics
had a readership of more than 10,000 and were worth further analysis. I also
searched posts by known anti-nuclear activists to identify qualified tweets for
external analysis.
I did not specifically search Weibo tweets for hydropower, as most con-
troversies on dam buildings had ceased or declined when Weibo became
popular in China in 2011. Even though there were Weibo tweets related to
the last collective protest surrounding Chongqing’s Xiaonanhai dam,
Weibo ’s search engine did not support searching for tweets posted several
years ago.
WeChat data
Chinese people have become deeply immersed in WeChat, which has more
than 1 billion active users, more than the number of smartphones in China
(China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), 2017). But unlike
Weibo or Twitter, where people can “follow”any individual account, joining
a friend’s circle (like Facebook’s wall), WeChat is mostly private and viewing
a person’s posts requires the permission of that person (Harwit, 2016).
WeChat has two more functions for “publicness.”Any individual or organi-
zation can publish a public account (standard translation is “official account”),
which can be considered a smartphone-based publication, without a license
that is essential for traditional media in China. Any user can subscribe to the
smartphone publication.
The second publicness function is WeChat’s group chat. Each group allows
up to 500 members. Information from a WeChat public account can be trans-
mitted quickly by being posted into a chat group, and then it can be transferred
to other chat groups by overlapping group members (X. Wang & Gu, 2016). As
I was involved in multiple relevant chat groups, I observed the dialogues in the
groups and summarized some patterns in the following chapters, but I did not
record and report any personally identifiable information.
Research method and data 25

Meanwhile, using external online tool QS Data (www.qsdata.com), which
ranks WeChat articles and public accounts, one can obtain the ranking
(ranked in terms of views) of public account articles and access them. I col-
lected three types of WeChat data. The relevant public account articles I
randomly encountered or intentionally traced when alerted; highly ranked
public account articles related to the studied subjects –hydropower, GMOs
and nuclear –obtained through QS Data, and unidentifiable chat group posts
for observation.
I downloaded, coded and analyzed from QS Data the first 50 articles dis-
tributed through a WeChat public account (a free-of-charge user can access to a
maximum of 100 materials posted in the past three months) for each of the three
subjects. As indicated above, due to high literary disambiguation necessary for
hydropower, I obtained such public account articles by searching the same key-
words as in mass media and then cleaned the combined results. For GMO and
nuclear power articles, I only used the single keyword to search in QS Data due
to their low level of ambiguity. Because WeChat articles on nuclear power were
highly homogenous in their attitude to the power, I also supplemented the search
with activists’names as keywords.
2.2.4 Partisan website data
Unlike news sites which boast their neutrality, partisan websites (and their
WeChat-based public accounts) promote politically biased viewpoints.
Because of China’sofficially recognized socialism ideology and its active
censorship, sites openly promoting Western democracy are virtually non-
existent within China. On the other hand, in recent years, Maoist leftism
3
has
grown in Chinese society and the online world rapidly (L. Ma, 2012). With
the fast development of online populism in China, the number of leftist web-
sites quickly expanded (Fang & Repnikova, 2017; A. Y. Hu, 2006). Given the
situation, it is necessary to examine whether the rising left-wing populism has
influenced science controversies.
Examining the political polarization of science controversies is a common
research topic, particularly looking at climate change (Kahan, Jenkins-Smith &
Braman, 2011; E. C. Nisbet, Cooper & Garrett, 2015). A standard method is
to measure one’s political attitude from right to left (conservative to liberal),
but tracing partisan websites has also been adopted (Schuldt, Konrath &
Schwarz, 2011). Due to the lack of a full spectrum of political ideology in
China’s public sphere, tracing partisan websites may be considered a partial
proxy to calculate partisan attitudes among the public.
Based on my long-time observation, the anti-GMO position is often linked to
leftism political appeals, but I haven’t found evidence for similar trends in the
case of hydropower and nuclear power. So I only examined GMO articles across
several selected Maoist websites, including Utopia (Wuyou zhixiang: wyzxwk.
com), Chawang (cwzg.cn) and Red Song Club (szhgh.com). The observation
time was August 2018. Using the Chinese keyword GMO (转基因), I found
26 Research method and data

4,340, 234 and 45,778 articles. Unfortunately, I did not have enough resources to
analyze all these articles, so I only downloaded and analyzed the first 50 articles
ranked by relevance identified from each of these sites.
2.2.5 Other documentation data
Another type of information is various government documents, including the
annual government work reports delivered to the plenary meeting of the
National People’s Congress by the Prime Minister, different five-year plans
(五年计划: including comprehensive plans, energy development plans and
plans for specificfields such as nuclear power) and the national middle-
and long-term S&T plan (and such plans in subfields, such as the middle- and
long-term plan for agricultural S&T). There were also many government cir-
culars relevant to my research. I primarily used these documents for infor-
mational purpose. Some typical materials were also used to analyze some STS
concepts, such as sociotechnical imaginaries.
In addition to government documents, I also analyzed books and journal
papers written by the main actors of the studied controversies. A significant
purpose for examining these documents was to look at the knowledge contests
between main actors and the possible sources of alternative knowledge. Mean-
while, for the TGP controversy in the 1980s, three books written during the
debate –Treatises on Macro Policymaking on the Three Gorges Project (F. Tian,
Lin & Ling, 1987), Second Collection of Treatises on Macro Policymaking on the
Three Gorges Project (F. Tian, 1989) and Yangtze, Yangtze: Debates on the
Three Gorges Project (Q. Dai, 1989) –were the primary data sources for this
topic due to the lack of other materials.
The multiple sources’documentation provided a solid basis for triangulation
which also existed between interviews, documentation and participatory
observation. The multiple triangulation not only enhanced the study’s
reliability but also created chances to explore new theoretical findings
through the constant comparison suggested by grounded theorists (Glaser
& Strauss, 2009).
2.3 Multilevel data analysis
2.3.1 Analyzing interview data
I adopted what R. K. Yin (2009, pp. 136–160) described as the five case study
analysis techniques, including pattern matching (comparing an empirically
based pattern with a predicted case), explanation building (analyzing case
study data by building an explanation), time-series analysis, logic models and
cross-case synthesis (aggregating findings across a series of individual case
studies). Another method is constant comparison, which combines data
coding and analysis to generate theory systematically. It is designed to aid
analysts in producing a theory that is consistent, plausible, close to the data
Research method and data 27

and at the same time is in a form clear enough to be readily, if only partially,
operationalized for testing in quantitative research (Glaser & Strauss, 1967,
1771–1773 Kindle Location).
Concretely, I first developed a timeline of the three selected controversies
and then analyzed different data for different purposes. For example, inter-
view transcripts were used for: 1) clarifying and verifying the “truth”and
details of individual controversies; 2) finding theoretical components involved;
and 3) comparing and matching patterns of these controversies.
Unlike the common practice in qualitative case studies, I did not use
software to code all interview transcripts systematically. Instead, I read all
interview transcripts (commonly immediately after my interviews), com-
pared them with my interview notes which had highlighted some points
either theoretically meaningful or essential to story developments to decide
the crucial quotes I would use. Because I made all interviews myself and
had some strong impressions when there was vital information, the com-
parison between notes and transcripts was more efficient than formal coding
for identifying important messages both for theories and for book details.
To address the possible neglect of other essential clues and theoretical
components, I also carefully read relevant transcripts (from interviewees
who were essential figures in controversies) to identify meaningful contents
further.
2.3.2 Analyzing mass media data
I coded media reporting collected from the above four sampled newspapers
for framing analysis and tracing the media’s frequency of attention. I also
analyzed media to form a triangulation with my interviews with journalists.
Based on literature (M. C. Nisbet & Lewenstein, 2002) and the trial analysis,
I developed a coding system consisting of three aspects –themes, attitude and
whether controversy can be identified (dispute visibility).
What I define as themes here is similar to frames: significant aspects of
social life covered by the media stories. Frames have been widely used in the
relevant literature, and when they were used in environmentally relevant
studies (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989; M. C. Nisbet & Lewenstein, 2002),
they have often been linked to specific established meanings, such as S&T
progress and Pandora, which were sometimes directional. Thus, I preferred
to use the term “theme,”by which I referred to more objectively and neu-
trally defined areas of human activities related to the studied topic. For
example, one story may report the business or economic aspects of nuclear
power while another news article deals with the environmental issues of
hydropower development. A simple reason for me to prefer the straightfor-
ward aspects of studied topics is it is easier to code. Besides, coding sampled
media articles with these straightforward aspects as themes allows me to
make cross-over analysis between article themes and other features such as
article attitude and controversy visibility.
28 Research method and data

I fully absorbed the previous frame analysis work such as those by M. C.
Nisbet and Lewenstein (2002), which proposed the following framing typology
for biotechnology:
Progress: Celebration of new development, breakthrough; the direction of
history; the conflict between progressive/conservative-reactionary
Economic prospect: Economic potential; prospects for investment and
profits; R&D arguments
Ethical: Call for ethical principles; thresholds; boundaries; distinctions
between acceptable/ unacceptable risks in discussions on known risks;
dilemmas. Professional ethics.
Pandora’s box: Call for restraint in the face of the unknown risk; the
opening of flood gates warning; unknown risks as anticipated threats;
catastrophe warning
Runaway: Fatalism after the innovation; having adopted the new
technology/products, a price may well have to be paid in the future; no
control any more after the event
Nature/nurture: Environmental versus genetic determination; inheritance
issues
Public accountability: call for public control, participation, public invol-
vement; regulatory mechanisms; private versus public interests
Globalization: call for global perspective; national competitiveness within
a global economy; opposite: splendid isolation
(Copied from M. C. Nisbet and Lewenstein (2002, p. 372))
I took the aspects of human activities M. C. Nisbet and Lewenstein
(2002) described in their framing typology but split values (e.g., progress,
Pandora’s box, etc.) attached to these frames as much as possible to form
some trial article themes. Then I read about 100 sample media articles for
each of the three studied controversies to test the applicability of these
themes in the Chinese context. I expanded, dropped and adapted the trial
themes when reading sample media articles to finalize the themes finally
used in this book. Some themes were adjusted in the formal coding process.
Eventually, I developed either 10 or 11 themes for each of the three studied
controversies.
For the media stories on hydropower, I identified ten major themes. They
included business & economy; S&T; environment & ecology; floods, dam
safety & water management; engineering; history & culture; politics, activism
& national interests; regulatory & public accountability; immigrant affairs;
and development & social welfare.
Among the themes, engineering was different from S&T because the former
was more related to industrial practice rather than research done by scientists.
The theme “regulatory affairs & public accountability”was also separated
from “politics, activism & national interests,”which covered articles on poli-
tical decisions, political leaders’involvement (where the items do not have
Research method and data 29

other clear themes), public participation and activism, and national interest
frames, which are common in China (Jia & Liu, 2014; Jia & Liu, 2009).
For the media stories on GMOs, 11 primary themes were identified,
including seven themes equal to those in hydropower stories –S&T; business
& economy; culture & history; development & social welfare; environment &
ecology; politics & national interests; and regulatory affairs & public
accountability. Besides, the media articles on GMO specifically covered the
themes of food safety; ethical issues; conspiracy; and science communication
& popularization. I added a “science communication & popularization”
theme because due to the ongoing GMO controversies, a large group of sci-
ence communicators emerged, and science communication activities were
organized to defend biotechnology. As a result, two types of media articles –
including non-news popular science articles to defend GMOs and a kind of
news story specifically on science communication activities –emerged and
cannot easily be included into other themes.
The media stories on nuclear power also included seven themes used to code
GMO and hydropower stories –S&T; business & economy; culture & history;
development & social welfare; environment & ecology; politics & national
interests; and regulatory affairs & public accountability. Besides, science com-
munication & popularization; conspiracy; nuclear safety; and engineering
themes were covered. An additional theme specific to nuclear power is inter-
national nuclear non-proliferation negotiation and potential military use of
nuclear energy. Although when cleaning data, I have cleared most nuclear
articles solely about military purposes, such as the North Korea or Iran nuclear
crises, there were still some articles about both nuclear power and international
nonproliferation negotiation, such as those on the international negotiation of
Iran’s civil nuclear power plant.
Ethics & Pandora is a frequently used frame in environmental or bio-
technology stories (M. C. Nisbet & Lewenstein, 2002), so initially, I kept the
ethics & Pandora theme. But I dropped the theme after the first 400 article
coding did not find any such item.
Table 2.2 indicates the mass media themes of the three studied subjects.
For the science communication & popularization theme, I sometimes coded
secondary themes based on the main contents being communicated or popu-
larized, but there were also articles discussing science communication of the
studied subjects per se. In this case, I did not make a secondary theme code.
For nuclear power articles, the theme “history and culture”was mostly related
to the glorified history of China’s nuclear weapon or industry. Secondary
themes were also coded following the concrete historical contents.
The sampled media stories’attitude to research subjects was coded at a
three-level scale, from a negative attitude (-1) to neutral (0) and then to a
positive attitude (+1). Positive attitude typically meant straightforward praise
that could be identified with keywords like progress, honorable, nationally
significant, glorious, independent innovation and benefit (to nations, people
or environment), while negative attitude represented clear denunciations or
30 Research method and data

warnings against the subject. The benchmark to determine the tone, however,
may vary per the media. For example, PD, a Party propaganda mouthpiece,
was the most generous in using positive keywords while SW always tried to
show journalistic balance. Thus, a story defined as neutral in PD may be
positive in SW.
Then, during my pretest, the idea to mark the visibility of controversy
emerged. Although I have not found any previous study to set dispute visibi-
lity as a variable for coding, there is a long tradition to trace identifiability of
disputes in media articles (Lewenstein, 1995; Mazur, 1981; Nelkin, 1995). The
purpose here is to know what types of media themes and what attitudes are
related to the media’s framing of controversies and uncertainty. Although
media’s balancing efforts can naturally create a general controversiality and
uncertainty (Boykoff&Boykoff, 2004), this indicator is meaningful in China,
as propaganda-styled science news in the country is highly positive (Jia &
Liu, 2009) tending to erase such controversiality and uncertainty, particularly
in official media. The visibility of controversy was conveniently coded as "0"
(debate invisible) and "1" (controversy visible).
Due to the enormous number of media articles (about 5,000), I did not
have technical and financial resources to hire independent coders. I asked the
help of an independent Chinese peer researcher for a reliability test. The
researchers’primary research method is a media content analysis. We sepa-
rately analyzed about 100 articles in each of the three studied subjects –
hydropower, GMOs and nuclear power –after I delivered my intentions and
strategies. The intercoder reliability test was quite high, more than 0.8 across
Table 2.2 Mass media theme coding of the three studied subjects
Hydropower GMOs Nuclear power
Common themes
across the three
subjects
S&T
Business & economy
Culture & history
Development & social welfare
Environment & ecology
Politics, national interests & activism
Regulatory affairs & public accountability
Specific themes in
different subjects
Engineering Ethics &
Pandora Engineering
Floods, dam safety
& water
management
Food
safety Nuclear safety
Immigrant affairs Conspiracy International nuclear non-
proliferation negotiation
and military use
Science communication & popularization
(Source: Author’s coding)
Research method and data 31

the three subjects. We discussed the difference and reached consensus on
coding accuracy. Then I coded all of the media articles myself for their
themes, attitude and dispute visibility.
I did not code media articles (including WeChat public account articles) I
collected during interviews and through various occasions such as WeChat chat
groups. Instead, aiming to explore the typicality (Small, 2009), I carefully read
these articles, most of which were relevant to recent dialogues, in search of rele-
vant information. Various findings will be reported in the individual chapters on
particular subjects.
In the individual chapters on researched subjects, I present the mass media
data in tables to show the analysis results of coding (frames, attitude, controversy
visibility). The results of media reporting frequency and keywords search
amounts are also graphed in corresponding chapters.
2.3.3 Analyzing social media data
As described above, my social media data include BBS, blogs, Weibo and
WeChat public account articles. I counted the annual number of the original
BBS posts (the first post that is followed by others to form a debate) to sup-
port, clarify and verify communication trends found in mass media content
analyses and the examination of other data. In terms of Weibo and blog data,
I mainly observed some typical tweets and blogs of actors to triangulate and
supplement my interview data.
For Weibo data, I used an external, fee-charged Weibo analysis tool
Weiboreach.com to calculate typical individual tweets’coverage, number
of comments and retweets. Then I analyzed and estimated these tweets’
communication structure and their effects. Due to the Weibo data restric-
tion, the Weiboreach.com analysis was more for demonstration than for
systematic examination. Weiboreach.com’s threshold criterion is at least 30
forwards, which is conveniently defined by the tool as high-impact tweets.
For WeChat articles, I modified the mass media coding rubrics by adding
criteria like whether the analyzed public account was published by an estab-
lished media source (including both print media and traditional online news
portals such as sina.com.cn), whether the account belonged to an individual
or an organization, the types of account publisher (see below), and the
number of people reading. Whether the account belonged to an individual is
an essential criterion because theoretically, all print media outlets are state-
owned but individual persons can publish WeChat public accounts as a fac-
tual mobile media. For public account types, there was a slight difference
across the three studied fields. For example, for GMOs, it is necessary to have
an independent category of food-related business (including cuisine, food
planting, food distribution and travel food) split from the general type of
business and economy entities. The finalized coding rubrics for the themes of
public account articles in GMO setting were: News stories (from conventional
media); science issues; business and economy articles; food business; societal
32 Research method and data

and public welfare; culture and history; political and national interest; environ-
ment; health; opinion; entertainment; military; and religion. These codes may
overlap with each other. In this case, the articles were multiply coded.
After examining nuclear power articles downloaded from WeChat-based
public accounts, I decided it was unnecessary to develop systematic
coding. The materials were highly homogenous in their attitude to nuclear
power, sources and the types of publishing accounts, so that finding het-
erogenous articles (e.g., articles with nuclear-negative tone) already reached
my academic goal.
In addition to using QS Data for the top read WeChat public account
articles, I also collected and read articles randomly distributed in chat groups
in each of the subjects –hydropower, GMOs and nuclear power –for content
analysis. I did not code these public account articles but carefully read them
to identify useful information.
2.3.4 Analyzing data from other sources
I also skimmed the articles on the three targeted controversies –hydropower,
GMO and nuclear power –on Maoist partisan websites. I only analyzed the first
50 most read articles downloaded from each of the three sampled partisan sites
(Utopia (Wuyou zhixiang: wyzxwk.com), Chawang (cwzg.cn) and Red Song
Club (szhgh.com)). I first coded their attitudes to GMO (positive, neutral and
negative). A standard intercoder reliability test was not performed, but when I
was uncertain about an article’s attitude, I asked my Chinese colleagues who
studied communication to help. In all cases, we had a quick consensus.
Analyzing government documents was often done with framing analysis
techniques, though I did not code them with frames due to lack of systematic
collection of government documents. Analyzing these documents can offer a
pathway to trace national sociotechnical imaginaries, which match but are
different from the media framing (Jasanoff& Kim, 2009). Detailed analyses
were reported in these chapters wherever necessary.
I reported and analyzed the results in both tables and graphs. Some general
working research questions associated with the media content analysis include
how did different types of Chinese media report and frame various science
controversies? What types of frames were associated with the story’s attitude
and the visibility of debate? Have hot events driven Chinese media coverage
of controversies?
2.4 Ethical considerations
Ethical issues are crucial to social and behavioral sciences, particularly to
qualitative studies; as Sieber (1997, p. 127) argues, “unethical applied
researchers are likely to harm themselves and their research as well as those
they study.”My research is impacted by ethical considerations because China
is an authoritarian nation where free debates are not encouraged, and open
Research method and data 33

protests against controversial technologies might be potentially punished.
Nearly all investigated controversial technologies –GMOs, hydropower
and nuclear –are supported by the government or some branches of it.
Protesting these technologies is often thought of as challenging government
authority.
Second, Chinese scientists and officials are particularly reluctant to speak
out partly due to political control and partly because of a less open scientific
culture in the country (Y. Shi & Rao, 2010). In this situation, scientists who
discuss scientific controversies with “outsiders”are not appreciated by peers.
This situation can be considered reputational damage to them even though
they may never be punished.
Facing the ethical challenges, a common strategy is to prepare for them
(Sieber, 2009). Cornell IRB approved my research in 2016, and I also studied
various ethical regulations. The central principle of moral consideration is to
do no harm, including the intentional effort to limit the potential damage as
far as possible (Ellis, 2007).
To ensure no harm, I stuck to two principles –confidentiality and volun-
tary research participation. During my interviews, besides having the regular
informed consent process in which I stressed the privacy and voluntary
involvement, I discussed with most in-depth interview informants the possible
consequences of our talk and my research.
In this monograph, I almost universally maintain anonymity for my inter-
viewees, even though this may cause some narrative inconsistency. Sometimes,
for example, the names of activists whom I interviewed were widely known in
open protests and widely reported by media. In this situation, I used some
real names but always avoided hiding the clue that can be used to reveal
which real-name person was interviewed by me. Besides keeping anonymity,
when presenting my findings, I deleted personally identifiable information of
informants as much as possible.
Ethical consideration goes beyond anonymity in impacting my study. For
example, with various independent interviews and my personal experience as a
former Chinese science communication organizer dependent on international
funding, I believed most major Chinese environmental non-governmental
organizations (ENGOs) relied on international financial support during my
studied period. However, revealing this may threaten these organization’scred-
ibility, and hence their existence in the current Chinese situation, in which the
use of international grants is severely limited.
Therefore, while listing foreign funding as a general sociopolitical factor
(political opportunity) fueling China’s environmental activism, I avoided
exploring funding issues for any individual ENGOs, even anonymously.
Notes
1For full disclosure: I was the founder of Science News Magazine,affiliated to the
CSD, and served as its editor-in-chief from 2008 to 2010.
34 Research method and data

2Because Weibo is very similar in structure and usage to Twitter, I use the words
“tweet”and “retweet”throughout this book to describe Weibo posts.
3In the Chinese context, the left or leftism is entirely different from the West. Leftism
in the daily context can be understood as Maoism.
Research method and data 35

3 Science controversies in
transitional China
3.1 Introduction
As mentioned in Chapter 1, the Chinese leadership has long granted critical
importance to the ideological role of S&T (Cao, 2014; X. Deng, 1988/1993b;
Chunfa Wang, 2017), but there has never been a shortage of S&T controversies
in the history of the People’s Republic. While the current book uses the typical
anti-hydropower movement, GMO controversy and nuclear power disputes for a
comparative study, it is necessary to trace the history of major S&T controversies
in the socialist regime. Besides offering background information to readers who
are not familiar with China’s contemporary history, the narrative in this chapter
also sums up the fundamental economic, social and, in a sense, political changes
occurring in China since the 1980s when the country began its opening-up.
The S&T controversies took place well before Deng Xiaoping’sopening-up
policy. It can be traced back to the 1950s’Three Gorges Dam Project (TGP)
debate in Chairman Mao Zedong’s era. Since the 1980s there have been more
S&T controversies –ranging from the renewed debate on TGP to GMOs and
trash incineration –in the public discourse. Initially, a dispute burst out about
Qigong and other supernatural phenomena when orthodox scientists dis-
approved of the so-called magical power by Qigong masters. These masters, in
many cases, were supported by retired revolutionary politicians and, sarcasti-
cally, by some top science leaders such as Qian Xuesen, who is the father of
China’s space program (Palmer, 2007). The renewed TGP debate occurred at the
same time (Lee, 2013a). After it came to the 2000s, when China increasingly
became an essential player in the world economy with its entry into the World
Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, S&T controversies became intensified, cov-
ering GMOs, building chemical plants, food safety, landscape management,
hydropower and nuclear power. The disputes involved more and more actors,
including ENGOs, academics, journalists, and often contingently organized
citizen groups.
Indeed, China observers have identified how S&T controversies in the 1980s
interacted with the country’s budding liberalism, which was veiled in the
slogan of making policy-making scientifically sound (H. L. Miller, 1996). The
other side of the coin is that policy disputes can be reflected in scientific
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160212-3

controversies, as in the West’s situation (Nelkin, 1995). The unprecedentedly
severe controversy surrounding the feasibility of TGP in the 1980s can be
considered such an example (Lee, 2013a). Therefore, a historical narrative of
China’s S&T controversies starting from TGP is necessary chronologically
and theoretically.
3.2 Hydropower, nuclear power and GMO controversies in China
3.2.1 Three Gorges Dam controversy
Modern China’s hydropower controversies began in the decades-long debate
on TGP. Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), the founder of modern China, proposed
building TGP as early as the 1920s (Y.-s. Sun, 1920/2014) but could not
realize the plan. It is noticeable that Sun described the TGP plan in his
famous Guidelines for Nation Building, an indication of what scholars call
aState-makingeffort (Tilt, 2014) or modernist developmentalism (Lee,
2013a). The nationalist government that ruled China in the first half of the
20th century did conduct some feasibility surveys in preparation for TGP,
chaired by the US-trained mining engineer Sun Yueqi (1893–1995), the then
Chairman of the Resources Committee.
After the communist party expelled the nationalist government to Taiwan
in 1949, Chairman Mao Zedong began to brew the TGP plan. In 1958, he
convened a national hydroengineering meeting in the southern Chinese city of
Nanning, intentionally bringing in Party officials and experts of different
opinions on the issue to debate. Fierce debates on the construction cost, set-
tlement of relocated residents, and the total capacity of TGP to prevent flood
broke out between Lin Yishan (1911–2007), the then minister of water
resources, and Li Rui (1917–2019), the then director of the Bureau of
Hydropower under the then Ministry of Electrical Industry. Li was one of
Mao’s professional secretaries responsible for industry affairs.
Despite the disputes, Mao did not hide his strong desire to build TGP
as a remarkable feat. Feasibility study began in late 1958, involving 10,000
scientists and engineers nationwide. However, the study had to be halted in
1960 when China began to suffer the Three-Year Great Famine (H. Chen,
Yang & Xiang, 2006), responsible for the death of an estimated 36 million
people (J. Yang, 2012).
The massive controversy surrounding TGP broke out again in 1985 after the
Chinese government finished drafting a feasibility plan to build a 150-meter-high
dam in Three Gorges, the so-called low-dam plan, under the instruction of Deng
Xiaoping. The disputes about the TGP in the 1980s involved more actors,
though still among elites, and lasted several years until the government made
afinal decision in 1989 to build a 185-meter-high dam to enable heavy cargo
ships to access Chongqing. The higher the dam, the more water in the
upstream waterway behind the dam, supporting ships of more significant
tonnage.
Controversies in transitional China 37

The debates on TGP were quite institutionalized despite China’s author-
itarian regime. CPPCC –many of its members being senior scientists, engi-
neers and scholars, including Sun Yueqi –convened two extensive inspections
of the planned dam site and its upper and lower river regions. Most of the
team members, including many leading scientists, such as former Peking
University President Zhou Peiyuan (1902–1993), opposed the immediate start
of TGP.
In addition to Li Rui and CPPCC members, other scholars and Party offi-
cials were involved in debating against the immediate implementation of TGP.
Among them, Cornell-trained Tsinghua hydrology professor Huang Wanli
(1911–2001) was the most noted. Huang wrote three petitions to the then
central committee of CCP against TGP based on his theoretical belief that
stone sediments from the upstream Yangtze River would eventually fill the
reservoir, forcing to blast TGP to avoid big floods. With TGP having been
completed for nearly two decades, Huang’s warning seemed highly implau-
sible, though it was adopted as talking points of anti-dam campaigns again
and again.
The main arguments to resist the immediate start of TGP were economic
feasibility, the risk of sediments that might block the dam’s overflow outlet,
the priority to build smaller upper river dams, and the real numbers of
relocated residents and the capacity to resettle them. Although one team
was responsible for possible environmental pollution in the feasibility study,
the environment did not become a significant theme during the debate
(INT20161222).
Searching PD, few open debates on TGP can be found across the 1980s,
though many journalists were actively devoted to reporting the opposing voices.
Interviews with two involved journalists indicated that critical coverage of
the debate was censored (INT20161102, INT20161208), but journalists
published a compiled book containing those unpublished articles and
interviews (Q. Dai, 1989). TGP opponents also published several books to
collect articles questioning TGP.
By spring 1989, the government plan had been dominated by TGP
supporters, who received the patronage of Premier Li Peng, a Soviet-
trained hydropower engineer. Opponents were far from being convinced.
However, the bloody clampdown in Tiananmen Square in June 1989 and
the subsequent arrest of a leading TGP opponent, famous journalist Dai
Qing who was also involved in the democratic protests, silenced the
opposing voices against TGP. In 1992, under the new communist leader-
ship headed by Party Secretary Jiang Zemin and Premier Li Peng, NPC’s
annual plenary meeting passed the initiative to build TGP. With the pro-
ject completed with a total investment of US$31.7 billion in the late 2000s,
organized opposition faded away. The installed generation capacity at the
Three Gorges Project (TGP) reached 18 million kilowatts, the world’slar-
gest. Although articles and posts questioning TGP often appear online, the
controversy has mostly been closed.
38 Controversies in transitional China

3.2.2 From TGP to anti-dam in southwestern China
A threat to the world’s heritage?
After the open TGP controversy was silenced, hydropower debates disappeared
in China’s public sphere for about 14 years until 2003, when the protest
against hydropower companies’escalated efforts to develop southwestern
hydroelectricity projects primarily in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces suddenly
broke out. Unlike in the TGP controversy, environmental and ecological
issues dominated the agenda, and ENGOs and their supporters became main
actors.
ENGO did not become full-fledged across the 1990s. China’sfirst legally
registered ENGO, the Friends of Nature, was formally established in 1994, and
after that, NGOs began to proliferate in China, reaching 71 in 2001 (G. Yang,
2005). Wang Yongchen, a former environmental journalist at China National
Radio who founded the Green Earth volunteers, is the center of the anti-
hydropower campaign.
In April 2003, Wang was invited to report to an expert meeting discussing
the proposed Yangliuhu Hydraulic Facility in Sichuan’s southwestern pro-
vince. With a low dam of 23 meters, Yangliuhu was designed to adjust the
downriver water supplies to the Zipingpu Dam, which began construction in
2001. The major controversy about Yangliuhu was that its construction would
destroy the authenticity of the UNESCO heritage site Dujiangyan, a hydrau-
lic project built more than 2000 years ago, located less than 2 kilometers away
from the proposed Yangliuhu dam.
With Wang’s reporting and her effort to mobilize other journalists, the
Yangliuhu controversy rapidly became a nationwide hot media event. More than
180 national media outlets reported the disputes (Y. Yan, 2009). The flooding
media coverage exerted massive pressure on both the central and local govern-
ments. In August 2003, the Ministry of Construction, which supervised China’s
compliance with UNESCO heritages, asked Sichuan Province to be highly cau-
tious in decision-making, avoiding any impact on the authenticity of Dujiangyan
as a UNESCO heritage site. In the same month, Sichuan provincial government
announced the suspension of the Yangliuhu project.
Fighting dams proposed for Nu River
While celebrating their victory in Yangliuhu, perhaps the first in the history of
Chinese environmental protests, activists soon transferred their anti-dam
endeavors to the far southwestern province of Yunnan Province. This time,
however, the struggle was initiated from within the government. In August
2003, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s
most powerful government agency, passed the plan to build 13 dams in the
middle and upper Nu River. According to the program, the dams’econom-
ically feasible generation capacity could reach 21.3 million kilowatts, higher
Controversies in transitional China 39

than TGP, yet with only half of the construction cost of TGP. Most dams
were to be built in the Nu Prefecture, the most impoverished region in
Yunnan. Direct tax revenues from electricity generation were estimated to be
8 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion), several times the prefecture’s current tax rev-
enue. At a joint governmental meeting held between August 12 and 14, the
representative of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA,
upgraded to the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) in 2008 and
reshuffled to become the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) in
2018) was surprised to learn of the Nu River plan and found he was the only
government official at the meeting disagreeing with the program (Q. Deng,
2013). The SEPA official refused to sign to endorse the plan. Meanwhile, on
September 1, 2003, the new Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Law
was to take effect. SEPA insisted that significant dam projects must pass EIA
before they were constructed.
Due to its relatively low hierarchic status, SEPA did not have the authority to
revoke NDRC’s decision. Instead, it convened on September 3 an expert seminar
discussing the unique cultural and biological diversity in Nu River, involving
many leading environmental journalists. The meeting produced a batch of arti-
cles calling for preserving the Nu River, including a highly influential essay in the
People Daily (PD), “Preserving an ecological river for offspring,”authored by its
senior environmental journalist Zhao Yongxin. Due to PD’s unique status as the
CCP’sofficial organ, it was quickly picked up by dozens of other media outlets.
Anti-dam activists claimed building dams would destroy the rich local biodi-
versity and cultural diversity, and that many dams planned for Nu River were
built on risky seismic belts.
The media campaign once again placed colossal pressure on hydropower
companies and particularly Yunnan local governments, which had thought
hydropower development could drive away their poverty. Yunnan provincial
bureau of environmental protection rejected the accusation that Nu River
dams would destroy biodiversity, saying species in the dam region only
accounted for a small percentage of the biodiversity-rich Nu prefecture. Most
seismologists, not just those in Yunnan, rejected activists’claims that Nujiang
dams were planned on seismic belts.
Activists did not forget to lobby top leaders. It was reported that a petition
was submitted to Premier Wen Jiabao, a geologist by training, through channels
I will analyze later. Premier Wen commented on the Nu River hydropower
development plan in February 2004: “To those major hydropower projects with
close public attention and environmental disputes, [we] should cautiously study
and scientifically make decisions”(Y. Yan, 2009).
Since the 2003/2004 debate, Nu River has become an emblem of China’s
hydropower controversies. For example, in 2011, four retired geologists sent a
petition to the State Council (through an unknown channel), calling for Nu
River hydropower development suspension because the proposed dams will be
built in an active seismic belt (Q. Deng, 2013).
40 Controversies in transitional China

The petition was soon taken up by the media as an active part of their new
round to cover the resumed plan to develop Nu River, which appeared in the
12th Five-Year Energy Development Plan (2011–2015).
The new round of media campaigning seemed to play a role. In the 12th
Five-Year Plan period, no new dam construction was resumed. In 2015,
when the draft outline of the 13th Five-Year Energy Development Plan was
published for public opinion, ENGOs once again strongly opposed the Nu
River dam development proposed in the plan. In June 2016, seven ENGOs,
including Green Watershed, Green Earth Volunteer, Friend of Nature,
Green Hanjiang, Hengduan Mountain Research Institute, Chengdu Urban
Rivers Association, and Green Zhejiang, jointly published an open letter urging
the government to abandon Nu River development. Surprisingly, the Nu River
hydropower development plan was dropped from the 13th Five-Year Energy
Development Plan announced in late 2016.
However, interviews with insiders suggested the abandonment of the Nu
River development was not merely because of civil society’s protests
(INT20161120, INT20161223, INT20170106). Instead, the severe oversupply
of electricity has resulted in the massive abandonment of the outputs of
unstable energy sources –including hydropower, wind power and solar power.
Fighting for Tiger Leaping Gorge dam
With just four months’truce, environmentalists launched an offensive against
another proposed dam –Longpan Dam –above the famous tourist site Tiger
Leaping Gorge, after NDRC approved the Mid-Jinsha River hydropower
development plan, which is the upstream river of the Yangtze, also in Yunnan
Province. This time, in addition to arguing against the dam’s environmental and
ecological impacts and its influences on another UNESCO heritage site, Three
Parallel Rivers of Yunnan (Jinsha, Lancang or Mekong, and Nu or Salween
rivers), its destruction of the tourism site as well as the scale of residents and area
of land to be relocated became the focus of contentions.
The media’s involvement soon spread to other targets. NDRC had approved
an eight-dam cascade starting at Tiger Leaping Gorge in the portion of Jinsha
River. None of them had gone through the EIA process. Investigative reporting
by Southern Weekend (SW) soon found one of the eight dams was already
being built without obtaining EIA approval. The wave of media coverage pro-
vided SEPA an excuse to get involved in high profile, suspending these dams’
construction. Meanwhile, SEPA funded and invited many journalists to dam
sites close to the Tiger Leaping Gorge, apparently to justify its decision
(INT20161016).
To date, the Longpan Dam construction on Tiger Leaping Gorge has not
been recovered though some of the eight dams below it have been completed
(J. Liu, 2013). Starting from the controversy on Tiger Leaping Gorge dam,
activists’call for public participation in decision making on dams, as required
by the EIA law in principle, became a “standard”contest procedure.
Controversies in transitional China 41

The dam on Tiger Leaping Gorge was designed to adjust water supplies to
TGP, which had then entered its final construction stage. The first batch of
electric generators had already been put into operation. However, none of the
southwestern dam debates was extended to the TGP project. On the other
hand, nearly no major actors in the TGP contention joined the southwestern
dam controversies about 15 years after the TGP debate was over.
Time and age are certainly one factor. Most of the main actors were already in
their 70s in the TGP debates, and many of them had died or were not physically
active 15 years later. Southwestern dam controversies were dominated by envir-
onmental issues and the corresponding reproach of hydropower companies’
immorally trading environment for monetary interests. Still, none of them were
highlighted during the TGP debates.
During the southwestern hydropower controversies, hydropower companies
adopted a passive stance at the very beginning, seldom responding to activists’
challenges. Zhang Boting, vice-secretary general of Beijing-based China Society for
Hydropower Engineering, became the only spokesperson for the industry. Senior
scientist He Zuoxiu and leading science writer Fang Shimin supported Zhang.
Fang was famous for his website New Thread which whistle-blowed scientific
misconducts.
Confronting Zhang is a large, divergent, yet loose, group of “envir-
onmentalists,”including ENGOs –many of whose members are former (and
working) journalists and scholars. Some of them were equipped with professional
science training –ecologists, conservation scientists, cultural study scholars, a
limited number of environmental scientists, and a large number of so-called crank
researchers (indicating those self-claimed researchers who have not received pro-
fessional science training and often would not abide by scientificnorms(S.Tian,
2003)). Although there weren’ttopofficials and scientists involved on the acti-
vists’side, as Li Rui and Zhou Peiyuan did in the TGP debate, the anti-dam front
seems to have convened much broader allies, though it is short of native com-
munity members who have suffered the most impact of hydropower development.
Environmental activists indeed involved some indigent residents, at least
technically. In late October 2004, the United Nations Symposium on Hydro-
power and Sustainable Development was held in Beijing. Activists managed to
bring several hydropower immigrants, mostly from communities relocated by the
Manwan Hydropower Station in Lancang/Mekong River, which was completed
in 1995, to hold a side meeting. Both sides claimed their victories. Activists
argued that they made the hydropower victims’voices heard by UN experts for
sustainable development. In contrast, hydropower supporters said they used the
chance to check with the immigrants, smashing the rumors linked to hydropower
development (INT20161225, INT20170106).
Fighting for the fish
One of the major causes for the anti-dam campaigns in southwestern China
was hydropower facilities’impact on biodiversity. To most of the Chinese
42 Controversies in transitional China

public, biodiversity remained remote and obscure. But the fate of fish in the
Yangtze River provided a concrete example of biodiversity conservation.
Facing the impacts of TGP completion and other planned dams in the upper
river Yangtze on fish and other aquatic species, the Chinese government set
up a Yangtze upper river fish conservation zone. The zone covered the
Yangtze river, parts of Chongqing Municipality and parts of Sichuan,
Guizhou and Yunnan provinces in 1995. The newly established reserve,
administered by the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), covered 1,162 kilo-
meters length of the Yangtze. It banned dams and other major engineering
projects in its core area within the 1,162 kilometers. However, the reserve
policy neglected that in the Mid and Upper Yangtze Development Plan
approved by the State Council, China’s cabinet, in 1990, three major dams
had already been planned in the area.
The planned Xiaonanhai (literally Small South China Sea) hydropower sta-
tion, among the three, is located in Chongqing’s jurisdiction, and since 2009
Chongqing government has been pushing the start of Xiaonanhai construction
to relieve the power shortage of the fast-growing municipality. Since then, con-
troversies have erupted. The impact of the hydropower station, the legal priority
of different government plans, and the proper measures to reduce the effects have
been internally debated. The main force opposing the Chongqing government
includes the MOA, SEPA, and scientists at Wuhan-based CAS Institute of
Hydrobiology headed by Cao Wenxuan, a renowned CAS academician famous
for systematic studies on edible fishes (INT20161227).
In 2009, with continued lobbying by the Chongqing government headed by
its ambitious Party Secretary Bo Xilai, a political star having the potential to
challenge Xi Jinping for the Party head, MOA agreed to adjust the coverage of
the natural reserve. The following year, the Ministry of Environment Protection
(MEP, upgraded from SEPA in 2008) reportedly gave up its firm stance against
Xiaonanhai. The hydrobiology scientists “surrendered”too on the condition
that Chongqing agreed to commission them to design a fish protection plan. In
March 2012, Chongqing held the launch ceremony for the dam construction.
Around that time, however, ENGOs became involved. Utilizing the media,
they promoted several rounds of media reporting of the Xiaonanhai con-
troversy (INT20161120). It is worth mentioning that Bo was put on home
arrest in Beijing in that month for alleged corruption (Jacos, 2012).
In August 2013, MOA Fishery Resources Management Committee and
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) jointly organized a scientificfield inspection of
the fish species in Upper Yangtze. The assessment found that upper Yangtze
fisheries were on the verge of collapse (Fishery Resources Management
Committee (China) & World Wide Fund for Nature, 2013). Although cau-
tiously avoiding mentioning Xiaonanhai, the report called for strengthening
natural reserves in the upper Yangtze and for the State Council, rather than
individual ministries, to implement the abovementioned Mid and Upper
Yangtze Development Plan. Although WWF China has regularly made
Yangtze fishery investigations, the 2013 report was unusual. The international
Controversies in transitional China 43

organization collaborated with a government agency to produce a scientific
report related to a hotly controversial issue. The survey only took 12 days,
ending in late June, and the report was published in August.
The WWF report caused a new round of media reporting, warning of the
threat to fish diversity from hydropower dams in the upper Yangtze. In 2015,
in a decision widely applauded by ENGOs, MEP finally denied Xiaonanhai
dam to violate natural reserve. Yet, several sources suggested the MEP’sfinal
decision was also because of the fall of Bo (INT20161120, INT20161227) (M.
Moore, 2012). Although Bo was a local government Party chief, as a CCP
Politburo member and a potential candidate for the Politburo’s standing
committee, he was much more potent in the Chinese political hierarchy than
ministers of individual agencies.
Dam building and earthquake triggering
The 8.0-magnitude Wenchuan Earthquake in 2008 that killed some 80,000
persons provided new ammunition for geological concerns (Hansen, 2017b).
Christian Klose, a geophysical hazards researcher at Columbia University,
claimed that Zipingpu Dam, just 500 meters from the fault and 5.5 kilometers
from the quake’s epicenter, could have triggered Wenchuan Earthquake. He
initially raised the point during his session talk in December 2008 at the
American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting in San Francisco, California
(Klose, 2008). The possibility was soon confirmed by a journal paper mainly
authored by Chinese scientists, which calculate that the reservoir impoundment
in Zipingpu could have brought a nearby fault to the point of failure to trigger
a quake (X. Lei, Ma, Wen, Su & Du, 2008).
Fan Xiao, former chief engineer at the Sichuan Geology and Mineral
Bureau in Chengdu who has been joining ENGOs and other environmen-
tally conscious experts, claimed that the Zipingpu dam had triggered the big
earthquake (X. Fan, 2009) (INT20161222). After Science magazine reported
the studies on the link between Zipingpu and Wenchuan earthquake in
January 2009 and interviewed Fan to comment on the survey (Kerr & Stone,
2009), he became widely known and received many interviews with both
domestic and international media. Science also conducted a follow-up
interview with Fan. However, he did not publish papers in internationally
recognized journals, which Chinese scientists usually consider to have higher
quality than domestic journals (R. Stone, 2009).
The Science articles provoked a hot debate among seismologists on whether
the Zipingpu Dam has triggered the earthquake, later extending to whether
the dams built in southwestern China’s earthquake-prone regions can resist a
significant quake. Unlike previous argumentation against dams by ENGOs,
the debate took an entirely professional mode. Seismologists and geologists
disagreed with each other on the role played by mass change caused by
reservoir impoundment in triggering the earthquake, and the debate has led
to some published articles in academic journals and discussions (Y. Chen,
44 Controversies in transitional China

2009; Gahalaut & Gahalaut, 2010; Ge, Liu, Lu, Godt & Luo, 2009; Jackson,
2012; Klose, 2012, 2013; X. Lei, 2011; X. Lei et al., 2008).
Chinese mass media were not actively involved except Xinhua’sofficial tone
to reject the claim (C. Wang, 2009. cited from Hansen 2017b). There was a
reported government ban on openly discussing a link between Zipingpu and
Wenchuan Earthquake in the Chinese media (Berkow, 2009; J. Shi, 2009).
However, with their comprehensive field studies on river topography in the
southwestern mountainous region, Fan and another nonprofessional
researcher Yang Yong supported the claim, even though neither had received
formal seismology training. Yang launched an ENGO Hengduan Mountain
Research Institute and obtained wide recognition in the area of environmental
protection but not in academic geology.
3.2.3 Ongoing debate on Poyang Lake water project
The most recent controversy regarding hydraulic facilities is taking place in
Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province, located in the lower Yangtze River. While
the debate repeated the earlier repertoire –dissident experts raising the issue
followed by ENGOs’organization of events and critical media coverage –the
Poyang Lake Hydro Junction Project differed from previous hydropower
controversies. None of the established ENGOs that had partially grown with
the anti-dam movement were involved. What was protested was not a money-
driven hydropower dam but an officially-claimed ecological project to protect
Poyang Lake from losing water to the Yangtze River.
Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater lake in China, is connected with the
Yangtze River, and the Yangtze regularly supplements its water body. However,
after TGP began to store water, the Yangtze had a lower water level, particu-
larly during winter, which caused water to flow from Poyang Lake into the
Yangtze. More seriously, after TGP began to intercept water and sediments,
water in lower Yangtze became clearer, which flows much quicker than before,
consistently cutting runaway and lowering Yangtze’s riverbed. The massive
quarrying in the Yangtze River further lowered its bed. The lower riverbed
increased pressure on Poyang Lake to output water to the Yangtze. As a result,
Poyang Lake has suffered severe droughts in recent years.
The Jiangxi provincial government in the late 2000s proposed setting up
low dams to prevent Poyang Lake from losing water to the Yangtze.
Initially, the low dam plan included some hydroelectricity capacity, but
this was soon given up due to strong protests from environmental experts
and groups. However, the reduced hydroelectricity capacity has not won
support. Environmental activists worry that the dam will block the free
migration of the finless porpoise, an endangered rare species which is a
remote freshwater member of the dolphin family. Activists also claim that
with the proposed dam to contain water in Poyang Lake, the water level in
the wetland of the lake will be much higher, making it hard for aquatic
birds to find food.
Controversies in transitional China 45

Unlike ENGOs that actively conserved the Nu River and other southwestern
rivers, environmental groups involved in Poyang Lake hydraulic facility were all
new domestic organizations focused on animal protection (INT20161217).
With its committed goal to conserve Yangtze River animals, WWF was also
rather outspoken, rare for international NGOs in China, to protest Jiangxi
provincial government’s proposed move.
On the other hand, after abandoning the hydropower facility, the provincial
government would not make more concessions. Insisting on the hydro junc-
tion project’s necessity to save Poyang Lake ecology and solve the problem of
insufficient drinking water, the local government forcibly advanced to lobby
the NDRC to approve the project (INT20170109). Environmental groups and
some experts rejected the government’s solution, saying a set of integrated
management measures, such as strengthening fishery management and for-
bidding excavation of sand, rather than a simple engineering solution, should
be adopted. They noted that the Poyang Lake project might create a terrible
precedent (solely relying on engineering methods to reach goals) to solve
environmental woes.
In early 2021, the Jiangxi provincial government once again announced
that the Poyang Lake project had been listed as a 2020–2022 national key
water project, and it would soon be started (Diao, 2021). Once again, the
decision was strongly protested by a group of experts organized by China
Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF),
an ENGO with official background (CBCGDF, 2021).
The Poyang Lake controversy is unusual because it was not a devel-
opmentalism versus conservationism debate but a dispute between different
solutions to an environmental problem. At the time that this book was drafted,
the controversy was still in a deadlock. NDRC has not finallyapprovedthe
project (but has agreed on the implementation feasibility study). MEP, which
often sits together with ENGOs against hydropower companies, seemed to avoid
expressing its attitude (INT20170111).
Separate from the Poyang Lake controversy, since late 2016, hydropower
companies seem to have lost their momentum, and banks became reluctant
to offer loans to hydropower companies to build new dams because of an
oversupply of hydroelectricity.
Correspondingly, since late 2016, hydropower controversies have dramatically
declined in the Chinese public sphere.
3.2.4 Emerging anti-nuclear power campaigns
China’s nuclear dream
To examine China’s nuclear controversy, one cannot separate the earlier his-
tory of atom bomb development and the contemporary civil use of nuclear
power, as the A-bomb, together with the H-bomb and satellites, has been
considered a matter of national pride –hence one of the deeply cherished
46 Controversies in transitional China

national sociotechnical imaginaries (Jasanoff& Kim, 2009) –both by State
leaders and the ordinary public. For example, Deng Xiaoping stated in 1988
that “without the A-bomb, H-bomb and satellites successfully developed in
the 1960s, China cannot be called an internationally influential power and
enjoy its current international status”(X. Deng, 1988/1993a, p. 279).
In 1955, Mao Zedong decided to develop China’s A-bomb. In 1959, with the
split between China and the Soviet Union, Mao decisively resolved to create an
A-bomb independently. A large number of scientists and engineers, many
overseas trained, including former Cornell professor Guo Yonghuai (1909–68)
and his Caltech (California Institute of Technology) Ph.D. cohort Qian Xuesen
(1911–2009) who became the chief scientist for China’s atom bomb and satel-
lite programs, were recruited into the secret plan. Enormous resources were
mobilized to support it (T. Jiang, 2013). Top Chinese institutions, particularly
CAS and Tsinghua University, prioritized nuclear physics training and
research. CAS Institute of Modern Physics, established in 1950, was later split
out to become the China Institute of Atomic Energy (CIAE) under China
National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC). It is essential to mention that CIAE
has cultivated more than 60 CAS or CAE academicians, the highest honored
scientists in China.
In 1964 and 1967, an A-bomb and H-bomb were successfully exploded in
the northwestern desert. It was immediately portrayed as the biggest ever
scientific development in China, enabling “the Chinese people to stand up.”
Nuclear scientists became national heroes. For example, the sudden death of
Guo, whose body was found to closely huddle his guards to protect the newly
obtained H-bomb data contained between their bodies after an air crash,
became a widespread patriotic story.
It was against this background that China decided to develop civil nuclear
power in the mid-1970s. In 1974, domestic atomic power players, which later
became CNNC, began to independently design Qinshan NPP in coastal pro-
vince Zhejiang, which was put into operation in 1994. Meanwhile, in the 1980s,
with its newly-adopted opening policy, China purchased French technologies to
build Dayawan NPP near Guangdong Province’s Shenzhen. Neighboring Hong
Kong, Shenzhen has now become the most developed Chinese city and enjoys a
reputation as China’s high-tech capital. Dayawan began to generate electricity
to the grid in 1994. Based on French technologies and the Dayawan plant,
China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGNPC, formerly called China
Guangdong Nuclear Power Corporation), the second-largest nuclear power
firm, was established in 1994. Unlike CNNC, which keeps some military nuclear
functions, CGNPC is a complete civil atomic power operator, with its early
engineers trained in France with expertise including public communication skills
(INT20161023).
In 1994, China began to launch its second stage of moderate nuclear power
development, introducing French, Canadian and Russian technologies to
build eight reactors in Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu, all coastal and the
richest Chinese provinces. It is worth noting that the second stage of Qinshan
Controversies in transitional China 47

consisted of two locally-developed reactors based on the domestically
renovated version of French technologies used in Dayawan.
In 2006, nuclear power marched to an accelerating development stage. The
State Council, China’s cabinet, released the Mid- and Long-term Development
Plan for Nuclear Power (2005–2020), which positively announced nuclear power
development. While enabling the ongoing construction of NPPs to spread across
the country, including inland areas, the document began to brand atomic power
as a symbol of independent innovation. Meanwhile, at this stage, China became
the only country to simultaneously host all three major types of the so-called
third-generation pressurized water reactor (PWR) technologies –French EPR
(European Pressurized Reactor), the US AP1000, and Russia’s VVER1000
(WWER in English: water-water energetic reactor). The Generation III reactor
is the practically newest development of nuclear reactor designs with improved
fuel technology, superior thermal efficiency, significantly enhanced safety sys-
tems (including passive atomic safety), and standardized procedures for reduced
maintenance and capital costs.
China also began to construct its third-generation technology Hualong
(HPR1000) and developed a Chinese modified version of AP1000 –
CAP1400. After a period of controversies, which I will discuss later in this
chapter, in the summer of 2018, both AP1000 and EPR reactors were put into
commercial operation for the first time in the world in Guangdong Province’s
Taishan (EPR), Zhejiang Province’s Sanmen (AP1000), and Shandong Pro-
vince’s Yangjiang (AP1000). In contrast, due to the combined factors of
industrial decline, higher cost and local resistance, no EPR and AP1000
reactors were finished outside China, including in these technologies’home
countries.
HPR1000, mostly free of controversies, will soon be commercialized in the
third and fourth reactors of Fuqing NPP in Fujian, a coastal province oppo-
site Taiwan across the Taiwan Straits. China also began to export HPR1000
to Pakistan, Argentina and the UK, which the State media portrayed as a
proud national technological development (X. Yan, 2015).
One key element of the above institutional arrangement and adjustment is
to place the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA) under SEPA/
MEP from the then Ministry of Nuclear Industry and State S&T Commission
in 1998, a crucial factor resulting in few organized anti-nuclear campaigns.
The publicly announced reason for the arrangement was to improve nuclear
safety by separating it from the nuclear industry and introducing third-party
control (Z. Sun, 2013).
Emerging anti-nuclear protest
Despite its political support and the long-time nuclear power dream, nuclear
power has not been free from controversies and local protests. However, the
degree to which it has been hindered is far less than other controversial pro-
jects such as trash incineration or PX and much lighter than in the West. In
48 Controversies in transitional China

1986, after the Chernobyl accident, more than 1 million residents in Hong
Kong protested the neighboring Dayawan NPP. Deng Xiaoping decisively
insisted on continuing the plant while urging the nascent nuclear power industry
to increase public communication efforts. Correspondingly, CGNPC dispatched
a group of experts to communicate with and appease Hong Kong residents and
set up one of the earliest public relations (PR) departments in China.
On the Chinese mainland, the earliest protest took place in Rushan, a coastal
city in Shandong Province, 20 years later, though the protest was not by “local”
residents. Since the early 2000s, Rushan has built many retirement properties to
attract inland residents to spend their retirement life in the coastal city. The local
government simultaneously invited the proposed Rushan NPP invested by
CNNC to boost the economy. However, newly settled retirees became so upset
about the incoming NPP neighboring them, and they launched a campaign
against it. Unlike a regular local campaign, there was no street politics, partly
because opponents were not local. But despite their fewer number, many of the
active retirees have broad social and political connections (INT20161227). They
set up a website and frequently used BBS to post anti-nuclear messages and
mobilize “local”partners (INT20161011). Finally, the nuclear project was
abandoned by CNNC without a formal announcement.
Zeng et al. (2015) interpreted the Rushan case as the nuclear power side’s
failure to deal with risk communication. However, sources from the atomic
industry would not recognize it. They either thought the anti-nuclear activists
succeeded in lobbying central policymakers or stressed that in the Mid- and
Long-term Development Plan, the Rushan plant site was not finalized, so it
should be understood as an active retreat by the industry (INT20161023,
INT20161227). One source even reflectedthathereceivedanarmyveteran
representing Rushan’s original residents to complain that the Rushan site
was abandoned, costing many local jobs (INT20161227). Although Chinese
commercial media are zealous in reporting local protests, it is strikingly
noticeable that the Rushan case was seldom reported, even though the 2000s
were their heyday.
Before Fukushima, the Rushan case was the only public protest against an
NPP in China. The Fukushima accident in 2011, however, changed the situa-
tion. While in the West, the disaster’s impact was primarily on public risk per-
ception on nuclear power, in China, Fukushima began to motivate intellectuals’
anti-nuclear mood, activate local resistance and protests, and mobilize actors to
anti-nuclear activities, even though the mobilization effect was often temporary.
Soon after Fukushima, a book allegedly written by a former engineer of
Fukushima Daiichi NPP before his cancer death caused by nuclear radiation
became a bestseller in China (Hirai, 2011). The book depicted how the nuclear
power industry, including Fukushima Daiichi, tried to profit by lowering safety
investment and surveillance. It was prefaced by Jiang Xiaoyuan, a leading his-
torian of science at Shanghai Jiaotong University and an intellectual leader
against technologies including GMOs. Jiang’s preface, appealing to people to
give up co-existence with the demon of nuclear power which they had thought
Controversies in transitional China 49

necessary, became a famous article among intellectuals, receiving nearly no
resistance or refutation from the nuclear power industry.
As elsewhere globally, the Fukushima accident immediately forced China
to suspend ongoing nuclear power construction, halt the further development
of proposed power stations, including all inland NPPs, and perform a
nationwide safety inspection. In spring 2012, the authorities loosened the
restrictions, announcing the examination had resulted in much-improved
safety measures. The government greenlights, however, were soon followed by
a grassroots anti-nuclear campaign. One of the proposed inland NPPs, Pengze
NPP invested by State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC),
became the first target.
Pengze NPP was located in Pengze County of Jiangxi Province, along the
lower Yangtze River. The local government enthusiastically embraced it as a
project to solve Jiangxi’s power shortage, boost the laggard local economy,
and create jobs. But across the Yangtze River, Wangjiang county in Anhui
Province began to mobilize against the nuclear project in 2012. The county
government officials began to communicate with their Pengze counterparts,
either directly or through its higher provincial government but received a cold
response.
A dramatic scene arose in late 2012 when a resident of Wangjiang com-
plained online that Wangjiang local government was powerless in failing to
resist Pengze NPP. Noticing the message and stung by the slight humiliating
wording, Wangjiang magistrate asked a subordinate to “accidentally”post a
red-stamped document denouncing Pengze nuclear project issued by Wangjiang
county government on Weibo, equivalent to Twitter. The red-stamped file has
been claimed as a historically first publicized document from one local gov-
ernment to criticize another government openly. Its release immediately attrac-
ted media interest. Due to China’s authoritarian political culture, incumbent
local officials avoided meeting the media. Instead, four retired county leaders –
the former chairman of the county’s CPPCC branch, a former county judge,
the former deputy director of County People’s Congress, and a former director
of the bureau of water resources –were arranged to receive visiting media in
the name of a newly established non-official organization Wangjiang Environ-
mental Protection Association. The debut of the four retired officials –widely
respected as the Wangjiang Four Seniors –became a dramatic plot due to
imperial China’s long tradition of local autocratic rule by renowned gentlemen
(Fairbank & Goldman, 2006). Across the second half of 2012, dozens of media
outlets sent reporters to Wangjiang to report the event and Wangjiang’sofficial
anti-nuclear movement.
The retired “gentlemen”proved highly capable. The Four Seniors con-
centrated their investigation on procedural faults of the Pengze nuclear project.
They claimed that the latter intentionally under-calculated the Wangjiang
County site’s population to meet the atomic safety rules (which requires that the
population within an NPP’s 10-kilometer radius must be below 100,000). They
also argued that the nuclear operator neglected local seismological records (to
50 Controversies in transitional China

meet geological safety requirements) and abused the required public opinion
survey by offering surveyees high valuable gifts to bribe them. The Four
Seniors’comprehensive media coverage attracted the attention of a top CAS
scientist He Zuoxiu and his former doctoral student Wang Yinan, a senior
research fellow at the government’s leading think tank Development
Research Center of the State Council. Wang later became China’s leading
anti-nuclear power activist.
He is a CAS academician and theoretical physicist who won his academic
fame in his early years of atomic bomb research and his public fame as an anti-
pseudoscience campaigner. Due to his comprehensive publications, he was also a
doctoral advisor in the philosophy of science at Peking University. Together with
Fang Zhouzi, he bitterly criticized anti-hydropower and anti-GMO activism and
allied with established experts in these fields. Since the late 2000s, he has begun to
doubt nuclear power to be economically feasible due to the high expected
nuclear waste processing cost. However, his anti-nuclear voice was seldom
reported by the media, even after Fukushima.
After visiting Wangjiang in July 2012, He and Wang submitted a policy peti-
tion to Premier Wen Jiabao, appealing for high levels of caution when planning
inland nuclear power projects. Three months later, the newly released Mid- and
Long-term Development Plan for Nuclear Power (2011–2020), signed by
Premier Wen, suspended all inland nuclear power projects during the 12th
Five-Year Plan period (2011–2015). The coastal NPPs continued (Luo, 2014).
The Wangjiang Four Seniors achieved a vital victory in their anti-nuclear
power campaign.
Soon after the petition to Premier Wen, Wang began to emerge as a prominent
public anti-nuclear power figure with series of commentary articles criticizing the
energy published in China Economic Weekly, which is affiliated to the People’s
Daily,CCP’s mouthpiece. Until May 2018, she published more than ten
blockbuster articles questioning inland NPPs. These articles opposed the build-
ing of NPPs in the Bohai Sea (which is surrounded by metropolises like Beijing
and Tianjin), reproached the manipulation by Westinghouse (the world’spri-
mary nuclear technology developer and supplier) of China’s nuclear market,
warned of nuclear regulatory loopholes and highlighted the potential risks of
AP1000's fuel loading (the final step before an NPP’s formal operation). They
also admonished nuclear power technologies controlled by the United States
after the US government’s punitive measures to halt supplies to ZTE, the world’s
fourth and China’s second-largest telecom equipment producer, in 2018. The
actions were for ZTE’s violation of the US sanction to sell equipment to North
Korea and Iran. A source confirmed that most of Wang’s articles were published
in the media after her internal policy reports were viewed by top state leaders
(INT20171221).
Although Wang has highlighted the series of what she claimed to be deadly
shortfalls of nuclear power, she claimed she was not an anti-nuclear activist.
Instead, she opposed the great leap forward of nuclear power and was parti-
cularly against inland NPPs.
Controversies in transitional China 51

Despite the “reservation,”Wang’s articles were widely redistributed online,
causing immense pressure on the nuclear power industry. After some
impromptu reactions by individual, often anonymous atomic experts, the
nuclear industry began to implement organized responses. In March 2016, five
months after Wang published another article targeting inland NPPs (Y. Wang,
2015b), China Nuclear Energy Association (CNEA) published a paper
authored by CNEA President Zhao Chengkun and three other senior nuclear
experts (Chengkun Zhao, Zhou, Mao & Wang, 2016). The article cautiously
rejected Wang’s ten questions and proposed inland NPP to be restarted during
the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016–2020). The CNEA response started the
momentum for the nuclear industry to address Wang’s replies. The effort
involved senior officials from the National Nuclear Safety Administration
(NNSA), newly launched mobile media outlets in the nuclear power industry,
State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National
Defense (SASTIND) leaders, top academicians and several individual industry
engineers. A face-to-face debate was also convened in 2015, involving Wang, a
dissenting scientist whose specialism is computational physics, and a dozen
nuclear industry experts and academicians. They did not reach any consensus,
and no media outlet was involved.
Despite her articles being posted by many commercial Internet news portals,
Wang’s accusations and the counterarguments she received were limited to elite
circles. A more extremist tone of grassroots public intellectual rose and absor-
bed professional knowledge raised in Wang’s articles. In 2015, Wu Hui, a
Maoist junior agricultural college teacher in Hunan Province, published online
an article “Nuclear power will destroy China.”On top of the high cost of
nuclear decommissioning and nuclear waste processing, which was all men-
tioned by Wang, was added more “fresh”gunpowder –one of the central
policy targets of the United States was to dump its nuclear waste to China. The
conspiracy material proved to attract more attention than Wang’sscholarly
argumentation. According to Wu, the article “Nuclear power will destroy
China”grabbed five million visit overnights before it was censored from
China’s top visiting news portal Tencent.com (which, together with the most
widely used social media platforms QQ and WeChat, belongs to the Internet
giant Tencent Corp) (H. Wu, 2018).
The initial response of the nuclear power industry to Wu’sarticlewas
claiming it as nonsense, but encouraged by the victory in attracting attention,
Wu wrote and posted several anti-nuclear articles online (primarily in his blogs)
and compiled a book focused on anti-nuclear energy solutions (in which he
proposed to give up industrialization and return to an agricultural civilization).
Still, no media outlets and news portals published his articles again, and no
publisher accepted his book. He opted to print the book himself and sold it
online, with minimal sales (INT20161127).
Although excluding any direct dialogue with Wu, the nuclear industry was
grasped by his title. Tang Bo, the NNSA department director for nuclear
safety surveillance, notably wrote an article “How will nuclear power not
52 Controversies in transitional China

destroy China,”published in industrial media and widely distributed among
the industry staff. The article examined points ranging from reasonable risk
assessment to China’s powerful nuclear safety management (B. Tang, 2017).
The elite debate on nuclear power seemed separate from local movements
against NPP. In recent years, China witnessed two local street protests, though
there were other non-street protesting campaigns like the one in Wangjiang.
In July 2013, after Jiangmen residents in Guangdong Province learned that
the city had won a bid to construct a billion-dollar nuclear fuel recycling
facility in its affiliated Heshan city, they rushed to the streets, besieged the
municipal government, and protested the facility jointly invested by CNNC
and CGNPC. The three-day impromptu demonstration forced the municipal
government to give up the project (C. Yang, 2013). There was no evidence
that local protesters widely read anti-nuclear articles authored by Wang and
others. Instead, an examination of public opinion revealed that many resi-
dents did not distinguish between the nuclear fuel recycling facility and an
NPP (INT20170915). A similar street protest occurred in Jiangsu Province’s
Lianyungang against another proposed atomic fuel processing plant in 2016
(S. Han, 2016). During the demonstration, local protesters widely distributed
and read Wu’s abovementioned article “Nuclear power will destroy China”
(INT20161011).
None of the two local street protest participants were found to belong to
the small anti-nuclear elite network, which, in addition to He, Wang, Wu and
the dissenting computational physicist, also absorbed a limited number of new
members, including retired nuclear engineers, a billionaire operating in an
industry not connected to nuclear power who is also a CPPCC delegate, one
hydropower engineer who launched a small NGO in central China, and a
dozen of individual Maoism-prone environmentalists. Based on my three
years’field observation, no established NGO was found to connect with the
network in any form.
Despite the small numbers involved in anti-nuclear activism, its appeals,
particularly Wang’s internal policy petition submitted to top State leaders via
various channels, which I will explore later, seemed to have resulted in effects
to policy. In November 2016, the 13th Five-Year Plan of Power Industry was
released by NDRC and NEA, without mentioning inland NPPs. In 2016 and
2017, no construction permits were issued to any new NPP. More strikingly,
the two NPPs –Haiyang in Shandong Province and Sanmen in Zhejiang
Province adopting AP1000 technology –postponed their fuel loading sched-
uled in July 2017, at a cost of tens of millions of yuan losses, according to
industry sources. In January 2018, Wang was invited to participate in an
internal policy meeting to discuss the prospect of nuclear power with a group
of industry experts before top leaders in charge of energy.
However, in March 2018, the policy tone toward nuclear power suddenly
became positive. NEA announced new construction permits could be issued
to six to eight reactors. In April, a license to load fuels in the abovementioned
two AP1000-equipped NPPs and Taishan NPP adopting French EPR
Controversies in transitional China 53

technology were issued. In particular, the Taishan license was published in the
presence of President Xi Jinping and visiting French President Emmanuel
Macron. In June 2018, CNNC and Russian state nuclear company Rosatom
agreed to build four VVER-1200 atomic reactors at the Tianwan Nuclear Plant
in Lianyungang and Xudapu nuclear plant in Northeast China’s Liaoning
Province. The No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at the Xudapu plant will use Russian
technology, and construction may start before reactors No. 1 and No. 2, which
will use the AP1000 technology designed by Westinghouse (D. Chu, 2018).
Most activists suspended their efforts to challenge the nuclear power sector
when the policy advances delivered a clear signal of the resumed support for
nuclear power development by China’s top leadership.
On January 30 2021, CNNIC put the first reactor using HPR1000 tech-
nology into commercial operation. By then, with 49 reactors and 52 million
kilowatts installed capacity, China was ranked the world’s third-largest player
in both nuclear power reactors in operation and installed generation capacity.
There are no data to show whether there is an evident attitude change from
China’s top state leaders. But considering the long-time suspension of inland
nuclear power projects at the cost of atomic power investors’tens of millions of
yuan in early-stage investment and the two-year freeze in issuing new reactor con-
struction permits, the nuclear controversy in China indeed had its policy impact.
3.2.5 GMO falls to disputes
China began to plant GM tobacco in the 1980s even before the government
knew the type of crops needed to be licensed. In 1997, the Chinese govern-
ment approved Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis, an insect-killing bacterium) cotton’s
commercialization to fight the uncontrollable bollworm. Since then, China
has only approved a type of anti-virus GM papaya. The other two types of
approved GM crops in China –tomato and sweet peppers genetically engi-
neered to lengthen their storage period –were abandoned because they were
uneconomic in the market. In 2017, China planted 2.8 million hectares of
GM cotton and papaya, accounting for 1% of the total global area of biotech
crops (189.8 million hectares) and 0.29% of its 956-million-hectare whole
arable land. Among the 10 top GM crop-planting countries, China was
ranked 8th in 2017 in terms of the acreage used for such crops.
The early years of GM crop development in Chinawere free from controversy.
It was hailed as a significant national S&T progress in the media. In 2001, the
Chinese government enacted a set of State Council (China’s cabinet) safety reg-
ulations on transgenic agricultural products, apparently to prepare China for the
impact from the expected import surge of US agricultural products upon its
imminent entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO) (INT20161118). The
regulation was followed by two regulations of the Ministry of Agriculture
(MOA): one on labeling GM foods sold in the Chinese market and another on
the safety management of GM product imports, requiring all imported GM
products to be certified by MOA. In 2002, the Ministry of Health (MOH)
54 Controversies in transitional China

enacted Hygiene Regulation for GM foods, which also required such foods to be
labelled.
Although Chinese scientists, the scientific community working on bio-
technology, and the governmental agencies were unaware of their impact, the
2001 series of rules started the journey to alienate GM foods. Activists,
headed by Greenpeace, rose to the GMO controversy stage.
The initial campaigns against GMOs in China were all launched and
organized by Greenpeace. Greenpeace set up its East Asia office in Hong
Kong in 1997. Soon after this, the organization launched its China operation
by setting up an affiliated working office under the then National Forestry
Administration (NFA) to help the agency manage natural reserves. However,
it was its anti-GMO campaign that made Greenpeace quickly noted and
established in mainland China. In 1999–2000, Greenpeace launched its first
round of attack, spreading a report to claim that China’s GM cotton had
caused some ecological threats. Although Chinese scientists angrily rejected
the claim, the claimed threat to biodiversity by GM crops caused little media
and public attention (INT20161215).
In 2003, Greenpeace dramatically changed its anti-GMO campaigns to focus
on GMO regulation’s public accountability and transparency (INT20160926,
INT20161122). The timing corresponded to China’s SARS (severe acute
respiratory syndrome) crisis. The SARS virus killed more than 800 infected
patients. The Chinese government’s initial cover-up of the intense situation (Tai
& Sun, 2007) ignited a nationwide call for government accountability and
transparency. In 2003, Greenpeace supported a Shanghai consumer Zhu Yanl-
ing to sue Nestle for not labeling GMO ingredients in its baby rice products.
The first genetic test offered by a German genetic test firm long linked to
Greenpeace proved Zhu’s claim. Still, the second test appointed by the court,
using MOA’s standards at an MOA-affiliated testing organization, did not
identify any GMO ingredients from Nestle’s samples. Zhu lost the lawsuit.
For many Chinese, the widely reported case was the first time they heard the
term GMO. The labeling policy offered an excuse for the public’stransparency
call, though, at this time, the Chinese consumers accepting GM food out-
numbered those rejecting it (J. Huang, Qiu, Bai & Pray, 2006a). Meanwhile,
Chinese scientists and policy advisors increased their efforts to lobby the gov-
ernment to commercialize GM rice. By mid-2004, GM rice was already on
China’s commercialization threshold (Jia, Jayaraman & Louët, 2004).
A Greenpeace-supported investigative story published in the popular liberal
newspaper Southern Weekend (SW) in December 2004 suddenly halted the
commercialization process. The article claimed that scientists commercialized
GM rice for their interests despite the uncertainties. The national GMO safety
committee under MOA, which was responsible for offering experts’views on
GMO commercialization and safety certificate, was full of rent-seeking biotech
experts (Jianqiang Liu, 2004). The article was reposted thousands of times in
emerging Internet sites and raised substantial public protests, effectively halted
GM rice commercialization in China (INT20161118).
Controversies in transitional China 55

TheSWcoverageunfoldedtheoffensive against GMOs in China, still domi-
nated by Greenpeace, supported by many scholars, mostly social science
researchers including several leading STS professors and agricultural economists.
In 2005, Greenpeace found farmers illegally planted the GM rice seed developed
by Wuhan-based Huazhong Agricultural University (HZAU) in Hubei. Green-
peace exposed the scandal, causing another wave of critical media reporting.
In the mid-2000s, another organized anti-GMO campaign was formed in
China. The campaign consisted of Maoist intellectuals, activists, some
maverick scientists, and a Maoist website Nowhere (http://www.wyzx.com).
They held that GMOs are a symbol of capitalism and the American imperi-
alists’conspiracy to control China. Embracing Chairman Mao Zedong and
opposing GMOs became the two high-profiled slogans to unite Maoists,
according to its theorist Li Beifang (2016). Bo Xilai and many other princel-
ings of the first generation of Chinese communist leaders supported the new
Maoist movement and its anti-GMO stance.
However, to the delight of plant scientists, Premier Wen Jiabao publicly
showed his support for GMOs in 2008. The Chinese government launched a
gigantic funding program to support GM seeding research, among the coun-
try’s 16 mega research projects (R. Stone, 2008). According to an ecology
professor who had mildly questioned GMOs, the mega funding program
silenced many scientists who had been conservative in GMO development to
obtain funding. In 2009, the national GMO safety committee issued a biosafety
certificate –the premise for commercialization –to two GM rice varieties
developed by HZAU. The diploma to a GM corn variety was developed by
scientists at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS).
The excellent news to plant scientists soon proved to be their nightmare.
The issuance of GM rice biosafety certificates raised a nationwide protest
against GMOs and the policies to commercialize them. In a move rare in
authoritarian China, more than 100 leading Chinese scholars, with CAS
botanist Jiang Gaoming as the only scientist among them, submitted a pro-
testing petition to NPC’s annual plenary meeting in March 2010. As we will
show later, the media massively criticized and questioned the policies to
commercialize GM rice (though in reality, there is a long way between issuing
biosafety certificates to GM rice varieties and commercializing them).
Since 2010, so-called GMO safety incidents have been repeatedly discovered,
pushing the media to report. Although none of these events were identified by
professional scientists and published in journals, MOA had to dispatch four
inspection teams to investigate them, further kindling national panics. Around
2010, several professional anti-GMO activists completely independent from
Greenpeace and mostly isolated from the Maoist campaigns debuted.
Although some of them had a little scientific training, none of them studied
modern biology. However, first using blogs and social media such as Weibo,
these professional anti-GMO activists outvoiced scholars and scientists. They
have provided endless resources, real or false, against GMOs’scientific claims
and any government initiatives to support transgenic crops.
56 Controversies in transitional China

Greenpeace did not go quiet. In 2012, Greenpeace exposed through the media
a scandal of a Tufts University professor who unethically fed Chinese children
with genetically modified golden rice without proper informed consent in a nutri-
tional study. Once again, public anger and protest against GMOs were ignited.
Biotechnology scientists did not sit idle either. Since the 2004/2005 anti-GMO
campaign by Greenpeace, these scientists began to promote scientific knowledge
and the scientific consensus on the controversial technology. Many science wri-
ters now chose to popularize GMO topics, endorsing its safety and economic
promises. In late 2013, 61 CAS and CAE academicians, the country’s top scien-
tific elites, submitted a petition to the State Council to support GMOs.
The pro-GMO momentum, however, was soon overwhelmed by the
expanding anti-GMO front. In late 2013, Cui Yongyuan, a famous TV talk
show anchor, joined the movement against GMOs. With his substantial
public influence, penetrating language arts, status as a CPPCC delegate, and
strong mobilization capacity through social media, Cui became a new center
of China’s anti-GMO campaign. The maverick scientists against GMOs
quickly converged behind him. Supported by them, Cui made an investigative
TV documentary to reflect the “real”situation of the American public’s atti-
tude to GMOs. Citing a group of US-based anti-GMO researchers, Cui
smashed the United States’image as a GMO friendly country.
In 2016, Cui exited from pursuing anti-GMO as his central business.
But his influence can still be felt. When I began to draft this chapter, any
sporadic comments on GMOs by Cui on social mediawould create thousands of
following words and supportive emojis.
Meanwhile, in 2015, China’s propaganda department began to cool down
media coverage of GMO issues. However, my interviews with several journalists
and web editors indicated that none of their media outlets received an explicit
ban against reporting GMO issues. Instead, the tone was to avoid sensationaliz-
ing GMO issues (INT20160919, INT20170725). Given the Chinese govern-
ment’s regular censorship and the ban on its disfavored news, the style to prevent
sensationalizing itself indicated the central leadership’s hesitant and obscure
GMO attitudes.
In 2014, pro-GMO scientists tried to persuade Chinese leader Xi Jinping to
show his supports for GMO technologies publicly. Xi inspected a leading local
agribiotech company’s R&D center in Beijing (but did not speak out to support
immediately commercializing GM food). With Xi’s speech, plus the propaganda
department’s move to downplay media reporting of GMO controversy, the anti-
GMO media situation was reversed. Still, anti-GMO activists had largely shifted
their battlefields to social media.
The 13th Five-Year S&T Development Plan (2016–2020) revised the road-
map of agricultural biotechnology. The new plan prioritized commercializing
non-staple food GM crops (GM corn and GM soya) while suspending GM
rice’s commercialization. However, up to the end of 2020, the third year of the
Five-Year Plan, there has been no sign of commercialized GM corn.
Although since 2016, few significant scandals/safety events about GMOs have
Controversies in transitional China 57

been reported in the media, the public continued their disfavor of GM foods
in several nationwide surveys (Cui & Shoemaker, 2018; G. He et al., 2017;
Ren, Gao & Huang, 2016).
Summarizing the course of China’s GMO controversy, several patterns are
worth mentioning. As compared with other scientific disputes, GMO conten-
tion was the most sustained, and most widely engaging. Today, any social
media conversation about GMOs will immediately attract ample attention
and following comments.
Then, consistent with the trend, GMO debates were highly polarized. Both
pro-GMO scientists and science communicators, and anti-GMO activists tried
to attack the other side with extreme claims and often emotional expression.
The increasing political polarization trend strengthened the sharp conflict.
Third, many intellectuals of different backgrounds are involved in anti-GMO
campaigns, which have been highly diversified. But on the other hand, few civil
society organizations, including nearly all local ENGOs, have not actively
joined the debates on GMOs. Besides Greenpeace, the main actors are loosely
connected Maoists (which I am reluctant to define as civil society groups),
individual activists, and a small group promoting the idea of food sovereignty.
Several organic food organizations (either in the form of NGOs or com-
mercial companies) played a supplemental, though not inessential, role in
the anti-GMO front. I will explore the implications of the organizational
structure later in this chapter.
Finally, the media have shown an extraordinary enthusiasm to raise GMO
issues. Even after the propaganda department’s warning against sensationalizing
GMOs, journalists have spared no effort to report GMO-related events. But
social media has increasingly replaced traditional media to become the main
arena for such debates.
3.3 Other noted public disputes related to S&T
The controversies surrounding hydropower, nuclear power and GMOs are not
isolated in China. Social contestations on trash incineration, PX (para-xylene)
manufacturing facilities and other potentially polluted factories have spread
across China. Unlike the global discourses about hydropower, nuclear power
and GMO disputes, the public protests against these projects are more
focused on local communities. They reflect typical features of local NIMBY
(Not In My Backyard) activities.
Although local protests are not always about science and technology, they
often question the authoritative explanation and official discourses about
targeted projects’safety and potential risks. In other words, they are about the
credibility of knowledge, a central concern of S&T controversies. Thus, it is
also necessary to briefly describe some of these local activities from the per-
spective of scientific debates. This section will explore these activities’socio-
economic situation to contribute to a general understanding of the social and
economic changes underlying China’s S&T controversies.
58 Controversies in transitional China

3.3.1 Anti-incinerator movement
The anti-incinerator movement in China represented a series of public protests
against industrial waste incinerators. Up to 2018, 54 anti-incinerator public
demonstrations had been reported nationwide (Johnson, Lora-Wainwright &
Lu, 2018). The movement is generally treated as a typical local protest (Liang,
Guo & Wang, 2019). The anti-incinerator movement can be traced back to the
2006 Liulitun protest in Beijing’s Haidian district. The Liulitun plant protest
succeeded in indefinitely postponing the proposed incinerator. Its success
encouraged many other protests against incinerator plants across China, with
Guangzhou, Wujiang and Panguanying being the most widely reported,
beginning around 2009 (Lang & Xu, 2013).
In Guangzhou, inhabitants of the residential Panyu district began opposing
plans to construct a municipal waste incinerator in their area. By the end of
2011, the Guangzhou citygovernment canceled the project. In Pingwang, atown
located outside Wujiang city in China’s Jiangsu province, residents began
opposing the construction of a nearby incinerator plant that was already nearing
completion. Their collective actions, including a large street demonstration,
resulted in the plant’s construction being halted (Lang & Xu, 2013). However,
ten years later, a much larger (with six times the investment) waste incinerator
facility was being constructed in Wujiang, expected to be completed by the end
of 2021. No environmental protest was reported again (Mei, 2021).
In the same year, in Panguanying, a small rural village in China’s Hebei
province, villagers received assistance from environmental NGOs and urban
activists from Beijing. With these professional supports, the local government
suspended the proposed incinerator, although it hasn’t made a final decision
(Johnson et al., 2018). Although there seemed to be fewer street protests
under Xi Jinxing’s iron-hand rules, public contestations and demonstrations
against waste incinerators can still be heard. The most recent one took place in
Yangluo, a residential zone of Wuhan, the capital city of the central province of
Hubei (Zhuang, 2019).
In each anti-incinerator protest, a variety of individuals were involved. In the
2006 Beijing Liulitun protest, participants were primarily made up of scholars
and science or engineering professionals from nearby universities and high-tech
firms in Haidian District. Protesters claimed that incinerator plants, especially
those from earlier generations, produced various noxious byproducts containing
dioxins (H. Hu, Li, Nguyen & Kavan, 2015). During the Panyu protest in
Guangzhou, residents of the newly developed district showed concern for their
health and the proposed plant’s potential environmental impact. Protesters
were uniquely assisted by professionals residing in the area, many of whom
were journalists and retired government bureaucrats (Steinhardt & Wu, 2016).
Throughout the reported protests, local government and official environ-
mental research organizations argued that burning trash would not produce
enough toxins to threaten human health if appropriately operated. Indeed,
most published scholarly papers supported the official tone. But protesters
Controversies in transitional China 59

cited research on excessive pollution emission from Chinese incinerators and
claimed that dereliction was widespread in China and it is hardly possible to
ensure incinerators’proper operation. Another more persuasive evidence is
the different composition of China’s living wastes from those of the West.
They said that the high percentage of kitchen waste in China resulted in
increased water content, making the burning more readily produce dioxin.
Various ENGOs have gotten involved and supported protesters, including the
Beijing-based Nature University, Friends of Nature, and the Guangzhou-based
Eco Canton (Steinhardt & Wu, 2016). These anti-incinerator protests used
online discussion and mobilization, conducted public demonstrations and uti-
lized media attention. Most of these tactics involved using China’semerging
commercial media (Y. Chen, 2010) and Internet platforms ranging from the
earlier BBS and blogs to Weibo and later WeChat (R. Huang & Sun, 2015).
Protesters widely utilized the Internet to criticize the incinerator plants and
mobilize protests against them. However, the online mobilization led thou-
sands of residents to the streets in many reported anti-incinerator cases. Some
protesters also sought prominent environmental lawyers, who connected them
with various environmental activist groups.
By contrast, the supporters for the trash incinerator project seemed to lack a
united strategy. In most cases, the parties most responsible for advancing the
incinerator projects were the local government and their urban development
subordinates. Although there were external investors, they seemed highly reliant
on local government to solve the conflicts. Although local governments generally
ordered the media affiliated with them to avoid reporting the public protests,
media from other geographical jurisdictions were often involved. The booming
Internet-based online communication channels such as Weibo, WeChat and
various We Media accounts played active roles.
3.3.2 Social protests against PX plants
Like the anti-incinerator movement, public protest opposing the para-xylene
(PX) project in China was also a typical local activity. Since 2007, protests
have occurred in Xiamen, Dalian, Ningbo, Kunming and Maoming, where
PX plants were being planned.
Para-xylene is a common chemical used to produce terephthalic acid, which is
used to manufacture polyester. The chemical has low toxicity, and there are very
few reports worldwide of environmental harm from PX plants. Despite this, PX
has become a common target for public protest in China since December 2007
when Xiamen’s government suspended the construction of a PX factory with a
planned investment of billions of yuan. Since then, PX projects have been halted
in Dalian, Ningbo and Kunming due to public discontent.
As in anti-incinerator movements, the anti-PX plant’s initial success in
Xiamen also planted a seed of open public protests. In fact, except in anti-
incinerator and anti-PX movements, few other social contestations in China
have gathered so many participants and such high attention.
60 Controversies in transitional China

Like in the Beijing Liulitun protest, the Xiamen PX protesters were led by
scholars at Xiamen University. Protesters were headed by an environmental
chemist at Xiamen University, significantly improving the anti-PX move-
ment’s credibility. Although the anti-PX side did not demonstrate enough
scientific credibility as the protests advanced, the initial credibility increased
the anti-PX activities’legitimacy.
Following the Xiamen incident, a series of protests against PX projects in
China broke out in Kunming (Chang, 2013), Shifang, Ningbo, Dalian and
Maoming between 2010 and 2014. The Maoming protest was the most severe.
After several open public protests, the local government in Maoming seemed
well aware that the PX proposal could be controversial. A month before the
latest protest began, it launched an extensive public education campaign on
chemical and PX safety. According to local media, petrochemical workers,
family members and public school students were required to sign a letter of
support for the PX project. The forced petition triggered public protests as it
was seen as a sign that the PX plant had received the go-ahead. In late March
2014, thousands of residents in Maoming, Guangdong Province –a city with
a thriving petrochemical industry –took to the streets and burned cars in protest
at a proposed PX plant. After the demonstration, the Maoming govern-
ment announced that the 3.5-billion-yuan PX project was not finalized and
maintained that it was safe and essential for the local economy.
In short, earlier anti-PX protests spawned subsequent ones, underpinning a
movement continuity against the PX project in China. Despite censorship,
commercial media has played an essential role in legitimatizing citizens’
activities and facilitating the Internet (Chin-Fu, 2013; J. Liu, 2016). Specifi-
cally, the online debate regarding PX’s toxicity, a phenomenon unheard of in
anti-incinerator activities, has become a hallmark of the PX contestation.
Amid the Chinese public’s increasingly fierce resistance to chemical plant
construction, young chemists are coming to the industry’s defense. The street
protests in Maoming were accompanied by an online campaign that saw
environmentalists change the entry on PX’s toxicity in Baidu Baike, the Chi-
nese equivalent of Wikipedia, from “low”to “highly toxic.”However, on
April 2, while millions of people were still posting supportive tweets for the
collective action in Maoming, a group of chemical engineering students at the
prestigious Tsinghua University corrected the PX entry. The effort led to a
running battle over the Baike entry until a Baidu Baike employee finalized the
PX entry as “low toxicity.”
While agreeing that PX is not particularly toxic, a professor of fine chemi-
cals at a southeastern university said the movement to defend PX has gone to
the other extreme (INT20160309). “It might be true that per some indicators,
PX is no more toxic than alcohol. But you cannot drink PX even though you
can drink alcoholic beverages,”said the interviewee, arguing that PX’slow
toxicity is touted to support the political goal of clamping down on dissidents.
He said that a better way to convince the public of PX plants’safety is to let
chemical industry leaders live next to their factories.
Controversies in transitional China 61

Another expert said that what the public opposed was not the science or
the chemical itself but how plants are built and managed (INT20161128). He
cited an explosion in the only PX plant built in recent years –the plant in
Gulei Peninsula that was initially earmarked for Xiamen –as evidence that
poor management was what people fear.
3.3.3 Debating the sources for PM2.5
In addition to anti-incinerator and anti-PX movements, there is public con-
testation on the sources for PM2.5, the primary polluting particle contributing
to the thick haze in northern China in the winter. Also known as ultrafine
particulates, PM2.5 consists of solids and liquids. Its sources include black
carbon from incomplete combustion as well as sulfates and nitrates. Levels of
such ultrafine particles surpassed 500 μg per cubic meter of air in both recent
incidents in China (Jia & Wang, 2017).
Although it is generally agreed that PM2.5 was a primary culprit for the
thick haze, where it mainly came from was a focal point for debate. On certain
occasions, the discussion also evolved into a public science controversy.
On December 26 2013, the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) under
the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) posted on its website the news
release of a study published in July 2013 in the top journal Atmospheric
Chemistry & Physics (ACP) (R. Zhang et al., 2013). The study, with lead
author Renjian Zhang from IAP and participating authors from different
Chinese and overseas institutions, claimed six primary sources for PM2.5 had
been identified, ranging from traffic and waste incineration emission (3%),
biomass burning (13%), coal combustion (14%), soil dust (16%) and second-
ary inorganic aerosol (26%) to industrial pollution (28%).
When local media like the Beijing Times published the Xinhua wire news on
December 31, they highlighted less than 4% of trafficemissions’contribution to
PM2.5. The story immediately aroused widespread public protests in social
media and online forums against the Chinese capital city’s strict car control
policy (Jia, 2014b).
The basis for interpretative flexibility –meaning scientists employ discretion as
they decide what counts as reliable scientific facts and claims (Collins, 1981) –
existed in the study. The data provided by R. Zhang et al. (2013) implied that
traffic emission’s actual contribution to PM2.5 could be much larger than the
claimed less than 4%. However, current technologies cannot accurately identify
the origins of the so-called secondary inorganic aerosol that was formed through
complicated chemical reactions between primary polluting emissions.
Orthodox scientists harshly rejected Zhang et al. (2013). Beijing Municipal
Environmental Protection Bureau and CAS administration organized two
separate urgent news conferences on January 2 to refute this study’s conclu-
sions. Meanwhile, the news release of the study was withdrawn from CAS and
IAP websites. However, the tones of the official news conferences were very
mild. Spokespeople at the two news conferences admitted the uncertainty of
62 Controversies in transitional China

determining traffic emissions’contribution to atmospheric PM2.5, but high-
lighted Zhang et al.’s sampling location, the types of instruments, inaccurate
calibration and unaccepted range of variance. Both individual scientists’initial
rejection of R. Zhang et al. (2013) as having excessive uncertainty and CAS
news conference’seffort to accept the study per se but reject its inappropriate
uncertainty range represented an endeavor to maintain mainstream scientists’
epistemic privilege.
In the science controversy regarding the sources of PM2.5, the science-media
relationship has institutionally corroborated science’s image of credibility and
suppressed the public visibility of interpretative flexibility. Metropolitan media
journalists did not have the interest and capacity to deeply explore the scientific
uncertainty involved in the PM2.5 source apportionment controversy. While
professional science journalists accessed and managed uncertainty to increase
their stories’dramatic effect, they eventually bent to orthodoxy conclusions.
In mid-2014, Beijing environmental protection bureau officially released
“authoritative”data –car emission contributed to 31% of Beijing’s PM2.5.
The controversy initiated by the ACP paper seemed to close quickly. How-
ever, disputes on the composition of China’s atmospheric pollutants con-
tinued. Based on the contrast between dramatically reduced PM2.5
concentration due to China’s clean air moves and the remaining haze in the
northern part of the country, several environmental groups, such as Interna-
tional Fund for China’s Environment, continued questioning the definitive
conclusion on the pollutant composition. However, these debates have seldom
drawn the media’s attention.
3.4 General observation of S&T controversies in China
In addition to the abovementioned cases, there were other public controversies
related to S&T. The most notable was the series of debates on the efficacy of
traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) (Q. Zhu & Horst, 2019). The discussion
can be traced back to the early 20th century when China ended the Qing
Dynasty. Occasionally, internal debates within the science community, such as
whether China should host the next generation supercollider (Jia, 2016b), can
also become a public science controversy after the media reported the debate.
Another controversy was about the increased public concerns about their
health and food safety and their decreased trust in experts, particularly in these
areas. Periodically, there was media reporting or popular social media posting of
potential food or medical risks, which reflected public disbelief of experts’
assurance of existing practice safety, such as iodized salt or fluoridated
toothpaste.
But the pattern was different from the West. In the West, heterodox experts
professionally raised evidence questioning the orthodox practice. For exam-
ple, Andrew Wakefield’s (1998) controversial The Lancet paper (retracted in
2010) claimed a link between MMR vaccine (vaccine against measles, mumps
and rubella) and autism (Flaherty, 2011). In China, the public effort to
Controversies in transitional China 63

question mainstream health and food practice often lacked professional sup-
port. Experts reportedly expressing suspicion of the established practice
repeatedly denied their reported claims, accusing the media of misinterpreta-
tion. As a result, individual public controversies regarding food safety and
existing medical practice were often short-lived.
So far, we have described typical S&T controversies in China in the past
half-century. During the period, China underwent a dramatic transition.
Its social, economic, political and media system all experienced tre-
mendous change. It is against this background that the S&T controversies
we examined above occurred. They include long-lasting hydropower dis-
putes, widespread GMO resistance, elitist debate on nuclear power, local
community-based anti-incinerator and anti-PX movements, and public
suspicion of the official interpretation of the atmospheric pollutants. It is
necessary to reveal their general patterns. Although examining the
mechanism underlying these controversies is the task of the whole book,
for the moment, I attempt to summarize these patterns and the socio-
political environment nurturing the evolution of these controversies. In a
sense, the current section is not theoretically driven. Instead, the observa-
tion can be considered raw stuffsorted out for theoretical development in
the subsequent chapters.
The first observation here is despite China’s authoritative rule and S&T’s
crucial importance in China’sofficial ideology, S&T controversies have
thrived, particularly after the opening-up in the 1980s. But even before the
opening-up, the big debate on GDP under the encouragement of Mao
Zedong indicated that even Mao’s totalitarian regime could tolerate some
S&T controversies for a specific purpose.
Second, S&T controversies seemed a product of social diversification, which
was speeded up after Deng’s opening-up policy. The 1950s’debate on TGP
was a highly controlled process. If the public’s involvement is necessary to
define a science controversy, the 1950s’TGP debate could hardly own such a
name. Even the 1980s’TGP debate was highly elitist (H. L. Miller, 1996). But
as the Chinese society became increasingly diversified, S&T controversies
concentratedly appeared in China.
Media reform and commercialization played an essential role in promot-
ing S&T controversies. As I will demonstrate in the following chapters,
China’s S&T controversies cannot receive public attention or become public
events without media involvement. The role the Chinese media has played is
strategic. The liberalizing and market-oriented media reform (L. L. Chu,
1994) pushed many media to snatch public attention. Reporting con-
troversies was an ideal option. On the other hand, Chinese journalists, such
as Green Earth’s Wang Yongchen, became the first generation of activists.
They have played an enormous networking role in mobilizing experts’voices
against the establishment. The greater tolerance that the Chinese media
enjoyed in the 1990s and 2000s also drove the media’s increasing reporting
of controversial issues.
64 Controversies in transitional China

Under Xi Jinxing’s reign, the CCP leadership strengthened the media control,
and the media industry suffered significant impacts from social media so that
their support for investigative journalism dramatically decreased. Social media,
including their earlier formats such as BBS and blogs, became increasingly cri-
tical in fueling S&T controversies in China. As demonstrated in multiple cases,
Weibo and WeChat have become the tool to convene public opinion against the
mainstream scientific conclusions and mobilize collective actions (R. Huang &
Yip, 2012; J. Liu, 2016; Wen, Hao & Han, 2016). The rising public accounts on
the WeChat platform replaced traditional media to present public contestation
against official conclusions.
Accompanying the rising public disputes of definitive S&T conclusions is
the falling public trust in scientific experts. Science continues to enjoy the
most trustable status, and scientists are the most trusted professions in China
(Xiang, Chu & Jin, 2015). However, scientific experts were bitterly criticized
for reportedly distorting science for official purposes in each of the disputed
cases. In some cases, such as the GMO dispute, biotechnology scientists were
demonized as a malicious vested interest group. In still other cases, scientists
were thought to be ignorant of the real situation, such as industry malpractice,
such as during the debates on waste incinerators and PX plants.
When faced with controversial scientific issues, most scientists in China keep
silent, while China’s industrial associations and academic societies often dodge
their responsibility to timely inform, educate and listen to the public. As a
result, the public has become increasingly wary of S&T projects in China.
Finally, in some cases, political fragmentation in the Chinese regime seems
to have played a role in certain controversies such as hydropower and nuclear
power. There will be theoretical discussions on this aspect across our case
studies in the following chapters. Right now, I am satisfied with pointing out
this as an observable phenomenon.
While the above patterns can be identified in nearly all S&T controversies
in contemporary China, some disputes had a quick closure and did not last
long. But others are widespread, long-lasting, and consistently showed certain
aspects that are worth a theoretical examination. Hydropower controversy,
nuclear power dispute, and public resistance to GMOs are the most typical
ones. Now let’s move to these cases for more in-depth investigation.
Controversies in transitional China 65

4 Hydropower, fragmentation and
knowledge-making
4.1 Introduction
Chinese civilization is closely linked to hydraulic engineering projects, whose
centralized disposal of labor and resources led Wittfogel (1957) to raise the
concept of Oriental Despotism. Disputes regarding water utilization, however,
have never ceased, even after the People’s Republic founded in 1949 effectively
silenced most intellectuals.
From the 1980s, when China began to adopt the opening-up policy,
hydropower controversies ranging from the debate on the gigantic Three
Georges Project (TGP) to the protest against dams in the Nu River (Salween
River in Southeast Asia) once again topped the public agenda. Hydropower
also became one of the few issues that China’s emerging ENGOs joined their
hands to reject (T.-c. Lin, 2007) despite the country’s record speed in building
dams. According to the International Commission on Large Dams, by the
end of 2013, China had built 38,000 big dams (higher than 15 meters),
accounting for 55.9% of the world’s total (China Energy News, 2015).
Why has the hydropower controversy evolved into such a central issue in the
Chinese environmental movement and how is it different from other disputes –
GMOs and nuclear power –investigated in this book? This chapter traces the
development of the hydropower controversy in China in the past 40 years, and
then examines the dispute in the landscapes of contemporary media transitions,
social movement theories and several STS concepts.
4.1.1 “Thick”dikes and dams
Because of the universal importance of water, it is natural that hydraulic
projects across the world are designed, developed and implemented according
to their specific historical, cultural and political tradition. Bijker (2007) used
“dikes and dams, thick with politics”to describe how the difference between
the Netherlands’dike and storm surge barriers and the coastal levees in the
United States was a result of their different political traditions in dealing with
risks. Meanwhile, these coastal engineering projects also shaped political and
cultural practices of their hosting countries. For this reason, France developed
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160212-4

hydropower capacities in its North African colonies in the 19th and early 20th
centuries to demonstrate its technological progress and to realize imperial
control (Pritchard, 2012) and tamed the Rhône River to recover its national
pride after the Second World War (Pritchard, 2011).
China’s massive hydropower development and its social and political
implications have not escaped scholarly attention (Rogers & Crow‐Miller,
2017). Using the concept of developmentalism and authoritarian control,
scholars have examined the modernistic efforts behind the grand ambitions to
build TGP (Lee, 2013a, 2014) and the gigantic South-North Water Transfer
Project (SNWTP) to transfer water from southern China to the arid north
1000 miles away (Rogers, Barnett, Webber, Finlayson & Wang, 2016; Webber,
Crow-Miller & Rogers, 2017). According to Lee (2013a), Deng Xiaoping’s
desperate endeavor to build the TGP despite massive opposition was to use
the discourse of developmentalism to justify his leadership as well as his
orthodox inheritance from Chairman Mao. The dam also asserted the power
of the central state by, for example, unifying power grids in China, replacing a
system that was focused on individual or small groups of provinces with a
national network of electricity production and distribution (Webber, 2012).
Launched while TGP was being constructed, China’s SNWTP was supposed
to solve environmental problems. But by prioritizing an engineering solution, the
SNWTP showed the common policymaking logic: Authoritarians can accom-
modate growing public concern for the environment without fundamentally
altering existing structures of power (S. M. Moore, 2014; Webber et al., 2017). In
fact, besides TGP and SNWTP, all major dam constructions and their corre-
sponding relocation of impacted residents reflect China’s state-making efforts,
which entails an essential faith in the power of human knowledge systems –
including science, technology and policy –to achieve better and better futures
(Tilt, 2014).
The rich body of literature introduced above highlights the crucial importance
of water projects, their symbolic meanings, and the hydraulic technologies deeply
embedded in specific sociopolitical contexts. Then it is natural to assume that
hydropower controversies are not just about protests against these facilities.
Instead, they can reflect resistance to the social meanings embodied by these
water projects.
4.1.2 Social movements against hydropower
Given the crucial importance of water utilization to society, anti-dam move-
ments have been intensively studied globally. The focal location for the
research is in the global south where transnational anti-dam movements were
booming in the 1990s (Khagram, 2004). The social movements against dams
are considered as civilians’collective actions against capitalist greed. These
movements are underreported and underrepresented by local media (Da Silva
& Rothman, 2011), however they have received the aid of international orga-
nizations which have formed transnational activism networks, providing
Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making 67

funding, international media attention, professional knowledge and organiza-
tional experience to local activists (Khagram, 2004; Lee, 2013b; McCormick,
2010).
In China, H. L. Miller (1996) found that the Party’s call for scientific
policymaking as an effort to correct Chairman Mao’s capricious policy-making
in the 1980s empowered senior scientists to openly express their concerns about
TGP through improved institutions for elites’political participation, such as the
Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC, China’s
Upper House). Interestingly, a Chinese STS journal, Journal of Dialectics
of Nature, became the main platform to convene reformist scientists and
their voices questioning TGP, reflecting Chinese STS scholars’tradition of
active participation in social activism.
A decade after the TGP debates, China’s ENGOs flourishing in the 2000s
became the main actors in the subsequent hydropower controversy. Studies have
examined the role of ENGOs as policy entrepreneurs, who have expanded
China’s hydropower policymaking structure, enabled more voices and interests
to be heard (H. Han, 2013), and raised political concern for the social problems
of forced migration and the public distrust of the business alliance between
power companies and local governments (Vermeer, 2011). This type of coalition
is particularly evident in the Nu River controversy erupting in late 2003 and
lasting until now. ENGOs and allied scholars successfully blocked the grandiose
State plan to build 13 dams in the upper Nu River.
They have mobilized institutional resources. In addition to the above-
mentioned international activism whose aid became possible after China opened
its door for international NGOs to set up local offices (Lee, 2013b), ENGOs’
capacity to facilitate the enaction of new environmental laws –particularly the
rules on environmental impact assessment (EIA) and public participation in the
process –and to mobilize open public debates have been discussed in the scho-
larly literature (Magee & McDonald, 2006; Teets, 2014). In a more recent study,
an essential yet hidden factor for ENGOs to be able to play their policy entre-
preneurship role –the utilization of their supervisory agency –has been noticed
(Teets, 2018). To increase its control of civil society, the Chinese government
requires that an NGO must have both a governing government body (usually the
Ministry of Civil Affairs and its local branches) with which it is registered and a
sponsoring agency, which must be either a government agency or a public
research organization. The design of the dual registration was aimed at better
supervising NGOs, but as Teets noticed, some sponsors became the channels for
NGOs to deliver their policy suggestions to top policymakers.
As mentioned in Chapter 1, other scholars adopted the fragmented
authoritarianism (FA) framework to examine why some of China’s anti-
hydropower movements were successful while others were clamped down
(Mertha, 2008). While Mertha has correctly pointed out the importance of
bureaucratic fragmentation and the involvement of various public actors such
as intellectuals and the media in leading to the successful opposition to Yan-
gliuhu Water Facility near Dujiangyan, a UNESCO (United Nations
68 Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making

Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage site, the
FA framework relies too much on the structural differences of agencies and
their leniency to activism, without further exploring other factors, such as the
channel to top policymakers (Teets, 2018) and the role of scientific knowledge
and scientists (Hansen, 2017b).
4.1.3 Knowledge-control regime and hydropower controversy
Tracing the debate on the relationship between the Zipingpu Dam in Sichuan
Province and the Wenchuan Earthquake in 2008, Danish STS scholar Hansen
(2017b) argued that the FA framework is too rigid to account for scientists’
different positions within the bureaucracy. He hence proposed including an
epistemic community (seismologists in this case) as the fourth category of
policy entrepreneurs, thus adding to the three types already included by
Mertha in his FA framework 2.0, which includes bureaucrats, activists and
journalists (Mertha, 2009).
While Hansen correctly proposed combining FA and STS, the lack of a
detailed analysis of social movement elements in his studies has resulted in a
limited understanding. Elsewhere, STS scholar McCormick (2007a) used the
Habermasian concept of scientization of social order and the corresponding
scientization contest movements to describe Brazilian anti-dam campaigns.
She considered the latter as an effort to democratize science, which is the
process through which lay understandings are taken into account when
scientific knowledge production is used to make political decisions.
In another study applying the Habermasian concept of communicative
action, McCormick (2006, 2007b) argued that the Brazilian hydropower
governance regime is highly capitalistically driven, as evidenced by the fact that
hydraulic information is organized to facilitate hydroelectricity development,
without considering the indigenous knowledge of the rivers and the social,
cultural or much of the ecological impacts of hydropower projects.
But McCormick failed to examine knowledge as a social mobilization
resource and did not consider the institutional roles of actors. For example,
why have the sympathetic experts collaborated with local activists? How can
their alternative knowledge be accepted by the public and policymakers so that
it can work as a weapon against hydropower developers? We need to address all
these questions in a synthetic approach combining science communication,
social movement theories and the knowledge-control regimes concept which I
proposed in the introductory chapter.
4.2 Contemporary hydropower controversies in China
As shown in Chapter 3, modern China’s hydropower controversies started
with decades-long debates on the feasibility of TGP. After the disastrous
Cultural Revolution, a controversy surrounding TGP broke out again in the
1980s. Eventually, TGP supporters won the debate. But after some years’
Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making 69

dormancy, hydropower controversy revived in the early 2000s and became the
focus of China’s emerging environmentalism. Chapter 3 described typical
debates surrounding hydropower controversy in the past 20 years, ranging
from public resistance to a dam threatening a World Heritage Site to
ENGO’s joint rejection of dams in cultural and natural conservation
zones. Geological stability, natural beauty, ethnic minority groups’pristine
living style and biodiversity preservation became excuses for rejecting dam
building. The anti-hydropower movement also spread to eastern China’s
Poyang Lake water adjustment.
One of the major causes for the anti-dam campaigns in southwestern China
is hydropower facilities’impact on biodiversity which is mainly embodied as
fish and other aquatic species in the Chinese public sphere. The plan to build
Xiaonanhai (literally Small South China Sea) hydropower station, located in
the jurisdiction of Chongqing, ignited another public debate in the mid-2000s,
shortly after controversies surrounding the Nu River and dams near Tiger
Leaping Gorge began to fade away. The debate was about whether the
Xiaonanhai dam destroys the Yangtze upper river fish conservation zone. The
debate lasted about ten years, ending in MEP’sfinal rejection of Xiaonanhai’s
EIA. By providing scientific opinions and organizing a scientificfield study, a
group of senior hydrobiological scientists and international organizations
such as World Wildlife Fund (WWF) sat with ENGOs to protest or resist
Chongqing municipal government’s dam-building plan.
Besides aquatic biological conservation, anti-dam activists and experts also
challenged hydropower development by linking earthquake triggering to dam
building. The contention was escalated in 2008 when the 8.0-magnitude
Wenchuan Earthquake in 2008 that killed 80,000 persons induced a debate on
whether Zipingpu Dam, just 500 meters from the seismic fault and 5.5 kilo-
meters from the quake’s epicenter, triggered the disastrous earthquake
(Hansen, 2017b). After Science Magazine reported on the claim of the possi-
ble link between Zipingpu and Wenchuan earthquake (Klose, 2008) and the
corresponding modeling studies (Kerr & Stone, 2009; R. Stone, 2009), the
debate spread across international seismological and geological communities
(Y. Chen, 2009; Gahalaut & Gahalaut, 2010; Ge et al., 2009; Jackson, 2012;
Klose, 2012, 2013; X. Lei, 2011; X. Lei et al., 2008), though most of the dis-
cussions were censored in the Chinese media. Activists, such as Fan Xiao,
former chief engineer at the Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau in
Chengdu, actively participated in the debate (X. Fan, 2009) (INT20161222).
With southwestern dam building slowing down, minor eastern and north-
western water projects also became centers of contention, such as the Hydro
Junction Project in Poyang Lake in the eastern province of Jiangxi, which, as
China’s largest freshwater lake on the lower Yangtze River, experienced severe
impact after TGP reportedly reduced Yangtze River water flow. The hydro
junction project which aimed to stop Poyang Lake from losing water to the
Yangtze received strong resistance from the new generation of ENGOs (not
the ones active in southwestern hydropower controversy) focused until then
70 Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making

on animal protection. A sharp difference from the previous southwestern
anti-dam movement is that the Poyang Lake project is not a commercial one
but aims at conserving local ecology. Therefore, what activists resisted is an
ecological engineering solution (INT20161217, INT20170111).
These various hydropower controversies have witnessed collective involvement
of China’s emerging ENGOs and consistent media highlights, which, often
occurring after an ENGO convened dissenting experts, have formed intense
public pressure, suspending most targeted controversial projects. Comparing
what looked like an easy mobilization of dissenting experts, hydropower com-
panies adopted a passive strategy. Zhang Boting, vice-secretary general of
the Beijing-based China Society for Hydropower Engineering (CSHE),
became the only public spokesperson for the industry. In front of Zhang is
a large, divergent, yet loose, group of “environmentalists,”including
ENGOs, with tiny involvement of local communities impacted by dams
(Tilt, 2014). The collective action, experts’participation, adoption of
counter-knowledge, media involvement and relatively high success rate are
the subject of the theoretical discussions in the following sections.
4.3 Communication patterns of hydropower controversy
4.3.1 Examining the media’s role in hydropower controversies
Except for the TGP controversy in the 1980s when the Chinese media were
not accustomed to critical reporting (but Chinese journalists began to attempt
it, as analyzed below), most controversies regarding hydropower development
in southwestern, northwestern and eastern China started with the media’s
critical reporting of planned dams. The media’s critical environmental cover-
age was encouraged by editors and central government leaders as a way for
them to supervise environmentally illegal moves by local governments,
according to one senior journalist of an official newspaper (INT20170830).
Compared with the official media, market-driven liberal presses devoted more
energy to produce investigative stories. “We thought at that time that super-
vising these hydropower projects is a right way to safeguard public interests,”
said a senior journalist at one of China’smostinfluential liberal newspapers
(INT20161022).
Media content analysis supported the claims of journalist interviewees. As
shown in Figure 4.1, across the four sampled media outlets, hydropower cov-
erage was event-driven, with 2003, the birth year of southwestern hydropower
controversy, experiencing a record high number of media articles. The
Yangtze River interception at TGP in 2003 also resulted in a much higher
number of media stories on hydropower than in other years. The 2006 and
2009 environmental regulation storms (when SEPA/MEP intensified EIA
implementation) and the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake all created more media
coverage of hydropower. After 2012, with both declining new dam building
and controversial projects, media coverage of hydropower declined with the
Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making 71

0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
CSD XEN SW PD
Figure 4.1 Hydropower reporting by the four sampled Chinese media (1980–2017)
Source: Author’s collection
72 Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making

exception of PD, which began to report more international hydropower
projects constructed by Chinese companies often with loans from the
Chinese government.
Between 2000 and 2017, Southern Weekend (SW) published 136 stories and
comments primarily about hydropower projects. One hundred articles, or 81%
of them, negatively or critically reported hydropower development and its
impacts on relocated residents.
Table 4.1 to Table 4.3 summarize the main themes of the sampled media’s
hydropower stories and their attitude to hydropower developments. While
SW is famous for its critical investigative reporting, Xinmin Evening News
(XEN), an urban tabloid usually reluctant to report negative news, also
regularly dedicated negative stories to hydropower, particularly in 2003
when the Yangliuhu and Nu River controversies were hot social issues. As
mentioned above, PD, the CCP mouthpiece dominantly serving the Party’s
propaganda, did not hesitate to negatively frame the first dam building
drives, especially between 2003 and 2007, the years witnessing escalated
debates on southwestern hydroelectricity projects.
Table 4.1 SW’s hydropower articles between 2000 and 2017 and their attitudes
Year Total hydro-
power articles
Positive tone Neutral Negative Articles with visi-
ble controversies
2000 5 1 4 0 4
2001 1 0 0 1 1
2002 11 0 9 2 11
2003 13 0 5 8 12
2004 14 0 7 7 14
2005 7 0 0 7 7
2006 1 0 1 0 1
2007 1 0 0 1 1
2008 4 0 1 3 3
2009 15 0 4 11 14
2010 18 2 10 6 18
2011 28 2 7 19 27
2012 7 0 0 7 7
2013 2 0 0 2 2
2014 3 0 0 3 3
2015 2 0 0 2 2
2016 1 0 0 1 1
2017 3 0 2 1 2
Total 136 5 50 81 130
(Source: Author’s coding)
Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making 73

Consistent with these tables, except SW, most Chinese media outlets as repre-
sented by PD and XEN still reported more positive and neutral stories about
hydropower than negative ones. But in a society where traditional media outlets
were tasked to propagandize positive socialistic values, the frequent appearance
of negative stories per se indicates hydroelectricity projects have been recognized
as controversies. In terms of circulation, the high subscription of SW among
intellectuals and urban middle classes represents a more significant social
impact, and any adverse reporting in PD, China’s politically most prestigious
newspaper (its editor-in-chief is equivalent to the level of a minister in the hier-
archic political system), causes typically significant political pressure. One
veteran anti-hydropower activist recalled with a comforting smile during my
interview: “In the period, any media outlet which has not reported hydropower
controversy seemed to be environmentally unfriendly”(INT20161225).
In addition to (and often parallel to) adverse reporting, the Chinese media
in the 2000s began to make controversies about hydropower visible in their
reporting, even in stories with a generally positive tone. Scholars have long
recorded balancing different views to create drama and for environmental
stories to attract readers (Boykoff&Boykoff, 2004; Corbett & Durfee, 2004),
but in China, lack of mentioning disputing views as a result of the media’s
long-time propaganda tradition may have reduced the attractiveness of
Table 4.2 XEN’s hydropower articles between 2002 and 2017 and their attitudes
Year Total hydro-
power articles
Positive
tone
Neutral Negative Articles with visible
controversies
2002 41 26 15 0 0
2003 72 44 22 6 4
2004 39 18 18 3 1
2005 20 4 14 2 3
2006 39 20 16 3 3
2007 19 3 12 4 2
2008 16 3 9 4 2
2009 10 2 7 1 2
2010 14 6 5 3 2
2011 12 3 7 2 6
2012 8 2 4 2 1
2013 12 1 5 6 5
2014 6 3 1 2 1
2015 4 0 1 3 2
2016 21 2 10 9 12
2017 10 3 4 3 3
Total 343 140 150 53 49
(Source: Author’s coding)
74 Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making

science and environmental stories (Jia, 2007; Jia & Liu, 2009). We can also say
that media stories highlighting the presence of controversy surrounding hydro-
power may have created an atmosphere where it was possible to question the
validity of building dams.
While the media have played an essential role in facilitating the hydro-
power controversy in China, interviews (INT20161016, INT20161022,
INT20161215, INT20161219) revealed that during the Nu River and Tiger
Leaping Gorge controversies, media reporting either was initiated by the
environmental agency or received its support in terms of easy access to
comments from environmental officials, among others. Table 4.4 shows that
the leading theme of SW hydropower stories was regulatory issues.
Among the 40 SW stories framed as reporting regulatory issues, 31 nega-
tively reported hydropower projects, mostly investigative stories about the
dam developers’irregular actions or the expected negative impacts. Most of
these stories quoted either SEPA/MEP officials or environmental/public policy
experts. Comparatively, Shanghai-based XEN, as an urban tabloid based in a
metropolitan center, did not report so many regulatory stories. In the sampled
period (2002–2017), the completion of TGP and other major dams also
Table 4.3 PD’s hydropower articles between 2000 and 2017 and their attitudes
Year Total hydropower
articles
Positive
tone
Neutral Negative Articles with visible
controversies
2000 26 8 18 0 0
2001 28 5 23 0 2
2002 22 10 12 0 0
2003 41 25 14 2 4
2004 26 7 16 3 8
2005 33 11 15 7 18
2006 27 6 14 7 9
2007 27 6 19 2 7
2008 25 6 19 0 8
2009 19 8 8 3 2
2010 16 6 9 1 5
2011 26 7 15 4 7
2012 29 8 21 0 3
2013 28 16 12 0 2
2014 22 10 8 4 8
2015 25 13 10 2 5
2016 27 13 13 1 6
2017 32 17 13 2 6
Total 479 182 259 38 100
(Source: Author’s coding)
Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making 75

resulted in more positive reporting of hydropower construction’s engineering
achievements. However, XEN reported more environmental stories (as well as
stories on floods and their impacts) about hydropower, partly because
Shanghai, located in the downstream Yangtze, is more likely to be subject to
the possible environmental impacts of the upstream dams, such as salt sea
water’s incursion due to reduced Yangtze water flow caused by dams.
Among XEN’s 40 hydropower stories reporting environmental issues, 28
were negative.
Table 4.4 also reveals the alternative frames the media used in challenging
hydropower projects that were often portrayed as engineering achievements
and beneficial to social development. But in the controversial settings, the
media more frequently reported the environmental and regulatory aspects of
hydropower development.
4.3.2 Media morphology, Internet and public attention in hydropower
controversies
While producing a large number of critical stories against hydropower devel-
opments, Chinese media also demonstrated a unique morphology in such
reporting, as evidenced by the diversified authorship structure and unique
source layout. My interviews with many journalists indicated that besides a
small group of energy journalists who covered the beat of hydropower or
power industry in general, many science, environmental, cultural and business
reporters reported hydropower issues without constraints (INT20160816,
INT20160925, INT20161016, INT20160921a). A large portion of hydro-
power stories were authored by environmental reporters, who, with environ-
mental reporting increasingly considered by editors as politically safe yet
widely welcomed critical stories, enjoyed more and more salient roles within
Table 4.4 The main themes of SW and XEN’s hydropower articles
SW (2000–2017) XEN (2002–2017)
Floods, dam safety & water management 5 59
S&T 5 11
Regulatory affairs & public accountability 43 2
Politics & national interests 5 16
Immigrant affairs 7 21
History & culture 6 17
Engineering 5 112
Environment & ecology 31 40
Development & social welfare 7 5
Business & economy 11 60
(Source: Author’s coding)
76 Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making

Chinese media outlets. The situation is similar to the association between the
deployment of journalists to different topics and the media’s overall tendency
revealed by M. C. Nisbet and Huge (2006).
Another apparent morphology in Chinese media’s reporting of hydropower
is the high frequency of dissenting experts primarily in the loosely defined
environmental and ecological field. As media theme analysis in the previous
subsection revealed, most environmental and ecological stories reported
hydropower development negatively. My random analysis shows that negative
reporting was often supported by citing critical experts’views and unbalanced
treatment of anti-hydropower experts as against pro-hydropower experts. A
detailed quantitative analysis is beyond the scope of the current book, and the
availability of many dissenting experts is also a knowledge control issue to be
explored in the STS section of this chapter. What can be said here is that
through their continuous field investigation involving both journalists and
experts such as Jianghexing (Yangtze and Yellow rivers trips), activists, many
of whom had earlier been journalists like Wang Yongchen, helped mobilize a
dissenting expert network ready to equip environmental journalism challen-
ging hydropower.
Hydropower developers and supporters, by contrast, have made few effective
communication and public relation (PR) efforts, which as a result encouraged
journalists and activists not to hesitate to raise new controversial issues against
hydropower (INT20170106). In 2009, when I was a Chinese science journalist,
Lu Youmei, former president of China Three Gorges Corporation (CTGC)
who led the construction of TGP, told me that during the dam’s construction
process, an international PR firm came to the company for business but it was
rejected because the company’s management thought it was unnecessary to
make PR for a project the State was determined to accomplish. Lu later felt
very regretful of the decision, which he considered a cause leading to later
years’continued hydropower controversies in China.
An STS scholar who has long studied hydropower history in China thought
two factors might contribute to the industry’s poor reactions to hydropower
controversies. The industry, dominated by hydropower engineers, has long
defined itself as implementing the State’s will, and the industry’s primary
operation location was often in remote mountainous areas so that it saw little
necessity to communicate to the public (INT20170715).
In addition to the print media, the rising Internet in the 2000s also fueled
the spread of controversies regarding hydropower. The rise of Internet news
portals in the period has dramatically promoted the impact of sensational,
often antagonistic news stories in China (Qian & Bandurski, 2011; L. Tang &
Sampson, 2012; Xiao, 2011). My study also revealed similar patterns. The
leading news portals in China, such as Sina.com.cn, 163.com, sohu.com and
QQ.com, have all produced individual webpages/columns on each major
hydropower controversy from the debated Yangliuhu dam proposal to the
controversial Xiaonanhai project. Most leading Chinese Internet news portals
do not have the right to report news independently (L. Tang & Sampson,
Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making 77

2012). But their market dominance has enabled them to obtain free access
quickly to impactful stories from conventional media. The lack of the right to
independent reporting drove these news portals to concentrate highly
impactful print media stories into a single column, significantly increasing the
topic’s impact. “Normally people (meaning Internet users) do not care too
much about hydropower issues, but when a controversy [about hydropower]
broke out, visits to our special columns [on the hydropower controversy]
surged dramatically,”one former news portal editor told me (INT20170109).
He was echoed by another former news portal editor who said some jour-
nalists-turned environmental activist such as Wang Yongchen often shared
with her and her colleagues important news about environmental issues and
involved them in planning investigative news reporting of environmental woes
(INT20170114). Hence, activists expertly dominated the media agenda, both
online and offline. This situation is consistent with previous scholarly observa-
tions on the institutional role of the Internet in fueling China’sgreenpolitics
(G. Yang, 2005, 2009; G. Yang & Calhoun, 2007).
In addition to news portals, various types of social media also played an
essential role in fueling hydropower controversy. As discussed in Chapter 2,
this book adopts a broad definition of social media, including BBS, blogs,
Weibo and WeChat. Below is the frequency of high-impact BBS posts about
hydropower retrieved from Tianya.com, China’s largest BBS site.
BBS became popular only after 2003, so BBS posts did not share the earlier
pattern of mass media’s reporting frequency of hydropower, particularly the inten-
sified media coverage of hydropower in 2003. However, in the following years, the
rate of high-impact BBS posts gradually became similar to those of our sampled
print media, particularly between 2010 and 2011, when the strengthened imple-
mentation of EIA by MEP pushed higher media coverage of hydropower issues.
I did not systematically collect Weibo and blog posts on hydropower due to
the difficulty of data collection and analysis. As Weibo was introduced only in
2009 when the hydropower controversy had relatively faded, the lack of Weibo
data should not constitute a significant challenge to the validity of my media
data analysis. Nonetheless, my interview with a researcher on new media who
interned at a leading Chinese ENGO for her dissertation on social media and
activism revealed that Chinese ENGOs have adopted a flexible strategy to
combine the use of different social media platforms (blogs, Weibo and WeChat)
(INT20170109). Often, their opponents –local government departments and
State-owned enterprises (SOEs) –failed to adopt such a strategy.
Media reporting of hydropower controversies mobilized by activists have
significantly increased public attention to the disputes occurring in the far
southwest. The high-impact BBS posts plotted in Figure 4.2 provided partial
evidence. Another form of proof is Google search results obtained from
Google Trends (https://trends.google.com). Figure 4.3 reflects the search
trend. Figure 4.4 shows the combined hydropower reporting by the four
sampled Chinese media, whose long-term trend was graphed in Figure 4.1,
for the period starting in 2004 for comparison.
78 Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making

812
34 35
46
57
51
104 103
46
36
29
46
26 25
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Figure 4.2 High-impact BBS posts focused on hydropower (2003–2017)
Source: Data downloaded from Tianya.com by courtesy of Kai Liu on May 8, 2018
Figure 4.3 Google search trends (2004–2018)
Source: Data downloaded from Google Trends on December 25, 2018, by the author
194
123
72
96
61 74 74 64 76 63 55 42 41 56 50
0
50
100
150
200
250
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Figure 4.4 Combined hydropower reporting by four sample Chinese media (2004–
2017)
Source: Author’s collection
Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making 79

Although due to the difference in units (media reporting was calculated in
years while Google Trends data is calculated daily), the two graphs cannot be
directly compared, we can notice that they roughly share a similar pattern.
BBS posts and Google search trends seem to indicate that public reactions to
hydropower were primarily driven by, or at least correspond to the media
reporting events, though these media stories may be not only about con-
troversies. Another critical point is that Google began to withdraw from
China in 2010, but visits to it were not wholly blocked until May 2014
(Wikimedia, 2018). Therefore, Google search data can still be considered as
an analysis reference.
The above analysis demonstrates the active and institutional role the media
and Internet played in triggering and facilitating China’s hydropower con-
troversy. However, only revealing such a role is not enough for us to fully
understand the controversies of hydropower and other S&T issues. For example,
why did the media not quote orthodox experts to counterbalance activists’
arguments against hydropower in their controversial reporting? Why, as we
will indicate in the later chapters in this book, did the media treat different
controversial topics differently?
It is necessary to further explore these issues both through the social move-
ment theory framework and through STS-oriented theories. In the next section, I
will examine the components of social movement theories –particularly of
political process theory and FA framework –underlying China’s hydropower
controversies. Following that, STS concepts such as knowledge-control regime
(Hilgartner, 2017), sociotechnical imaginaries (Jasanoff& Kim, 2013, 2015) and
civic epistemology (Jasanoff,2011b)willbeprobed.
4.4 Social movement interpretation of hydropower controversy
Although the debate on dam building in China was covered in professional
terms and concerns, a political dimension is visible during the controversy. In
the early dispute on TGP, dissenters took advantage of the newly opened
political opportunity structure (Meyer & Minkoff, 2004) created by China’s
liberalizing reform in the 1980s while ENGOs’struggles against the south-
western hydropower projects were linked to the rise of the government’s
environmental protection agencies. When fighting the plan to build dams, the
disobedient intellectuals and activists consciously or unconsciously attempted
to expand the privileged political freedom in S&T issues and the legitimacy of
civil society.
4.4.1 Examining political opportunity structure for TGP debates
Hot debate against the TGP broke out in the mid-1980s among CPPCC
members. Three books published during the debate –Treatises on Macro
Policymaking on the Three Gorges Project (F. Tian et al., 1987), Second
Collection of Treatises on Macro Policymaking on the Three Gorges Project
80 Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making

(F. Tian, 1989) and Yangtze, Yangtze: Debates on the Three Gorges Project
(Q. Dai, 1989) are the main data sources used in this book. Wordings of the
articles reflected the emerging political opportunity structure –an atmo-
sphere to encourage academic debates as a way to move toward political
democracy –and actors’desire to utilize the opportunity.
In his preface to the first book, Zhou Peiyuan (1902–1993), former Peking
University president and a leading physicist, argued that the debates on TGP
were to implement and expand the Party’s encouragement of scientificpolicy-
making. Zhou’s“political correctness”was shared by nearly all authors of the
three books who appealed for scientification and democratization of policy-
making about TGP. Sun Yueqi (1893–1995), a former top official of Kuo-
mintang government in charge of the mining industry who was long
marginalized after he surrendered to the communist government in 1949, told a
journalist whom I interviewed, “it is time to (publicly) say something. TGP
[debate] is where I should be able to speak safely.”(INT20161208a)
It is unfair to say that the authors argued against TGP simply for the sake
of free speech. They demonstrated meaningful concerns about the sediment of
sandstone (the main concern of Cornell-trained Huang), the insufficiency of
TGP in flood prevention (particularly its role in preventing metropolitan
Wuhan from flooding), the funding shortage, the major challenge to relocate
the 1 million residents whose homes were to be flooded by rising Yangtze water
level, and the project’s impact on other hydropower projects which had to be
suspended for the shortage of funding due to TGP’s huge investment. Envir-
onmental and ecological impacts, the main arguments against hydropower
projects in later controversies were mentioned (F. Guo, 1987; Hou, 1987) but
were not taken as the main issue during the debate.
Although the media did not widely report the 1980s’TGP debates, they
indeed played a crucial role in disseminating the opinions of dissenting scholars.
The publication notes of the second Treatises claimed that 26 national and
international media outlets had reported the controversy. One senior journalist
recalled that when she had a chance to attend a CPPCC meeting discussing
TGP, she and peer journalists were enthusiastically welcomed with applause
(INT20161102).
Journalists’effort to cover the TGP debate itself was a signal of the increasingly
liberalizing sociopolitical environment, which is also part of the political oppor-
tunity structure. A journalist said she was involved in reporting TGP because,
since the mid-1980s, she had opened a column in her news outlet to interview one
or two intellectuals with fresh ideas per week. Targeted interviewees were often
obtained through a snowballing recommendation. Gradually her interviewees
involved more and more people challenging the TGP plan (INT20161208a).
The Chinese government took a very tolerant stance at the early stage of
the debate, which can be considered another sign of political opportunity in
such an authoritarian regime. The Central Propaganda Department, the
supreme master for media censorship, allowed professional discussions on
TGP at CPPCC and in professional journals, but disfavored such debates in
Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making 81

the mass media (B. Zhang, 2011). During the four years of debates, Science
Daily (which later became China Science Daily, our sampled media outlet)
and Guangming Daily (mainly covering intellectuals), as well as professional
journals like Journal of Dialectics of Nature published by Chinese Academy
of Sciences (CAS) and Science and Technology Review published by China
Association for Science and Technology (CAST), were actively involved in
publishing debating articles.
To summarize, we find that even though the Chinese media had not mar-
ched toward marketization in the 1980s –which many scholars believed was
linked to a certain degree of political freedom (Price, Rozumilowicz & Ver-
hulst, 2003; Shirt, 2011) –they became the agents to facilitate controversies,
frame the justifiable features of the anti-TGP campaign and mobilize support.
The involvement of publications like Journal of Dialectics of Nature repre-
sented another early sign of China’s S&T controversies –the presence of
socially active STS scholars in debates regarding S&T.
4.4.2 Southwestern dam debates and fragmented authoritarianism
The TGP controversy can be considered a result of the emerging political
opportunity structure created by China’s liberalization trend in the 1980s.
Although the political liberalization trend was halted due to the 1989 Tia-
nanmen Square bloody clampdown, the rapid economic progress continued to
fuel social and political diversification, fueling bureaucratic fragmentation,
the very basis for the FA framework.
As discussed in the introductory chapter, the FA framework can be loosely
considered part of the political opportunity structure. Mertha (2008) listed a
group of governmental organizations whose interests or goals conflicted with
hydropower developers and their official sponsors like NDRC and the Minis-
try of Water Resources (MWR, which was the Ministry of Water Resources
and Electricity during the 1980s’TGP debate). These agencies included SEPA
and its updated version MEP, the Ministry of Construction in charge of
urban water supplies, and State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH),
as many cultural and historical relics could be overwhelmed by dams.
In the cases of China’s southwestern hydropower controversies, what is in
conflict is not only jurisdictions of agencies but also their institutional mis-
sions. This conflict can be seen in the Nu River controversy. The breakout
point was the abovementioned SEPA meeting on September 3, 2003, which
produced the PD article critical of Nu River hydropower development. It is
interesting to note that the PD story did not mention the SEPA seminar,
apparently to avoid an impression of bureaucratic conflicts.
“In nearly every hydropower controversy, MEP was behind ENGOs and
the media. In Chinese political regime, it is inconvenient for one agency to
challenge another and State-owned conglomerates,”one hydropower industry
expert said (INT20170106), an opinion shared by another interviewee closely
linked to the industry (INT20161229).
82 Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making

While bureaucratic fragmentation constitutes a political opportunity struc-
ture for triggering controversy, societal fragmentation has contributed to the
more prominent and more sustainable debates. During the Nu River con-
troversy, few journalists visited the planned dam-building site in Nu River
(INT20161215, INT20160816, INT20161016), so they heavily relied on
experts critical of hydropower development to produce their stories. After
initial media coverage of the Nu controversy, Wang collected signatures from
over 50 public figures at a national cultural study conference held in October
in a petition to preserve the Nu River, facilitating another wave of media
reporting. Journalists’reliance on experts for the authority and legitimacy of
their reporting has been well documented (Albæk, 2011) and sympathizing
experts were a primary source of anti-establishment science controversies
including those in hydropower (McCormick, 2006, 2007a). Many of the
experts interviewed by journalists, such as He Daming, an ecology professor
at Yunnan University, attended the SEPA September 2003 seminar on Nu
River preservation.
Yu Xiaogang, the founder of Yunnan-based ENGO Green Watershed and
then a research associate at Yunnan provincial academy of social sciences,
submitted a policy report on the poverty and hardship of hydropower-relo-
cated residents based on his dissertation field study through Yunnan pro-
vincial branch of Xinhua Agency
1
. The official acknowledgment of Yu’s
report led Yunnan provincial academy of social sciences to pay great impor-
tance to Yu’s research and allow him to set up a self-funded institute, the
precursor to Green Watershed, within the academy (INT20161225).
Some activists admitted that SEPA/MEP officials supported their actions
while others denied they were simply a proxy agent of the government agency.
“Some SEPA officials would come to support our actions because Pan Yue
(then deputy administrator of SEPA who was a former environmental jour-
nalist) was friendly to ENGOs in his effort to launch the so-called Environ-
mental Governance Storm. This tone made the rank-and-file officials tend to
work with ENGOs.”(INT20170515)
Others took advantage of the accommodating institutions too. After the
media launched the anti-hydropower campaign regarding the Nu River, they
reportedly managed to submit a signed petition to Premier Wen Jiabao
through a retired air force general who was an environmental volunteer.
Interviews suggested the activists sent similar reports or petitions through
environmentally conscious leaders of the government’s think tanks
(INT20161215), quite similar to Teets’(2018) finding that ENGOs utilized
their sponsoring organizations as a policy petition channel.
Most activists I interviewed could find internal channels to submit petitions
to senior leaders at the central government.
2
These channels include official
news outlets such as Xinhua Agency and the People’s Daily and their local
branches, state-affiliated think tanks such as the academies of social sciences
at various levels, research institutions such as CAS, senior scientists such as
CAS/Chinese Academy of Engineering members, science management bodies
Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making 83

such as China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), and some pri-
vileged academic societies such as the old scientists’association (X. Zhu, 2013)
(INT20161221). The diversified channels that activists can utilize to access to
the central leadership are evidence that the regime was fragmented in ways that
accommodated China’s rising environmental activism, or we can consider them
as a political opportunity structure favoring a specifictypeofactivism.
Due to China’s authoritarian regime, the annual plenary meetings of NPC,
the Chinese legislature and CPPCC are usually occasions when various elites
express their political loyalty to the top leadership and their policy agenda,
but these events also provide a forum for dissenting professionals to show
their complaints and protests against policy, governance and technical issues
(Saich, 2011). Table 4.5 shows critical CPPCC proposals appearing at annual
plenary meetings of CPPCC (held in March each year) and other CPPCC
events since the 2000s.
Discussions at CPPCC’s annual plenary meetings, or occasionally NPC,
attract media attention more easily and legitimate the media’s reporting of con-
troversial issues. Hydropower thus became a target for such technical criticism.
4.4.3 Institutions and experts fueling hydropower controversies
In addition to bureaucratic fragmentation, rising ENGOs and the media,
other social actors also played facilitating roles underlying hydropower con-
troversies. International organizations, such as UNESCO, International
Rivers, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Oxfam, Conservation International and
The Nature Conservancy (TNC), are such players. International ENGOs’role
in transnational anti-dam movements has been well recorded (Khagram,
2004; Lee, 2013b; McCormick, 2010). Most domestic activists I interviewed
admitted they had received various types of funding from international char-
ity groups or their foreign counterparts (INT20170310). Together with fund-
ing, international ENGOs were significant sources of expertise needed by
their Chinese counterparts. International ENGOs were also suppliers of
knowledge to Chinese government officials. This situation may explain the
fact that even some highly antagonist foreign NGOs like Greenpeace can be
allowed to have a legal presence in China (Teets, 2013).
International and domestic expertsand scientists, particularly those who study
biodiversity, fishing resources, sediments, dams’geological impacts, and reloca-
tion of impacted residents, can be considered another element influencing
hydropower debates. Brødsgaard (2017) and Hansen (2017a) argued that scien-
tists should be regarded as a central component of the FA framework. For
example, Cao Wenxuan, a renowned CAS academician famous for his sys-
tematic studies on Chinese carp, was the primary opponent of the proposed
Xiaonanhai dam in Chongqing (INT20161227).
With coordination by ENGOs, environmental and ecological research
organizations and scientists were widely mobilized against dam building.
Since the debut of the southwest anti-hydropower movement in Dujiangyan,
84 Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making

Table 4.5 Some of CPPCC or NPC’s actions against hydropower since 2003
Year Details
May 2004 In May 2004, Vice-chairman of CPPCC Li Meng led a delegation to
inspect environmental and ecological protection in TGP and lower
Jinsha River.
Mar. 2005 CPPCC members and a senior scientist at the CAS Institute of Geo-
graphy and Natural Resources Liang Jiyang submitted a proposal to
criticize that hydropower development negatively impacted the health of
Chinese rivers.
Mar. 2007 Six CPPCC members submitted a proposal and talked with the media
on disordered hydropower development.
Aug. 2007 CPPCC formed a hydropower inspection team to investigate the impact
of small hydropower projects.
Sept. 2008 Shao Bingren, deputy director of CPPCC’s environmental committee,
claimed the overdevelopment of hydropower in upper Yangtze River
and organized a team to investigate.
Mar. 2009 CPPCC members discussed the negative aspects of hydropower devel-
opment and its exclusion from a State economic boosting plan (with a
total investment of 4 trillion yuan) to fight the financial crisis.
Jun. 2009 SEPA suspended two hydropower projects for their failure to pass EIA.
CPPCC organized a delegation to investigate.
Mar. 2010 CPPCC members submitted a proposal to protect wetlands against
hydropower development.
Mar. 2011 CPPCC members submitted a proposal to protect rural water facilities
(appealing for the State to invest more money in rural water facilities,
which would reduce the investment in hydropower developments).
Mar. 2012 CPPCC members submitted a proposal to strengthen water resource
management (from disordered storage of water by hydropower projects).
Mar. 2012 CPPCC members submitted a proposal, appealing to abolish the con-
struction plan of Xiaonanhai hydropower station.
Mar. 2013 CPPCC members submitted a proposal, appealing to strengthen water
management of hydropower and hydraulic reservoirs.
May 2013 Shao Bingren, deputy director of CPPCC’s environmental committee,
stressed at a CPPCC standing committee meeting that hydropower
development must be scientifically planned.
Jun. 2013 Xie Qingsheng, a CPPCC standing member, appealed to have special
legislation on Yangtze River hydropower development.
Jul. 2013 Xie Qingsheng, a CPPCC standing member, led a delegation to inspect
upper Yangtze hydropower developments and appealed that they must
be reasonably planned.
Mar. 2014 CPPCC members submitted a proposal, suggesting that the over-
development of hydropower and other new energies will increase the
abandoning electricity produced from these sustainable sources.
Mar. 2014 CPPCC members mainly from Yunnan Province submitted a proposal,
appealing to restart Nu River hydropower development. Other members
bitterly criticized the plan.
(Continued)
Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making 85

the Nu River and Tiger Leaping Gorge, convening dissenting environmental,
cultural conservation and animal protection experts to organize seminars
widely attended by journalists had become the main tactic to question dam
building. Through these seminars, experts’views were unified to an anti-dam
tone which was quickly amplified by the media.
Following these earlier events, Wang Yongchen and her Green Earth Volunteers
organized numerous Yangtze and Yellow river journalist inspections (jianghexing)
(annual events for more than 15 years), each of which was headed and joined by
environmental, geological and animal protection experts. A mobilization network
of activists-experts-journalists-environmental officials provided firm and consistent
public opinion pressure against the hydropower side. Like the earlier experts’
seminar that raised anti-dam activism in Dujiangyan, Nujiang and Tiger Leaping
Gorge, many of the subsequent journalists’inspections had one or two con-
centrated targets, resulting in intense pressure on hydropower developers.
Hydropower developers and supporters, as mentioned above, have made
few effective counterattacks. Hence, an alliance composing of the fragmented
bureaucratic agencies, local and international ENGOs, active academics and
the media was formed. Fueled by the institutional accommodation of acti-
vism caused by China’s social and economic transformation, the alliance
outweighed the communication of the apprehensive hydropower industry and
its weak local government allies, at least in the battle to win public opinions,
Year Details
Mar. 2015 CPPCC members submitted a proposal, appealing to keep the original
faces of Nujiang from hydropower development.
Mar. 2015 CPPCC members submitted a proposal, appealing to strengthen legal
stipulation of wetland protection (including protecting wetlands from
losing water to hydropower facilities).
Mar. 2016 The CPPCC members from China Democratic Progress Party submitted
a proposal, appealing to pay attention to the 3.7 million dam refugees
who were still in poverty.
Mar. 2016 CPPCC members discussed the policies to clear (many illegal) small
hydropower facilities in Nu River.
Jun. 2016 CPPCC members made an inspection delegation to upper Yangtze
River against the overdevelopment of hydropower.
Mar. 2017 CPPCC members submitted a proposal, appealing to strengthen water
resource management in the Yangtze River basin.
Mar. 2018 CPPCC members submitted a proposal, appealing to strengthen wet-
land protection in upper Yangtze River.
Mar. 2018 CPPCC members in different regions jointly appealed to strengthen the
management of smaller hydropower facilities, after the National Audit
Office concluded in an audit report that small hydropower facilities have
cut out water flows of 333 rivers in China.
(Sources: Collected by the author from the media reporting and CPPCC website)
Table 4.5 (Cont.)
86 Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making

leading to everlasting controversies surrounding hydropower development,
and often forcing the latter to suspend the targeted projects.
3.4.4 Understanding hydropower controversies with social movement theories
In this subsection, I made a table to link major hydropower disputes with
features suggested by social movement theories. Based on the table, I sum-
marized generic factors contributing to these disputes.
Per Table 4.6, we can make several observations. First, these controversies
can be understood through the FA framework and political process theories.
They became controversial not merely because of conflicting scientific claims,
but because they involved many political actors, particularly the government
agencies, ENGOs and the mass media.
Second, based on the involvement of these actors, the outcomes, develop-
ment process and consequences of the controversies are different. For exam-
ple, the hydropower EIA (environmental impact assessment) storm in Jinsha
River (shown in the table) only involved SEPA and the hydropower industry
with the media only playing a supplemented role, so that the solution came
fast and eventually the resistance to the dams in question was cleared.
Third, although both the FA framework and political process theory have a
durable explanatory power to analyze China’s hydropower controversies, they
have a different focus. The FA framework is superb in exploring micro-poli-
tical structures while the political opportunity structure can cover some macro
trends and environment for actors to seek justification.
But despite the FA framework and political process theory’s explanatory
power, they are insufficient in fully explaining S&T controversies, for both
neglect the role of knowledge, how people use their knowledge, and sometimes
the perceptual background on which actors rely to exert their influence. The next
section of this chapter will examine the interaction between knowledge, power
and institutional/structural issues in China’s hydropower controversies. Then, I
will briefly analyze the political implications of the controversies.
4.5 Conceptualizing hydropower debates in the STS landscape
While the previous sections examined communication and social movement
components of China’s hydropower controversies, it is necessary to push the
investigation further to understand how hydropower as an S&T issue may
make the controversies different from a typical social movement case such as
a peasant uprising or a worker’s strike. As an S&T issue, hydropower has been
naturally linked to knowledge to justify relevant actions or mobilize allies.
4.5.1 Knowledge contention and civic epistemology in hydropower controversies
Opponents in the TGP debate in the 1980s included several hydraulic and sedi-
ment authorities such as Huang Wanli (1911–2001), Lu Qinkan (1911–2011)
Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making 87

Table 4.6 Hydropower controversies through the lens of social movement theories
Controversy Description Main actors FA elements Political opportu-
nity structure
Activism frame/
media discourse
Mobilization
Yangliuhu
Dam protest
In 2003, Dujiangyan
Administration’s plan
to build Yangliuhu
dam was abandoned
amid loud protests and
media exposure due to
its location close to a
UNESCO World
Heritage Site.
Supporters:
Dujiangyan Admin-
istration
Opponents: Budding
ENGOs; the media;
cultural experts;
UNESCO China
office; Dujiangyan
municipal
government
High.
Other government
agencies and social
forces joined
hands to oppose
the project. The
local government
did not actively
support the
project.
Opposing experts
had chances to
appeal publicly;
Media began to
exert significant
pressure; ENGO
became
organizers.
The campaign
was framed as
preserving World
Heritage and
Chinese tradition
rather than a
civil society
protest.
Some 180
media outlets
reported the
controversy.
Journalists-
oriented acti-
vists were most
important
mobilizers.
Tiger Leap-
ing Gorge
dam contest
In 2004, the plan to
construct a dam near
Tiger Leaping Gorge
in Jinsha River was
suspended. Supporters
claimed the dam was
crucial to adjust water
supplies to down-
stream dam including
TGP. Opponents
claimed it will destroy
UNESCO’s heritage
site “Three Parallel
Rivers of Yunnan Pro-
tected Areas”and
flood 100,000 ethnic
minority villagers.
Supporters: Hydro-
power industry par-
ticularly Huaneng
Group; Yunnan
provincial govern-
ment; MWR;
NDRC
Opponents: Budding
ENGOs; the media;
cultural experts;
UNESCO China
office; SEPA; Min-
istry of Construc-
tion; State Ethnic
Affairs Commission
High.
Except for the
hydropower indus-
try and its govern-
ing bodies, the
project upset
nearly all other
relevant ministries
and their local
branches, from
environment and
culture to water
supplies and ethnic
minority
management.
Dam building
plan had to be
published to col-
lect opinions;
SEPA wanted
authority for
EIA; Construc-
tion ministry was
active in main-
taining world
heritage; Ethnic
minority rights
are politically
sensitive in
China.
The campaign
was framed as
preserving World
Heritage and
preserving ethnic
minorities. Cul-
tural and tourism
values were high-
lighted to pro-
mote public
support. SEPA’s
role was
highlighted.
Media pro-
duced extensive
critical report-
ing, with
ENGOs jointly
organizing the
media report-
ing. This cam-
paign involved
SEPA but did
not mobilize
local
communities.
88 Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making

Controversy Description Main actors FA elements Political opportu-
nity structure
Activism frame/
media discourse
Mobilization
Jinsha River
EIA (envir-
onmental
impact
assessment)
storm
In 2004 and 2009,
SEPA/MEP halted two
dams which had not
received final EIA
approval from the
agency. Media widely
reported SEPA/MEP’s
policy actions. The
halted dams eventually
went ahead after delays
and EIA approvals.
Supporters: Hydro-
power industry,
particularly Hua-
neng Group and
CTGC; Yunnan
provincial govern-
ment
Opponents: SEPA/
MEP; the media
Moderate.
SEPA was eager to
exert its authority
in EIA manage-
ment. It utilized
media forces to
increase policy
effect.
SEPA as a new
government
agency was keen
to exert its power
and maintain its
jurisdiction. No
other agency was
involved.
The campaign
was framed as a
responsible
agency rightfully
implementing its
public power
against greedy
and irregular
business players.
Only the media
was mobilized
to report the
governance
issue. However,
media espe-
cially picked up
hydropower
projects to
report among
the SEPA/MEP
list of dozens of
projects failing
to pass EIA.
Xiaonanhai
Dam contest
From 2009 to 2015,
the Chongqing gov-
ernment forcefully
advanced the proposed
Xiaonanhai dam,
located within the fish
protection zone.
ENGOs and a limited
number of media out-
lets actively joined and
reported the resistance.
Supporters argued a
State Council plan
prescribed the dam
site before the fish
protection zone.
ENGOs unsuccessfully
sued government
agencies.
Supporters:
Chongqing Munici-
pal government.
Hydropower indus-
try was not keen on
the project due to
low profitability
Opponents: Minis-
try of Agriculture;
SEPA/MEP;
ENGOs; the media;
fish biologists and
environmental sci-
entists; lawyers;
WWF; Changjiang
Water Resources
Commission
Moderate to high.
The project initially
focused on the ten-
sion between regio-
nal development
and environmental
protection. SEPA
and MOA were
initially not
actively involved.
ENGOs were very
active, but their
policy lobby effect
was limited. A law-
suit can be adopted
as a resistance
weapon but with
limited impact. The
central
BythetimeXiao-
nanhai con-
troversy broke
out, ENGOs had
won several bat-
tles against hydro-
power develop-
ment and were
more confident,
organized, and
seemingly resour-
ceful in knowl-
edge and law
tools. But the
bureaucratic frag-
mentation was not
extensive due to
Bo’sgreater
power.
The campaign
was mainly
framed as an
environmental
fight rather than
regulatory. Only
a limited number
with environ-
mental con-
sciousness or
critical reporting
tradition were
involved. The
media reporting
was very
cautious.
The con-
troversy was
ultimately elite
strife without
any mass
mobilization.
The court
battle, however,
attracted some
remote sup-
ports to
ENGOs but
not active.
(Continued)
Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making 89

Controversy Description Main actors FA elements Political opportu-
nity structure
Activism frame/
media discourse
Mobilization
WWF supported the
opposition by working
out fish ecology
reports. The project
was eventually aban-
doned after Bo Xilai’s
fall.
element for suc-
cessful resistance
was the fall of Bo
Xilai, Chongqing
Party Secretary
and a powerful
rival to Xi Jinxing.
Poyang Lake
water facility
controversy
Jiangxi provincial gov-
ernment’s proposal to
build a weir to prevent
Poyang Lake from
losing water to the
Yangtze was actively
rejected by ENGOs,
arguing the project
will destroy lake ecol-
ogy, endangering bird
and fish species. Acti-
vists also argued
against an engineering
solution to the water
shortage crisis.
Supporters: Jiangxi
provincial govern-
ment
Opponents: New
generation of
ENGOs featured,
focused on wild
animal protection.
Limited experts;
limited number of
the media; WWF
Low.
No bureaucratic
supporters behind
activists. Media’s
involvement was
limited.
But Jiangxi pro-
vincial government
does not have
many supporters
in central govern-
ment. Hydropower
industry is passive.
Xi Jinxing
appealed Yangtze
ecology protec-
tion and opposed
significant devel-
opment in the
Yangtze.
However, Jiangxi
government used
it to justify its
project.
Framed as a
grassroots appeal
to seek an inte-
grated environ-
mental solution.
Only a limited
number of media
outlets reported
the controversy.
It did not
become a nation-
ally hot media
event.
Mobilization
through social
media and new
NGO. No gov-
ernment
agency was
successfully
lobbied.
(Sources: Summarized by the author)
Table 4.6 (Cont.)
90 Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making

and Fang Zongdai (1911–1991), cherished as founders of China’smodern
hydraulic engineering or sediment science. By contrast, nearly all activists
involved in the southwestern hydropower controversies lacked professional
training in hydraulic science or hydroengineering. However, they did not fear to
debate with hydropower experts because they successfully extended the focus of
debate to environment, ecology and resident resettlement.
Yang Yong, the founder of ENGO Hengduan Mountain Society and an
anti-dam environmentalist, said he made a month-long field inspection every
year to report the factual water flow and geological situation and then pro-
vided the knowledge to other activists to corroborate their counterarguments
against official figures cited in the hydropower facilities’feasibility reports
(INT20161221). Fan Xiao, the former chief engineer at the Sichuan Geology
and Mineral Bureau in Chengdu, actively raised the issue of dams triggering
earthquakes, several years before the Wenchuan Earthquake (INT20161222).
Yu Xiaogang focused on hydropower governance, the impact of hydropower
projects on local communities, and residents’participation in hydropower
policymaking (INT2016125). Yu also introduced to China the World
Commission on Dams (WCD) report Dams and Development: A New Fra-
mework for Decision-Making (2000), a classic document widely cited by
worldwide activists in their struggle against dam construction.
Other activists, particularly those from more established Chinese ENGOs,
avoided debate using S&T terms even though initially they framed their
rejection of dams as scientific debates. Instead, “we did not stress science. We
debated with hydropower developers on regulatory issues,”said a former head
of an established Chinese ENGO (INT20170515). The regulatory issues he
mentioned mainly referred to the EIA procedure governed by SEPA/MEP
(INT20161120).
In addition to the WCD report, various alternative knowledges outside
mainstream hydraulic scholarship/engineering, such as hydropower projects’
environmental, ecological and geological impacts, fish data monitored by
MOA’s surveillance network and WWF’sfield trips, resident relocation and
ethnic minority groups’specific cultural heritage were also distributed among
activist groups, dissenting experts and SEPA/MEP. Most of these bodies of
knowledge were outside orthodox hydraulic science and engineering scholar-
ship, but they were used to enrich the argumentation against hydropower
development’s benefits and even to expand reviewing perspectives adopted in
EIAs. For example, after the years-long Xiaonanhai controversy focused on
whether dam construction would jeopardize the fish protection zone, MEP
finally denied in 2015 the dam’s EIA based on updated criteria taking into
account the impact on fish (INT20161227).
This knowledge contention can be understood in terms of civic epistemol-
ogy, which “refers to these culturally specific, historically and politically
grounded, public knowledge-ways”(Jasanoff2011b, p. 249). Although the
hydropower sector was dominant in hydraulic engineering knowledge and the
economic side of dams, activists did not challenge dam building from these
Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making 91

perspectives. Rather, they contested the knowledge of dams’environmental
and social impacts, which activists framed as more relevant public knowledge.
Following evidence presented above, one may find that “politically grounded”
is also a necessary condition, because without a sponsoring agency and/or
CPPCC, the public knowledge-ways to produce and distribute alternative
knowledge were hardly possible during the hydropower controversies.
Another component of civic epistemology “historically grounded public
knowledge-ways”raises the necessity of examining the concept of national
sociotechnical imaginaries, an imagination with a role in shaping a nation’s
history and future (Jasanoff& Kim, 2009). It seems that the hydropower
sector failed to fully enjoy the benefits of positive national sociotechnical
imaginaries which it had struggled to create. Since the 1980s, official Chinese
media ceaselessly reported the engineering advances of hydropower construc-
tion, framing it as the means to promote development. Table 4.7 summarizes
the main themes of the PD’s coverage of hydropower in the 1980s and 1990s.
For the period, PD is the only newspaper available for analysis.
However, as environmental awareness continued togrow in the 2000s, activists
were primarily dedicated to toppling the nation’s dominant developmentalism
(Lee, 2014), rejecting the sociotechnical imaginaries of the engineering solution
to managing water and the political control and corruption associated with this
solution. “Chinese ENGOs’concentration in anti-hydropower in the early 21st
century was because dams can provide a black-and-white symbol for social
mobilization. The regime’s corruption associated with dam building was also a
factor leading to broad public participation in the [anti-dam] movement by
ENGO members,”said a former ENGO leader (INT20170515). SEPA/MEP,
the environmental agency, no doubt helped strengthen the imaginaries unfa-
vorable to hydropower.
Table 4.7 Themes of the People’s Daily hydropower articles between 1980–1999
1980–1989 1990–1999
Engineering 153 144
Development 152 37
Economy and business 37 44
Politics & national interests 23 18
Floods, dam safety & water management 10 5
Environment / ecology 7 15
Science 2 6
History and culture 1 2
Regulatory 1 0
Immigrant issues 0 3
Total 386 274
(Source: Collected and coded by the author)
92 Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making

Knowledge becomes knowledge not only because it is created by scientists
and other “qualified”producers but also because people and policymakers
accept it in concrete settings with necessary imaginaries. Now we can say
certain knowledge become legitimate by the socially constructed qualified
knowledge community, but this does not mean other knowledge considered
illegitimate or excluded by this community does not count. Rather, adoption,
legitimacy and imaginaries in the policymaking setting are not solely decided
by the “qualified knowledge community”but by relevant agencies whose
political authority can empower them with the privilege of knowledge selec-
tion. Relevant agencies also empower or authorize activists or dissenting
experts to produce and distribute alternative knowledge. In this sense, Chinese
hydropower controversy has enriched our understanding of the concept of
civic epistemology.
4.5.2 Knowledge-control regimes and disintegrated knowledge making
While people can have their own “public knowledge-ways,”whether such
public knowledge-ways can be legitimately and saliently adopted to challenge
orthodox knowledge supported by the state (at least by relevant government
agencies) and industry relies on the level of social and epistemic control the
orthodox side can realize. Hilgartner’s (2017) “knowledge-control regime,”
which refers to “a sociotechnical arrangement that constitutes categories of
agents, spaces, objects and relationships among them in a manner that allo-
cates entitlements and burdens pertaining to knowledge”(2017, p. 9) can be a
powerful explanatory tool, though the concept has not been tested in public
science controversies since its debut.
According to Hilgartner (2017, p. 12), for specific knowledge, while multiple
knowledge-control regimes are relevant, which can control objects, jurisdiction
and relationships, there is a “governing frame,”which promotes an official
viewpoint that endows agents with specific entitlements and burdens pertaining
to other agents or to control over spaces, objects and actions. In line with this
idea, we can suggest that due to continued and concentrated controversies, the
hydropower sector may suffer a weak governing frame inthepublicsphereto
control knowledge production, distribution and acceptance, at least in the
specificfields closely connected to debates. The suffering of the hydropower
sector may both result from political factors that I discussed in the previous
section (e.g., FA reduces hydropower supporters’control over jurisdiction)
and be produced by the nature of the specific type of knowledge. In this case,
it is loosely defined environmental sciences.
During my interview with an industry expert, he repeatedly stressed, by
citing new literature, that ecology should be adapted rather than stationary,
only highlighting the unalterable nature. Hence, ecologists should consider the
benefits dams have brought to the ecosystem rather than merely insisting on
the value of the so-called authenticity of original biodiversity (INT20170106).
So, a representative of the dominant mainstream/orthodox hydropower
Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making 93

knowledge became an outsider of another type of expertise, appealing to the
latter to make appropriate adjustment. Hence, when the “unadjusted”ecology
becomes a necessary part of the knowledge to support environmental assessment
policies and implementation, partly through the channels created and expanded
by anti-dam activists, the strength of orthodox hydropower knowledge as reflec-
ted in the industry plan drafting made by NDRC/NEA is weakened in the EIA
policy-making and implementation process.
By nature, all types of knowledge should have the same problem, but, in
accordance with the trading zone metaphor (Galison, 1997), there are many
types of “harmonized”knowledge in which the potentially differentiating or
even conflicting elements/paradigms may have reached consensus through
negotiations and/or interest exchange. However, data collected in this book
shows that when appearing in the public sphere, environmental, ecological,
fishery and agricultural experts continuously challenged dams. This knowledge
contention can be seen in Table 4.8, which outlines themes of hydropower in
the four sampled Chinese media and the summative statistics of associated
article attitudes and whether controversial/debatable contents are visible in
these articles.
Per Table 4.8, among all themes, regulatory and environmental/ecological
themes see the two highest association of negative media articles. The two
types of articles also show the highest ratio of negatively reported media
stories. The high percentage of negative reporting and visible controversies in
environmentally-framed stories indicate that the hydropower sector had a low
capacity to control knowledge of this type (environment, ecology, fish protec-
tion, sedimentation, and so on). Comparatively, stories with an engineering
theme had the lowest rate of negative reporting and the second lowest percen-
tage of visible controversies, representing that the hydropower sector had a
much stronger control in this type of knowledge. The media analyses show that
at least in the public sphere, the orthodox hydropower knowledge community
cannot rein in the environmental sector in their effort to promote hydropower
development.
This failure may reflect the fact that the hydropower sector’soriginal“tech-
nology complex,”using the terminology of Pietz (2015), has failed to integrate
modern environmental, ecological and biological sciences adequately. In the
sense of knowledge-control regimes, besides hydropower sector’sinsufficient jur-
isdiction control due to bureaucratic fragmentation, this is also related to the
sector’s failure to control space or objects due to most dams and reservoirs’
normally open geographical conditions that make environmental and ecological
impact data easily accessible even for ordinary external researchers.
On the other hand, due to China’s environmental woes, ecological and
environmental sciences are enjoying an increasingly privileged status in the
country, and environmental knowledge production itself is connected with
activism, as the environmental movements showed in the West decades ago
(Eyerman & Jamison, 1989). The increasingly salience and privilege of envir-
onmental knowledge makes the field a fertile land in producing public figures,
94 Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making

Table 4.8 Main themes of the four sampled media’s hydropower articles, article attitude, visibility of controversies and their percentage
Issue Frame Total Positive Neutral Negative Visible
controversy
Ratio of visible
controversy / Total
number
Ratio of negative
reporting / Total
number
Public accountability &
regulatory 68 3 14 51 63 93% 75%
Environment / ecology 208 31 71 106 165 79% 51%
Science and technology 91 59 24 8 43 47% 9%
History & culture 37 11 22 4 17 46% 11%
Politics & national interests 73 45 22 6 23 32% 8%
Immigrant 41 14 20 7 10 24% 17%
Floods, dam safety & water
management 107 22 64 21 24 22% 20%
Economics and business 182 93 80 9 24 13% 5%
Development 110 75 33 2 12 11% 2%
Engineering 344 181 162 1 18 5% 0%
(Source: Collected and coded by author. PD and SW from 2000, XEN from 2002 and CSD from 2003)
Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making 95

ranging from vice environmental minister Pan Yue (currently executive vice
president of the Central Academy of Socialism in Beijing) to various anti-dam
public intellectuals. Table 4.9 summarizes some of the prominent public
intellectuals (primarily through the media), not including professional acti-
vists mentioned above, against hydropower in chronological order.
The above table shows that anti-hydropower experts were dispersed across
fields such as environment, ecology, fishery and seismology. Although many
of them were not consistent anti-dam activists, their identity and expertise
were utilized by ENGOs and other activists to form a strategic front against
hydropower developments periodically.
Scientists, scholars and experts are not the only group of people regularly
and habitually questioning the knowledge of hydropower. Government agen-
cies such as SEPA/MEP and MOA are these actors too. But unlike the ana-
lysis suggested by political frameworks such as FA, the knowledge-control
regime analysis shows that these agencies compete with hydropower devel-
opers and their government sponsors (NDRC, MWS and NEA) not just for
jurisdictional power, but also over knowledge issues.
For example, a hydropower industry expert pointed out that implementing
EIA is only part of the story for SEPA/MEP to always “trouble”hydropower
industry. “MEP and hydropower industry had a basic divergence. A major
indicator to evaluate MEP’s work achievements is to reduce chemical oxygen
demand (COD). Building dams will certainly reduce water flow speed and
increase COD”(INT20170106).
The claim was not confirmed by people linked to or familiar with SEPA/
MEP, but the agency’seffort to collect, learn, organize and distribute knowl-
edge that can resist hydropower is apparent. After SEPA officials learned
about the WCD report from Yu Xiaogang in 2003, the agency invited him to
Beijing to give its staffa detailed presentation on the report and its possible
application in China and commissioned him to translate the WCD report. Yu
was also invited to brief SEPA officials at its internal workshops about the
report, which, for quite a long period, became a knowledge weapon for var-
ious individuals and organizations questioning dams (INT20161225).
According to Hilgartner (2017, p. 9), knowledge-control regimes “play a
central role in regulating the production and use of knowledge,”and they
have a “lawlike structure, which constitutes specific means of controlling
knowledge objects, disciplining actors and bringing order to specific jurisdic-
tions.”Based on the empirical data presented above, it seemed that the
hydropower sector failed to regulate the production and use of the increas-
ingly salient environmental knowledge. In this field, regarding hydropower
projects’environmental impacts and consequences, hydropower companies
lacked a lawlike structure that would enable them to control knowledge
objects, discipline actors and bring order to specific jurisdictions, at least in
the public controversy settings.
Of course, the hydropower sector’sinsufficient control of environmental
knowledge production in the public sphere did not mean it became a weak
96 Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making

Table 4.9 Noticeable public intellectuals against hydropower (excluding ENGO
members)
Name Affiliation When and where to get
involved
Level of
involvement
Lu
Qinkan A senior hydraulic scientist During TGP debates High
Lü Zhi Conservation biologist at
Peking Univ. As a head of ENGO of
the conservancy, Lü has
continuously been
involved in debates.
High
Tian Song STS scholar at Beijing
Normal Univ. In the mid-2000s when
the southwestern hydro-
power controversy
became a hot event
Low
Liu
Huajie STS scholar at PKU In the mid-2000s when
the southwestern hydro-
power controversy
became a hot event
Low
Weng
Lida Yangtze River Water
Resources Protection Bureau Consistently opposed to
southwestern dams in
upper Yangtze River
High
Chen
Guojie Chengdu-based Institute of
Mountain Hazards and
Environment (IMHE), CAS
Involved against TGP
and later became a lead-
ing opponent to south-
western dams
High
Cao
Wenxuan Wuhan-based CAS Institute
of Hydrobiology Involved against south-
western dams for fish pro-
tection since the mid-2000s
Moderate
Bai
Daming Yunnan University Involved against south-
western dams for ecology
in the early 2000s
Moderate
Xu Daoyi Retired scientist at Institute
of Geology, China Earth-
quake Administration,
Involved against south-
western dams for their
possibly triggering earth-
quakes in the early 2010s
Low
Sun
Wenpeng Retired scientist at Beijing
Research Institute of Ura-
nium Geology
Involved against south-
western dams for their
possibly triggering earth-
quakes in the early 2010s
Low
Zhu Ming Retired scientist at Beijing-
based Institute of Geology
and Geophysics, CAS
Involved against south-
western dams for their
potentially triggering
earthquakes in the early
2010s
Low
Li
Dongxu Retired scientist at China
University of Geosciences Involved against south-
western dams for their
possibly triggering earth-
quakes in the early 2010s
Low
(Continued)
Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making 97

actor. Despite the debates, the government’s energy and economic planning
agencies such as NDRC and the National Energy Administration (NEA)
continued to approve hydropower development plans. The orthodox hydro-
power knowledge community, including various evaluation committees to
Name Affiliation When and where to get
involved
Level of
involvement
Jiang
Gaoming Institute of Botany, CAS A botanic scientist occa-
sionally against hydro-
power publicly
Low
Yu
Kongjian A famous gardening scholar
at Peking University Sometimes against hydro-
power publicly Low
Huang
Wanli A senior hydraulic scientist During TGP debates
became a symbol of the
anti-dam movement
Low
Liu
Shukun A senior hydraulic scientist Occasionally against
hydropower publicly
Zhou
Jianjun A hydraulics professor at
Tsinghua University Occasionally against
hydropower publicly Moderate
Liu
Dehong Deputy director for sea
affairs at the Ministry of
Communications and a
CPPCC member
Stood up to question
southwestern hydropower
projects in 2005 as a
CPPCC members
Low
Yang
Zunwei A CPPCC member and a
senior engineer at China
Harbor Engineering Corp
Stood up to challenge
southwestern hydropower
projects in 2005 as a
CPPCC members
Low
Lu Renda A CPPCC member and a
deputy chief engineer of
China Road & Bridge Corp
Stood up to question
southwestern hydropower
projects in 2005 as a
CPPCC members
Low
Zhang
Zhikai A CPPCC member and wife
of Politburo member Yu
Zhengsheng
Stood up to challenge
southwestern hydropower
projects in 2005 as a
CPPCC members
Low
Zhu Shou A CPPCC member and vice-
president of China General
Association for Light
Industries
Stood up to question
southwestern hydropower
projects in 2005 as a
CPPCC members
Low
Li Xiao-
dong A CPPCC member and vice-
chairman of CPPCC Shaanxi
branch
Stood up to challenge
southwestern hydropower
projects in 2005 as a
CPPCC members
Low
Zhao
Yimin Director of MOA Office for
Yangtze River Fishery Involved against south-
western dams for fish pro-
tection since the late 2000s
Moderate
(Sources: Collected by the author from the media reporting)
Table 4.9 (Cont.)
98 Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making

back up these agencies’decisions, continued rejecting the alternative knowledge
and its producers. Although nearly all publicly disputed dams were suspended
or suffered remarkable delays, most of the undisputed dams were constructed
without too strong resistance.
To summarize this section on STS perspectives on hydropower controversies,
one can safely conclude that thanks to a civic epistemology that prioritizes
environmental, ecological and societal consequences of hydropower develop-
ment, activists have triumphed over the developmentalism discourse of the
hydropower sector. Despite the hydropower sector’sfirm control over engineer-
ing knowledge and the development agenda, its knowledge-control regime failed
to contain production and distribution of environmental knowledge –which
became more salient public knowledge due to an alliance between the media and
activism –due to both epistemic factors and political struggle over jurisdiction.
Neither civic epistemology nor knowledge-control regimes were static but dyna-
mically developed in the process of hydropower controversies, in which the
choices of main actors, such as juridically powerful agencies like SEPA/MEP,
can significantly shape either civic epistemology or relevant knowledge-control
regimes. While civic epistemology and the knowledge-control regime have dur-
able explanatory power in the context of China’s hydropower controversy,
applying them here also helped enrich the meanings of the two concepts while
widening our understanding of knowledge production process.
4.6 Chapter conclusion
This chapter investigates China’s hydropower controversy, particularly the
southwestern hydropower controversies since the 2000s, with the analytical
frameworks of communication scholarship, social movement theories and STS
concepts. Each of these frameworks can explain some aspects of the occurrence
and development of hydropower controversies, but none of them can solely
cover the whole picture. For example, media commercialization and China’s
political censorship drove journalists to choose politically safer, yet technically
sensational environmental issues for their negative reporting and this has
boosted and strengthened hydropower controversies. But the reporting needs
sponsorship from government agencies and support from experts. Bureaucratic
fragmentation as a political opportunity structure resulted in such sponsoring
agencies and the rising environmental knowledge that escaped the hydropower
sector’s knowledge-control regime offered supporting experts for the media. On
the other side, both social movement mobilization and negative framing of
hydropower projects were highly depended on the media. The press was also a
vehicle to convey civic epistemology and a catalyst to break knowledge-control
regimes of the hydropower sector, at least in environmental knowledge and
regulatory aspect of hydropower projects.
On the other hand, factors derived from different theoretical frameworks
interacted with each other frequently. Journalists turned to activists in the
environmental sector, linking the media and activism; SEPA/MEP resisted
Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making 99

hydropower development from its policy consideration (e.g., controlling COD),
butalsosoughtalternativeknowledgefromactivists,partlylegitimatizingthe
latter in the public sphere regarding the controversy.
Combining all these factors, we can find the hydropower sector, despite its tens
of billions of yuan assets, was positioned in a relatively disadvantaged political
and epistemic position. The hydropower sector suffered from media opposition,
bureaucratic fragmentation, and the relatively weak knowledge-control regime
in environmental knowledge, which became salient knowledge in the public
sphere. It did not enjoy glorious national sociotechnical imaginaries to offset the
disadvantages. As a result, although most hydropower projects were on schedule,
partly due to the sector’sfirm knowledge-control regime in engineering and
development agenda, nearly all publicly controversial dams were halted.
In applying the different theoretical frameworks in explaining China’s
hydropower controversy, this chapter also developed and enriched these the-
oretical traditions. For example, it introduced contested knowledge into social
movement theories and borrowed fragmented authoritarianism to understand
knowledge issues such as civic epistemology. These theoretical developments
will be discussed and compared across different cases in the concluding
chapters (Chapters 7 through 9).
Notes
1He submitted the report to then-Premier Zhu Rongji. Chinese official media have
long been empowered to reflect local situations directly to the central leadership
without going through the local bureaucratic hierarchy in the form of so-called
Internal Reference (Neibu Caokao, or simply Neican) (Nathan, 1986, pp. 152–171).
2China has an established system to accept calls and petitions from people in the lower
administrative jurisdiction. At the central government level, there is a State Bureau of
Letters and Calls, and each government department is required to set up such an
office or provide a similar function. However, letters and petitions submitted from
these regular channels are at most processed by rank-and-file employees, with little
chance to reach a senior official, let alone a minister or even a prime minister.
100 Hydropower, fragmentation, knowledge-making

5 GMO controversy: How orthodox
science lost control
5.1 Introduction
In the past 40 years, disputes over genetically modified (GM) foods and crops
have been spreading worldwide (Schurman & Munro, 2010). China is no
exception. Public support for GM foods has seen a steady decline in the past 15
years, and resistance to them has grown significantly (Cui & Shoemaker, 2018).
As a result, China has not approved any new GM variety since 2006 when the
government gave the green light to an anti-virus version of GM papaya.
The GMO controversy has received the broadest scholarly attention in
revealing social psychological elements leading to the public perception of the
technology (Gupta, Fischer & Frewer, 2012). Other studies have analyzed
social disputes over it (Motta, 2014), activists’strategies to demonize agri-
cultural biotechnology (Herring, 2008, 2010b) and communication factors
associated with the controversy (M. C. Nisbet & Huge, 2006; M. C. Nisbet &
Lewenstein, 2002).
However, few studies have integrated communication, STS and social move-
ment scholarship to reveal the broader sociopolitical and epistemic landscape
underlying the world’s most sustained S&T controversies. In addition, despite
intensive local studies in China on public attitudes and an in-depth monograph
on the issue’s policy implications (Cao, 2018), no research has examined with a
theoretical lens how anti-GMO activism, social and political transformation,
and epistemic factors have co-evolved in China, the world’s largest importer of
GM crops (GM soy and corn). Combining different theoretical traditions for a
meaningful explanation of China’s GMO disputes is the objective of the current
chapter.
5.1.1 Social, psychological and political roots of GMO contentions
From the 1970s, biotechnology has been frequently debated in mass media
(Schurman & Munro, 2006). Protests have followed a series of food scares,
such as mad cow disease (Irwin, 2001). The British government’s initial cover-
up and poor reactions shook the public confidence in its S&T regulations
(Bonny & Sylvie, 2003).
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160212-5

Indeed, public trust in institutional actors like government often strongly
predicted support for GMOs (Einsiedel, 2002; Gupta et al., 2012; Pin &
Gutteling, 2009; Pin, Gutteling & Kuttschreuter, 2009; Priest, 2001; Qiu,
Huang, Pray & Rozelle, 2012; Siegrist, 1999). Scholars believe institutional
trust is based on value similarity –meaning whether people think that institu-
tional players like government officials share the same values as them (Siegrist et
al., 2000; Siegrist et al., 2012). Brossard and Nisbet (2007) argued that deference
to scientific authority, a value long rooted in the American public, was a power-
ful predictor to explain trust in scientific institutions and the corresponding
support for agricultural biotechnology in the United States.
Anti-GMO campaigns have consistently framed GMO as risky, uncertain,
and sometimes unethical (Cook et al., 2006; Levidow & Boschert, 2011). These
observations are consistent with Herring’s (2008, 2010b) more analytical
assessment of anti-GMO activists’framing strategies. Although both medical
and agricultural biotechnologies rely on genetic modification, activists have
effectively branded the latter as “one ominous category: GMOs”(Herring,
2008, p. 459).
On the other hand, biotechnology and other mainstream scientists have
been mediocre at engaging the public and mistreated its risk perceptions,
thinking the public resistance to GMO was because of its naïve requirement
of impossible “zero risks”(Cook et al., 2004; Cuppen et al., 2009). Scientists
generally describe risk in a quantitative, measurable way, while the public
tends to view it in a qualitative way (McInerney, Bird & Nucci, 2004).
5.1.2 The role of the media in the GMO controversy
Although Europe’s opinion-leading media’s earlier coverage was positive to
agricultural biotechnology (Gutteling et al., 2002), their attitude has changed
since the mid-1990s. For example, Frewer et al. (2002) found European media
tended to emphasize the negative impacts of GMOs and concentrated in
reporting GMO safety studies. In their review of the UK media’s reporting of
its 2003 national debate, “GM Nation?”(Barbagallo & Nelson, 2005), Cook
et al. (2006) found the UK media widely cited public representatives and
NGOs to counterbalance scientists and the government’seffort to frame
GMO in science and technology terms. Augoustinos, Crabb, and Shepherd
(2010) further demonstrated that the UK media’s GMO coverage during the
2003 national debate was full of semiotic signs and metaphors linked to the
ongoing Iraqi war. Meanwhile, European media continued to treat medical
biotechnology positively but reported agricultural biotechnology negatively
(Marks, Kalaitzandonakes, Wilkins & Zakharova, 2007).
The United States elite media were very favorable to biotechnology (M. C.
Nisbet & Lewenstein, 2002). In their analysis of TV evening news of GMO
reporting over more than two decades, Nucci and Kubey (2007) found US TV
(evening news) coverage of GMO was slight and mostly positive. Comparedwith
the national press, US community newspapers included a more comprehensive
102 GMO controversy

range of concerns (Crawley, 2007), indicating that the biotechnology-friendly
environment in the United States is most likely a result of elite support at the
national level.
As a whole, when reporting agricultural biotechnology, US media adopted a
cost/benefit frame more frequently while British media stories often used the
frame of environmental risks (Marks, Kalaitzandonakes, Allison & Zakharova,
2003). Listerman (2010) found that science and economic frames dominated
the US media, German media had an active ethical discourse, whereas British
media were inclined to link agricultural biotechnology to a public agenda.
According to M. C. Nisbet and Huge (2006), the GMO controversy was
regularly assigned to science journalists rather than political or general
assignment journalists in US elite media outlets and appeared mainly in sci-
ence or environmental pages instead of front and political pages. Flipse and
Osseweijer (2013) found that the science community, government and bio-
technology industry’s slow response to GMO-related controversial events
resulted in their far lower presence in media than anti-GMO activists. When
they did respond, media attention to the events had decreased, and most
people did not have a chance to read or hear positive perspectives.
5.1.3 Civic epistemology and knowledge control in GMO controversy
Similarly to many authors cited above, Sheila Jasanoffalso examined the
national differences in biotechnology governance across the Atlantic (2005;
2011b). But she explored the more fundamental knowledge-making ways in
which biotechnology is understood in the United States, Britain and Germany
and their interaction with policymaking. According to Jasanoff(2011b), the
United States (as a result of its habitual use of quantifiable risk assessments and
its distrust of public roles in regulation) implemented an early and quicker
exclusion of non-scientific voices in assessing biotechnology to form an interest
group and market-driven, product-focused, scientific authority-seeking, and
litigation-relying risk regulation system, smoothing the advancement of GMOs.
In examining the different policymaking processes, Jasanoffproposed the
concept of civic epistemologies, which are the stylized, culturally specificways
in which the public expect the state’s expertise, knowledge, and reasoning to
be produced, tested and put to use in decision-making (Jasanoff, 2011b). This
concept is particularly important in understanding how the GMO controversy
featured a sharp tension between mainstream scientists’acceptance and the
public’s rejection (Rainie, Funk & Anderson, 2015).
The conflict was captured by Schurman and Munro (2010) by using a concept
developed by Schutz and Luckmann (1973) in sociology, “lifeworld”,which
“comprises a stock of culturally transmitted background knowledge that people
bring to a situation and that provides them with a common cognitive and nor-
mative frame of reference”(Schurman & Munro, 2010, Kindle Locations 252–
253). They argued that the conflicts between the scientist-industry lifeworld on
the safety and efficacy of GMOs and the activists’lifeworld on their evilness
GMO controversy 103

explain the emergence of GMO controversies, its bitter disputes, the tactics each
side used, and the social struggle changes across time (Schurman & Munro,
2010, pp. 188–192).
The challenge of civic epistemology to orthodox genetic science and the
conflicts of the two lifeworlds raise the question of knowledge control,
explored by Hilgartner’s (2017) “knowledge-control regimes”concept, which,
though proposed through Hilgartner’s study on the Human Genome Project
(HGP), is still very useful for us to explore the emergence, sustainability and
degree of GMO controversies. Using this framework, we may say that the US
science-industry-government alliance (and, to a lesser degree, such partnerships in
Canada, Australia, and Brazil) better controls the biotechnology knowledge pro-
duction and distribution than the activist alliance, and that their control prevents
activists and other citizens from comprehensively stigmatizing biotechnology.
In China, scholarly examinations of the GMO controversy are limited to
measuring public attitudes (Cui & Shoemaker, 2018; G. He et al., 2017; J.
Huang, Qiu, Bai & Pray, 2006b; Qiu et al., 2012) or the nominal appeals
(mostly by Chinese STS scholars) to increase public participation in the pol-
icymaking process (C. Fan, 2010; X. Jiang, 2014; S. Tian, 2010, 2012). This
chapter is an effort to fill the gap in our understanding of GMO controversy
in the sociopolitical context in China.
5.2 Contemporary GMO controversies in China
Since 1997 when China commercialized Bt cotton, the country has experi-
enced rapid growth in both biotechnology research and application. In 2019,
China planted 3.2 million hectares of GM cotton and papaya, accounting for
1.7% of the total global land for biotechnology crops, ranking 7th in the
world in terms of the acreage used for such plants (ISAAA, 2021).
As described in Chapter 3, the first batch of campaigns against GMOs in
China were all launched and organized by Greenpeace. In the late 2000s,
another organized anti-GMO force was formed in China. The campaigners,
consisting of Maoist intellectuals, activists, and some maverick scientists,
organized around a Maoist website Wuyouzhixiang (literally meaning
“Nowhere”: http://www.wyzx.com and wyzxwk.com
1
), held up GMOs as a
symbol of capitalism and the American imperialists’conspiracy to control
China. The issuance of GM rice biosafety certificates in 2009 sparked a
nationwide protest against GMOs and the policies to commercialize them.
Meanwhile, GMO and plant scientists continued lobbying top Chinese lea-
ders including Xi Jinping. But the pro-GMO front received a heavy blow in
late 2013 when Cui Yongyuan, a famous TV talk show anchor, joined the
movement against GMOs. With his substantial public influence, penetrating
language skill, status as a CPPCC (the Chinese People’s Political Consultative
Conference, equivalent to China’s upper house) delegate and strong mobili-
zation capacity through social media, Cui became a new figurehead of
China’s anti-GMO campaign.
104 GMO controversy

In its recent policy agenda, China’s science authorities (MOST and MOA)
revised the roadmap of agricultural biotechnology, prioritizing the plan to
commercialize non-staple food GM crops (GM corn and GM soya) in the 13th
Five-Year S&T Development Plan (2016–2020). However, by the end of 2020,
there was no news on the final approval of any new GM crop in China. Several
nationwide surveys continued to show public disfavor (Cui & Shoemaker, 2018;
G. He et al., 2017; Ren et al., 2016).
The above summary shows that with lots of media enthusiasm, contention
about GMOs was prominent, sustained, and widely engaging science con-
troversy in China. Both pro-GMO scientists and science communicators and
anti-GMO activists tried to attack the other side with extreme claims and
often emotional expression. A large number of intellectuals of different
backgrounds were involved in anti-GMO campaigns which have been highly
diversified. But on the other hand, few civil society organizations, including
nearly all local ENGOs, have actively joined the debates on GMOs.
5.3 Media landscape of GMO controversy in China
5.3.1 Media liberalization and scientists’communication failure
Tracing China’s GMO controversy lasting nearly 20 years, one can identify a
crucial role the media has played. Since the very beginning of China’s GMO
controversy, presenting the technology’s uncertainties and disputes in the
press was a vital task of Greenpeace, which initiated China’s anti-GMO
campaigns and dominated their agenda until 2013–2014 when popular TV
anchor Cui Yongyuan became the central actor.
Greenpeace fully utilized China’s ongoing media commercialization and
partial liberalization (Chan & Qiu, 2002). It hired at the very beginning of its
China operation active journalists from liberal media outlets like SW to work
as its public relations staff(INT20160926, INT20161122), consistently attracted
the liberal media’s attention to its campaigns ranging from anti-GMO and
tracing chemical pollution to fighting climate change, and effectively helped the
media frame these events as defending public interests.
Media commercialization and partial liberalization have driven the Chinese
media to attract public attention through sensational news reporting. GMOs are
one of such topics. The mass media’s impactful reporting initiated nearly every
anti-GMO wave in China. Figure 5.1 records the increasing number of annual
articles on GMOs published in the four sampled Chinese press outlets. The trend
was reversed after 2015 when the propaganda department began to interfere
with the reporting, according to sources (INT20160919, INT20160925).
Liu Jianqiang, the writer of the aforementioned 2004 SW article, told me in
a 2008 interview that when Greenpeace proposed to him an investigative
story option, he knew nothing about GMOs and had no interest in reporting
scientific issues about it. However, the theme that highly respectful scientists
may violate public interest for their profits had attracted him (Yi & Jia, 2008).
GMO controversy 105

Separate interviews with leading journalists of the liberal media con-
firmed the motivation to maintain public interest from the “infringement”
by GMOs (INT20161022, INT20161219). Media content analysis con-
firmed the interview data. Table 5.1 summarizes the main themes of
GMO-related stories among the four sampled media outlets. As in the
case of hydropower, public accountability and regulatory issues became a
significant frame in terms of the number of articles. That frame high-
lighted visible controversies and contained more negative reporting than
positive ones. In fact, in the late 1990s, while the domestic newsroom of
PD, as a top propaganda outlet, unanimously praised Chinese advances in
agricultural biotechnology as a significant scientific achievement, its inter-
national pages shared no efforts to introduce the surging international
controversies and debates on GMOs.
Compared with the few environmental frames, the Chinese media, espe-
cially urban tabloids such as WEN, more often framed GMO stories as food
safety issues. Accompanying the high dissatisfaction with public account-
ability were the repeated outbreaks of food scandals such as the 2008 baby
milk contamination in which food producers added the industrial chemical
melamine to increase the indicator for protein content of milk falsely, and
public confidence in food safety crashed (Lam, Remais, Fung, Xu & Sun,
2013; Y. Ma & Zhao, 2009; Y. Yan, 2012). One possible reason for the wide-
spread public rejection of GMO is that ordinary people thought of it as food
contamination (P. Ho, Vermeer & Zhao, 2006; Vermeer & Ho, 2004). Hence,
the widespread public concerns on food safety could be easily transferred to
public rejection of GM food, just as in Europe (Bonny & Sylvie, 2003; Frewer
et al., 2004), particularly after continued media reporting made the GMO
dispute a salient science controversy in contemporary China.
Figure 5.1 Number of the four sampled media’s combined articles on GMO in China
(1995–2016)
Source: Collected and cleaned by the author; PD: 1995–2016; SW: 2004–2016; XEN:
2007–2016; CSD: 2000–2016
106 GMO controversy

As in the environmental reporting, a small group of journalists, such as
Jin Wei, currently a leading journalist at financial newspaper Huaxia
Times, also worked as a prominent anti-GMO activist, though unlike their
environmentalist colleagues who set up formal ENGOs, the anti-bio-
technology journalists did not form any formal organization. In the
heyday of China’s anti-GMO moments in 2010 and 2011, Jin and collea-
gues reported the false news that after eating GM corn and GM soya,
sows suffered miscarriages while mice disappeared, causing public panic
(Wei, 2013).
Besides the media’seffort to promote debates and uncertainties, as in the
West, scientists’poor reaction to activists’challenges and public concerns
were other factors underlying the biotechnology controversy (Cook et al.,
2004; Cuppen et al., 2009; McInerney et al., 2004). Chinese scientists shared
their Western counterparts’disdain for the public. “At an academic meeting
at the time when GMO first became a controversial topic, we even sneered at
the one who tried to persuade the public that GMO is harmless,”said a
senior biotechnology scientist during an interview (INT20161118). “Without
popularizing to the public, [agricultural] scientists only wanted to persuade
top leaders. Now the GMO controversy has become a serious barrier [to the
commercialization of GM crops],”said one senior agricultural journalist
(INT20170723).
Since 2009, when GMOs became a national controversy, Chinese scientists
have been acting to increase their popularization efforts. The $3.5-billion
mega-GM seed initiative (R. Stone, 2008) also offered a subsidiary grant to
Table 5.1 Main themes, article attitude, visibility and percentage of coverage of the
four sampled media’s GMO articles
Total Neg-
ative
Neu-
tral
Posi-
tive
Visible
controversy
Ratio of visible
controversy /
Total number
Food safety 65 5 21 39 50 76.9%
Business & economy 34 3 11 20 12 35.3%
Development &
welfare
6 0 0 6 1 16.7%
Environment &
ecology
14 8 5 1 13 92.9%
Science comm &
popularization
13 0 1 12 7 53.8%
Ethics & Pandora 1 0 1 0 1 100.0%
Politics & policy 16 3 4 9 13 81.3%
Public accountability
& regulatory
159 35 95 29 145 91.2%
S&T progress 256 8 40 208 62 24.2%
(Source: Coded by the author; PD: 1995–2016; SW: 2004–2016; XEN: 2007–2016; CSD: 2000–2016)
GMO controversy 107

support such risk communication activities, in which I was involved to advise
HZAU, then a lead implementer of the grant-supported communication pro-
jects. They composed popular science books, launched popular websites or
webpages for biotechnology, and set up several exhibition rooms –all classic
“deficit”model activities.
The propaganda-oriented public science information system in China (Jia
& Liu, 2009) increased the problem of poor communication. Two PIOs
(public information officers) of the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) insti-
tutes and one member of stafffrom China Association for Science and Tech-
nology (CAST) admitted they would intentionally avoid talking about GMOs
and other hot public science controversies to avoid upsetting their audience
and offending their institutional leaders (INT20160925c, INT20160928,
INT20160821).
Scientists plus the biotechnology industry indeed increased their efforts to
“educate”the media after the GMO controversy became intensified. Every
year, the Chinese Society of Biotechnology, China branches of Monsanto and
industry organizations like CropLife, and local biotechnology firms like Beij-
ing Dabeinong Technology organized a couple of media workshops on
GMOs, involving hundreds of media journalists. Based on my observations,
participating journalists were pro-GMO or technology-savvy, but many stor-
ies questioning biotechnology were reported by their colleagues absent from
the event or by media not reached by the training. In the heyday of GMO
controversies (roughly 2010–2014), Chinese media showed a very high diver-
sification of authorship (INT20161110) because the high public interest in the
topic involved reporters of many different beats. Although I was not able to
implement for this study a systematic empirical comparison, the media
structure for supporting greater diversification of authorship looked more
diversified than in the hydropower reporting mentioned in the previous chap-
ter and contrary to (and theoretically consistent with) the low participation in
biotechnology reporting that M. C. Nisbet and Huge (2006) revealed among
US media workers.
The diversification also existed across different media outlets. Figure 5.2
shows that the four sampled media outlets generally had more positive than
negative news stories on GMOs.
But among them, the more impactful non-official media source Southern
Weekend (SW) published many more negative stories than positive ones
(Negative: neutral: positive = 17:9:9). Also, negative stories mostly appeared
in front pages or other relevant news pages while pro-GMO pieces were
mostly popular science articles in the cultural section (SW does not have
specific science pages) hidden within the paper. “Those [negative GMO] stor-
ies were often produced by investigative reporters supported by news editors
which I cannot control,”said a science editor affiliated with the Cultural
Department of SW (INT20161016).
The slow reaction of scientists to cases like the unethical golden rice nutri-
tion experiment (G. Tang et al., 2012) and illegal planting of GM crops also
108 GMO controversy

caused an information imbalance on biotechnology in the media, similar to
what Flipse and Osseweijer (2013) have observed. More than in the West,
Chinese biotechnology scientists were often warned by government officials
against talking to the media directly (INT20161226).
Despite the above structural disadvantages, Chinese biotechnology scientists
eventually managed to improve media outlets’overall attitude to GMOs, aided
to a certain degree by the communist party’s publicity departments’media cen-
sorship. Figure 5.3 indicates a decreased quantity of negative coverage of GMOs
by the four sampled media outlets. Although the sample may not be
representative enough (GMO-friendly science and official media such as CSD
and PD published most of the positive stories), scientists and pro-GMO
journalists generally reflected their positive impression (INT20161115,
INT20161110a, INT20161118).
However, with the decline of traditional media outlets (including print
media and established online news portals) and the rise of social media, the
GMO controversy remained popular, especially on social media platforms.
The following subsection will explore this aspect.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
000002030
420
55
1
10
36
2
13
66
0121
5
57
12
14 36
6
45
4
11
10
20
24
32
8
14
1
504
6
10
5
7
5
7
10
6
23 21
16
31
34
33 35
22
35 25
Negave Neutral Posive
Figure 5.2 Attitude of sampled media articles to GMOs in China 1995–2016
Source: Collected and coded by author
GMO controversy 109

5.3.2 GMO debate on rising social media
While print media fueled or even triggered China’s GMO controversies, it was
the Internet that deeply embedded the dispute among the average Chinese
public. Figure 5.4 is Baidu Index’s media index (unavailable through
Google), indicating the frequency of the Chinese media mentioning GMOs
in their reporting from 2011 (the earliest available indexing time). Then
Figures 5.5 and 5.6 present online search trends by Baidu and Google,
respectively. Google’s data started in 2004, but after its complete blockage in
China in 2011, Google search may not accurately reflect search behavior by
Chinese citizens. Luckily, Baidu’s search data starting in 2011 may offset the
gap. Similarly, Figure 5.1 on the number of the sampled media articles on
GMO in China may somewhat fill the gap caused by Baidu’s lack of pre-
2011 data. Figure 5.4 to Figure 5.6 were all screenshotted by the author on
January 5, 2019.
Figure 5.4 indicates that traditional media reporting of GMOs has
shown a declining trend. These figures show that the frequency of media
Figure 5.4 Baidu media index of GMOs in China (2011–2018)
Source: Baidu Media Index
0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
11.8%
0.0%
13.6%
0.0%
28.6%
11.1%
0.0%
15.6% 16.1%
4.8%
19.2%
6.4%
10.2%
3.3%
19.4%
12.2%
13.3%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
25.0%
30.0%
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Negave/Total
Figure 5.3 Percentage of sampled media articles adverse to GMOs in China 1995–2016
Source: Collected and coded by author
110 GMO controversy

coverage of GMO issues was consistent with people’s search behaviors of
the keyword GMO. The consistency matches Segev and Baram-Tsabari’s
(2012) finding that media attention to news events was driving science-
related searches. The pattern indicates that media coverage (and indeed
opinion leaders’social media posts) pushed people’s attention to, and
raised similar concerns about, GMOs.
During the period, bulletin board systems (BBS) were also frequently
used. Figure 5.7 represents high-impact BBS posts (with impact defined as
posts with more than 100 following comments) on Tianya.cn. The figure
indicates that the year 2010, when China issued two biosafety certificates
to GM rice, had a significantly higher number of impactful BBS posts.
The consistent GMO controversy is also associated with rising Internet-
based media platforms, ranging from news portals and blogs to Weibo and
WeChat (China’s primary social media platforms). Given China’s strict con-
trol of print media and their electronic versions, online portals and nonofficial
Figure 5.5 Baidu search index for GMOs in China (2011–2018)
Source: Baidu Search Index
Figure 5.6 Google search index for GMOs in China (2004–2018)
Source: Google Trends
GMO controversy 111

websites, blogs, Weibo, and WeChat became the main bases for activists to
launch anti-GMO campaigns.
The active role the Internet played in promoting the GMO controversy
became clear when SW published in December 2004 its compelling cover
story questioning commercialization of GM rice. Within days, Google search
indicates that the article was reposted nearly 10,000 times (Yi & Jia, 2008),
creating enormous pressure and effectively halting the commercialization
process. Several popular news portal editors admitted that they preferred to
post hotly disputed GMO news to boost online visits (INT20170108,
INT20170109, INT20170725).
Between the SW story in 2004 and the national protest against biosafety
certificates in 2010, China experienced a booming development of the
Internet, with its users surging from 94 million to 437 million, and blog use
percentage growing from 0.5% to 64.4% (China Internet Network Informa-
tion Center (CNNIC), 2005, 2011). The technology progress resulted in
multiple online information portals for anti-GMO activism. Blogs were the
most frequently used.
Searching Sina Blog, one cannot find well-archived results containing
old blogs on GMOs, partly due to later intensified online censorship,
though there was still available in 2018 a long list of contemporary blog
articles, mostly taking an anti-GMO stance. Historically, blogs were a
major anti-GMO front, and most anti-GMO activists published blog arti-
cles. With blogs, personal websites also mushroomed in China. According
to the 2011 CNNIC report cited above, in December 2010, China had
1.91 million sites. Many activists, including Chen Yiwen, set up websites
posting anti-GMO news.
A noticeable media advancement regarding anti-GMO activism was the
emergence and development of Maoist websites, mainly the extreme leftist site
Utopia (Wuyouzhixiang: wyzxwk.com), which had a particular column spe-
cifically attacking GMOs. I searched and analyzed three emerging Maoist
110 22114 7
304
70
38
104 98
15
40
23
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Figure 5.7 High-impact BBS posts on Tianya (2003–2017)
Source: Data collected and graphed by Kai Liu
112 GMO controversy

websites: Utopia, Chawang (literally meaning “the site for examination,”
cwzg.cn), and Red Song Club (szhgh.com). Using GMO as my keyword, I
found thousands of relevant articles, including Utopia’s 4,340, Chawang’s 234
and Red Song Club’s 45,778. I read and coded the first 50 most read items
from each of these websites, and found all of them, including comments,
various rumor-based claims and negative news stories posted from other
websites, were critical of GMOs.
Compared with blogs and websites, the arrival of Weibo and other micro-
blogging platforms played a more significant role in spreading anti-GMO
voices of non-establishment elites, amplifying people’s concerns and promot-
ing public protest (Wen et al., 2016; Q. Xu, Yu & Song, 2018). Our previous
research on the public reaction on Weibo to an unethical study led by Tufts
University scientists to feed Chinese children with golden rice without prop-
erly informing procedure (G. Tang et al., 2012) revealed that social media
quickly amplified the impact of GMO events, enhanced attitudinal polariza-
tion and resulted in fragmentation of public opinions (J. Fan et al., 2013).
Social media has significantly increased public participation in the GMO
controversy in China (Jia et al., 2014).
Anti-establishment public opinion leaders quickly utilized the widespread
public concerns and the powerful communication effects of social media.
Former TV anchor Cui Yongyuan, currently a central figure of China’santi-
GMO campaigns (INT20161110a, INT20160929, INT20161115), is such an
example. After he was involved in the anti-GMO campaign in 2013, Cui mas-
terfully handled Weibo and other social media platforms (such as Tencent’s
microblogging site which is now closed). He highlighted negative aspects of
GMOs with the public accountability frame, activated public concerns, mobi-
lized follow-up media reporting and carved his role as a public intellectual to
defend the public interest against the infringement of biotechnology (Jia et al.,
2015). With 19.5 million followers at the time this chapter was drafted (January
2019), his tweets dramatically increased the reach of anti-GMO information and
public rejection of the technology.
Using an external Weibo analysis tool Weiboreach.com, Table 5.2 illus-
trates the massive impact of Cui by analyzing his six most commented GMO-
related tweets in the first three pages of his Weibo account that were available
for visits (from December 20, 2018, to January 6, 2019). The six tweets alone
produced 143 million views (Weiboreach.com defined viewing as information
appearing in viewers’Weibo accounts) and over 9,300 forwards.
Based on Table 5.2, one can find that many anti-GMO messages reached
millions of people, intensifying the widespread anti-GMO mentality. In addition
to spreading anti-GMO information, Weibo was also utilized to produce anti-
GMO news stories. According to an internal report submitted to the top Chinese
leaders drafted by a pro-GMO expert (INT20160922), a series of negative media
stories on GMOs was first posted on Weibo by an active anti-GMO activist with
the pen name Zhiyanliao (literally “speaking truth”), before the media published
them. These stories claimed that planting GM corn in Shanxi and Jilin provinces
GMO controversy 113

Table 5.2 Analysis of Cui Yongyuan’s recent anti-GMO tweets (12/20/2018–01/06/2019)
Time Contents Url link Retweets Comments Total views Effect evaluation
01/05/2019 Cui recommended tweets
by Lv Yongyuan (a long-
term anti-GMO activist)
about a German study on
GMO’s adverse effects
https://www.weibo.com/
1496852380/HaxfrpMhE?
type=comment
2,584 1,657 23.04 million Massively increased the
audience of the German
report critical of agri-
cultural biotechnology
12/27/2018 Cui commented on a
tweet about the illegal
planting of GM corn,
condemning ministry of
agriculture’s nonfeasance.
https://www.weibo.com/
1496852380/H9cWte2HE 2,599 2,382 25.58 million Further demonized the
government agency
behind agricultural
biotechnology.
12/27/2018 Cui commented on a
tweet claiming a pro-
GMO popular science
organization committed
to illegal pyramid sales.
https://www.weibo.com/
1496852380/H97QMp
yHm?type=comment
1,159 1,023 31.09 million Morally demonized pro-
GMO science commu-
nication and discredited
its members.
12/22/2018 Cui commented on a
tweeted report on the
high cost of organic food,
pointing out that between
organic and GM foods,
there are third options.
https://www.weibo.com/
1496852380/H8jK1j2qs?
type=comment
1,196 2,776 21.66 million Massively increased the
audience of the report
critical of agricultural
biotechnology
114 GMO controversy

Time Contents Url link Retweets Comments Total views Effect evaluation
12/22/2018 Cui commented on Lv’s
tweet about a journal
article appealing for
more GMO debates,
saying the GMO side was
afraid of the public
discussion.
https://www.weibo.com/
1496852380/H8CGPeK9g?
type=comment
946 1,175 20.83 million Massively increased the
open access to the jour-
nal article questioning
GMO, which had
already been amplified
by activists.
12/20/2018 Cui claimed a Weibo
tweet of the US Embassy
in Beijing about the US-
wide consumption of
GM foods was lying.
https://www.weibo.com/
1496852380/H87bqtJrX?
type=comment
865 988 20.83 million Much discredited the
US Embassy and the US
government’s pro-bio-
technology policies.
Total - - 9,349 10,001 143.03
million -
(Source: Calculated based on Weibo.com and independent analysis software Weiboreach.com by author)
GMO controversy 115

caused abnormal swine diseases and reduction in the mouse population. The
media news was then quickly tweeted by Zhiyanliao and other activists to make
a public impact on social media. Our earlier study also found evidence to show
that in exposing the unethical Tufts study, some opinion leaders were “assigned”
to amplify Greenpeace’s claim on Weibo (J. Fan et al., 2013). A separate inter-
view with a former Weibo editor revealed that finding that GMO topics boosted
visits, the social media platform often promoted such tweets in its homepage
(INT20170109).
The GMO controversy also quickly spread to WeChat. Using QS Data
(www.qsdata.com), I found and downloaded on January 29, 2019, the 50
most read WeChat public account articles on GMOs for coding and analy-
sis. As expected, all WeChat articles posted by public accounts of traditional
media outlets (8 out of the 50 items) were positive, though as a whole, more
WeChat articles held a negative tone (25 negatives versus 22 positives).
In terms of the primary theme of the 50 sampled WeChat articles, public
accountability and regulatory issues (18), food safety (11) and science com-
munication (10) dominated the agenda. It is noticeable that controversy con-
tents were visible even in those pro-GMO articles, particularly for public
accountability-framed stories in which relevant government departments,
particularly Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MOA), responded to
an accusation made by Cui Yongyuan in early December. The ministry
denied Cui’s claim that the ministry itself avoided GM foods for its internal
food consumption. Similarly, many science communication articles defending
GMO safety often had to admit controversies and then refute those adverse
claims. Besides, among the top 50 viewed items, two completely embraced
conspiracy theories behind GMOs and over 50% of the food safety articles
quoted false information or discredited anti-GMO activists like F. William
Engdahl.
Another pattern one can observe is the high diversification of public
accounts that published GMO stories, ranging from news outlets (e.g., the
WeChat accounts of conventional media) and popular science sites to
entertainment, culture, religion and cuisine accounts. The high public
attention to GMO issues was a driving force for many non-news and non-
science sites to post GMO stories so that they could win more visits, a
benchmark criterion for a WeChat account to earn advertising money or
impact. When discussing the diversified media morphology for the mass
media to report GMOs, I described the high diversity of reporters and the
media outlets in reporting GMO. The WeChat data further confirmed the
pattern. I will explore its epistemic implication in the section on the
knowledge-control regime.
So far, in this section, I have analyzed the communication factors
underlying China’s GMO controversy. Mass media liberalization and
commercialization, scientists’structural disadvantage in dealing with disputes,
the Internet’s ability to boost public attention, social media’scapacityto
create and fuel alternative public opinion leaders, and people’s deep concern
116 GMO controversy

about food safety and their lack of institutional trust jointly promoted the
widespread rejection of plant biotechnology and GM foods.
However, just as in the hydropower controversy, the communication pattern
is not enough for us to fully understand the debates of GMO issues. For
example, why did the media not rely on orthodox scientists when reporting on
GMOs? Why has the GMO controversy lasted much longer than other sci-
entific controversies? More specifically, why in authoritarian China has the
politically prioritized biotechnology research and development scheme been
frequently disputed and discredited without receiving much censorship?
It is necessary to explore these issues further using both the social movement
theory framework and several STS-oriented theories. In the subsequent section
(Section 5.4), I will examine the components of social movement theories –
particularly of political process theory and FA framework –underlying China’s
GMO controversies. Following that, STS concepts such as knowledge-control
regime (Hilgartner, 2017) and civic epistemology (Jasanoff, 2011b) will be
probed in Section 5.5.
5.4 Examining the GMO controversy as a social movement
5.4.1 Emerging political opportunity structure fueling the GMO controversy
Tracing China’s GMO controversy in the past 20 years, one can quickly
identify the three drivers –a favorable political opportunity structure, robust
frames, and effective mobilization –of social movements (Tarrow, 2011).
Unlike in Western democracies, China lacks the institutional faces of these
drivers. For example, the political opportunity structure embedded in the
tension between government’s executive branches, legislature, and advocacy
groups which explained the fate of anti-nuclear power campaigns in Western
European countries (Kitschelt, 1986) is virtually non-existent in China.
However, various political opportunities linked to China’s economic reform and
opening-up still structurally brew, promote and sustain science and technology
controversies, of which the GMO debate is a salient one.
For the political opportunity structure facilitating the GMO controversy,
China’s opening-up to allow the massive penetration of international civil society
organizations, including Greenpeace, into Chinese society, should be counted as
a primary element. The introduction of foreign NGOs resulted from Chinese
agencies’effort to seek professional consultation services, as evidenced by the
fact that Greenpeace came to China as a project office linked to the nature con-
servancy project of the then State Forestry Administration (now State Forestry
and Grassland Administration of China) (Teets, 2014). However, without poli-
tical tolerance, Greenpeace and other international NGOs’involvement in the
authoritarian nation’s environmental activism was unimaginable. Therefore, the
political environment allowing Greenpeace to initiate and sustain anti-GMO
campaigns in China can be safely considered a political opportunity.
GMO controversy 117

A second political opportunity favoring Greenpeace to launch its anti-
GMO campaign in China is the internationalization of academics. The early
activities of Greenpeace in China connected it with some internationally
active Chinese environmental or ecological scientists, who utilized Green-
peace’s expertise and perhaps funding but meanwhile offered chances for the
organization to legitimate its activities (INT20161215). The move to preserve
biodiversity from challenges posed by adopting biotech crops enabled the
debate to be defined as an academic dispute, tolerable to the authoritative
Chinese regime (INT20170310) and echoed China’s international political
stance of conserving biodiversity (INT20160926).
But Greenpeace as a highly experienced social movement promoter quickly
shifted its focus from low-profile biodiversity conservancy to challenging
public accountability of biotechnology developers. The Chinese government’s
highly criticized cover-up of the SARS epidemics in 2003 legitimatized the
public call for accountability and transparency.
Table 5.3 lists all major controversial events about GMOs in China in
recent years. Nearly every major event was associated with the poor
accountability of scientists or government officials and the lack of transpar-
ency of relevant policies.
Most of the cases listed above would not have been widely noticed without
media involvement or intervention. Some milestone incidents, such as the
impactful 2004 critical reporting by SW of the commercial-interest-driven
effort to commercialize GM rice which effectively halted the crop’s commer-
cialization, could even be defined as media events (INT20161118) (Yi & Jia,
2008). Others, like GM rice’s biosafety certificate, could not be publicly dis-
puted without media exposure. Thus, the media commercialization and par-
tial liberalization examined in the previous section must be considered a
central component of the political opportunity structure nurturing GMO
controversy in China.
While Greenpeace and the media were the main actors at the early stage of
anti-biotechnology campaigns, the issue’s politicization in the late 2000s
offered fresh blood to activism. In 2010, the biosafety certificate granted to
HZAU and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) in the
previous year ignited nationwide fear and anger against biotechnology. A
group of princelings of the first generation of Chinese leaders, including the
daughters of Mao Zedong, Ren Bishi (1904–1950, a standing member of the
politburo in the 1940s), and Ye Jianying (1897–1986, military marshal)
reportedly formed a small but influential group to lobby the top Chinese
leader Hu Jintao to halt the commercialization process of GMOs. The strug-
gle was framed as legal action by the communist offspring inheriting the
socialist legacy against Deng Nan, the daughter of Deng Xiaoping (1904–
1997) (Y. Yin, 2017). Deng Nan, who inherited her father’s strong support for
agricultural biotechnology (to be discussed in the next section), was the
former vice minister of science and technology and then the head of China
Association for Science and Technology.
118 GMO controversy

Table 5.3 Major GMO controversial events in China in recent years
Event Description Time Media coverage Initiators or main
activists
Media frames
(themes)
Lawsuit against Nestlé Consumers claimed Nestlé
failed to label GM ingre-
dients in its baby food.
Mid 2003 Various urban tabloids Greenpeace but
unconfirmed Weak public account-
ability frame, focusing
on foreign firms.
Scientists accused of
commercializing GM
rice for selfish reasons
During the biosafety com-
mittee meeting, Southern
Weekend published a highly
influential story accusing
scientists’efforts of prior-
itizing personal over public
interests.
Dec.
2004 and
after
Southern Weekend’s
exclusive reporting,
widely reposted online
Greenpeace Strong negative public
accountability frame,
directly targeting Chi-
nese scientists. Avoi-
ded targeting
government.
Illegal planting of
GM rice developed by
Chinese scientists
Greenpeace tested rice plan-
ted in Hubei Province and
identified two GM rice vari-
eties grown by Hubei-based
HAZU as having been illeg-
ally planted.
Mid 2005 Widely reported by
liberal media Greenpeace Strong negative public
accountability frame,
confirming scientists’
pursuit of illegal
interests
Series of studies
claiming unsafety of
GMO
Austrian scientist Jürgen
Zentek claimed his studies
found genetic toxicity of
GM corn. Seralini claimed
his studies found GM corn
harmed health in mice.
2007 Few media eventually
reported. Science
media later reported
orthodoxy rejections of
these studies.
Greenpeace, widely
distributed among
Chinese journalists
Pure science frames,
not extending to
everyday food
(Continued)
GMO controversy 119

Event Description Time Media coverage Initiators or main
activists
Media frames
(themes)
Beijing Olympics
claimed to prevent
GM ingredients from
entering food supplies
to athletics
Activists raised the issue,
contrasting it with official
claims on GM safety. It
sparked loud public protests
not only about GMO but
also discrimination against
domestic consumers. Later
the government claimed it
was a misrepresentation of
GM food regulation.
2008 Widely reported by
urban tabloids and
some liberal media.
Official media then
rejected it as a rumor
based on a mis-
understanding of offi-
cial rules.
Non-Greenpeace
activists Strong negative public
accountability frame.
Food safety frame
began to emerge. The
frame of international
equality adopted.
Biosafety certificate
disputes MOA issued biosafety certi-
ficates to HZAU’s GM rice
in 2009. Its exposure acti-
vated massive public pro-
tests nationwide.
2010–11 A large amount of
adverse media report-
ing, including many
Party media outlets.
Derivative events such
as public petition, law-
yers’indictment.
Greenpeace first
raised the issue, but
its leading role was
replaced by:
1) Established
anti-GMO activists;
2) Leftist thinkers;
3) STS scholars; 4)
Agricultural experts.
Strong negative public
accountability frame,
extending to MOA as
a specific target.
Other negative
frames, such as the
impact on farmers
later emerged.
“GM corn”caused
rat, pig abnormalities Activists claimed a widely
planted hybrid corn (grand-
parent includes a GM vari-
ety, but the modified gene
was not kept) to be GM
corn. It reportedly caused
fewer rats and more pig
deaths in Guangxi, Shanxi
and Jilin. MOA refuted the
rumor after organizing on-
site inspections.
2010–11 Various local tabloids
reported the rumor,
which was later rejec-
ted not only by official
media but by estab-
lished liberal media,
but it was widely dis-
tributed on social
media.
Non-Greenpeace
individual activists
Some anti-GMO
journalists
Maoist
intellectuals
Food safety frame,
science and technol-
ogy frame (for those
rejecting the news)
Table 5.3 (Cont.)
120 GMO controversy

Event Description Time Media coverage Initiators or main
activists
Media frames
(themes)
Golden rice scandal A Tufts nutrition experiment
fed Chinese children gold
rice without proper
informed consent.
2012 Widely reported by
urban tabloids and lib-
eral media and exten-
sively posted on social
media. Massive pro-
tests as it involved
children. The Tufts
professor was blamed,
and its China colla-
borators sacked.
Initiated by Green-
peace but joined by
all types of anti-
GMO activists and
intellectuals. Scien-
tists kept silent.
Food safety frame,
Strong negative
public accountability
frame
Guangxi college stu-
dents’sperm quality
claimed to decrease by
uptake of GM food
The rumor was initiated by
some anti-GMO Maoist
activists who linked the so-
called GM (in fact no-GM
hybrid) corn planting in
Guangxi to a 2009 study on
sperm quality.
2013 Reported only by
Guangxi local media
but massively redis-
tributed on social
media.
Non-Greenpeace
activists Food safety frame
MOA Kindergarten
forbid using food with
GM ingredients
MOA Kindergarten report-
edly banned its supplier
from supplying GM food
(mainly GM soya oil).
MOA later rejected the
claim.
2013 Widely reported by
urban tabloids and lib-
eral media and exten-
sively posted on social
media.
Non-Greenpeace
activists Food safety frame,
Durable negative
public accountability
frame, questioning
MOA’s discriminative
measures
(Continued)
GMO controversy 121

Event Description Time Media coverage Initiators or main
activists
Media frames
(themes)
CCTV report identi-
fied illegal GM rice in
Wuhan
A pro-GMO journalist
Wang Zhi’an claimed
during his TV investigative
stories that three of five
randomly bought bags of
rice contained GM
ingredient.
2014 Widely reported by
urban tabloids, liberal
media and official
media. Extensively
posted on social media.
Questioned by scientists
for disqualified testing
methods. Wang claimed
he supported develop-
ing GMOs but opposed
scientists’abuse of the
technology.
Initiated by a pro-
GMO journalist but
quickly joined by
various anti-GMO
activists and
intellectuals.
The initial frame
focused on public
accountability but
promptly expanded to
food safety frames in
subsequent media
reporting.
TV anchor Cui Yon-
gyuan’s GMO fights Starting from an online debate
between Cui and GMO
defender Fang Zhouzi, the
dispute quickly expanded to a
nationwide protest against
GMO. Cui independently
shot two documentaries on
GMO consumption in Amer-
ica and Japan. Cui also openly
debated with a Fudan life sci-
entist during his lecture at the
university.
2014-now Widely and con-
sistently followed by
urban tabloids and lib-
eral media.
Independently initi-
ated by Cui but was
widely supported by
anti-GMO activists.
Cui hired an anti-
GMO activist as his
interpreter and
mainly interviewed
anti-GMO activists.
Cui focused on public
accountability issue,
particularly on trans-
parency but media
following him expan-
ded the dispute to
food safety issue.
Northeast farmers’
illegal planting of GM
corn
Greenpeace identified a
large amount of GMO
ingredients in corns planted
in northeastern provinces.
China still did not approve
plantating of GM corn or
GM soya.
2015-now Possibly due to a cen-
sorship ban on Green-
peace, few domestic
media reported but
widely distributed on
social media
Initiated by Green-
peace. No non-
Greenpeace activists
were directly
involved.
Initially focused on
public accountability
issue targeting MOA
but transformed into
food safety issues in
follow-up social
media accounts.
(Source: Author’s collections)
Table 5.3 (Cont.)
122 GMO controversy

Despite China’s harsh censorship, articles like Y. Yin (2017) that directly
defamed Deng Nan or even Deng Xiaoping’s policy stance on GMOs were
still available for my study, mainly through Maoist sites such as Wuyouz-
hixiang (wyzxwk.com), Chawang (cwzg.cn) and Red Song Club (szhgh.
com), which also posted voices reportedly from the so-called “red princel-
ings.”As analyzed in the previous section, these Maoist sites were unan-
imously against GMOs. Hence, the rise of Maoism and other leftist
activists should be considered another factor of political opportunity
structure.
We should not over-estimate Maoists’direct influence in policymaking.
After all, most of the “red princelings”retired a long time ago. But their
presence justified Maoist intellectuals and activists’anti-GMO stance. As
active Chinese leftism theorist Li Beifang (2016) argued, leftists had a com-
plex composition, but embracing Chairman Mao Zedong and opposing
GMOs could become two basic symbols to unite Chinese leftists. Leftists
actively networked with other leading public figures, such as retired generals
Peng Guangqian and Mi Zhenyu, former chemical minister Qin Zhongda,
and Marxism-leaning Hong Kong economic professor Larry Hsien Ping Lang
to form the anti-GMO front.
Accompanying the rise of Maoists, a group of diehard left-leaning anti-
GMO activists emerged. Many of them, including retired economist Gu Xiulin,
former CAAS researcher Tong Pingya, copywriter Zhao Hua, a military novel
writer Lv Yongyan, and some crank scientists like the aforementioned Chen
Yiwen, are still active today (2019). They joined the established intellectuals
consisting of STS scholars, rural sociologists, Marxist economists and occa-
sionally ecologists to question the safety of GM foods and the capitalistic
nature of agricultural biotechnology. Although unlike the established scholars
and generals, these activists seldom attracted media attention, their full-time
devotion provided “massive gunpowder”to anti-GMO capitalism. For exam-
ple, Chen Yiwen was Cui Yongyuan’s English translator for the latter’s investi-
gation of GM food consumption in the United States in 2014. Other crank
scientists also claimed to have provided knowledge supports to Cui. These left-
leaning anti-GMO activists also frequently contributed to the Maoist websites
or posted anti-GMO articles on their blogs.
The consistent effort to counter GMOs from the perspective of political
ideology (as compared with Greenpeace’s environmentalism stance and
ordinary public’s food safety concerns) seemed to have an effect. A 2016
national survey found that 40 percent of the Chinese public believed that
GMOs were an American conspiracy against China (G. He et al., 2017).
Taken together, China’s opening-up and introduction of NGOs, media
commercialization and ideological schism constituted an emerging political
opportunity structure favoring activism against GMOs. But for the actors –
Greenpeace, journalists and Maoists –to play their active role so powerfully
as to effectively halt China’s GM crop commercialization for more than a
decade, this emerging political opportunity structure is not enough. At the
GMO controversy 123

policy-making end, there had to be structural opportunities that could make
top policymakers, no matter how institutionalized, receive, consider and
accept (at least partially) the policy options from activists. Otherwise, we
cannot explain how the GMO controversy as a social protest could be sus-
tained so long and have such widespread influence. The fragmented author-
itarianism, particularly bureaucratic fragmentation and the virtually weak
alliance between politics and science, which could be treated as a political
opportunity structure as I did in the hydropower chapter, provides a relevant
theoretical lens to examine this perspective.
5.4.2 Fragmented bureaucrats as a political opportunity structure
In the previous chapter, the fragmented authoritarianism (FA) framework was
used to explain the victory or failure of China’s anti-dam activities (Mertha,
2008). In a broader sense, the framework can be considered part of the poli-
tical opportunity structure. In bureaucracy politics, the perceived relative
weakness of MOA and the perceived opinion disparity among top Chinese
leaders can be an indication of political and bureaucratic fragmentation that
constituted an opportunity structure in which activists were encouraged to
raise disputes.
During China’s GMO controversy, one remarkable phenomenon is that the
low-profile Ministry of Agriculture (MOA, renamed to the Ministry of Agri-
culture and Rural Affairs in March 2018) often displayed perceptible weakness.
For example, an article in Beijing Youth Daily in October 2013 reported that
Vice Agricultural Minister Li Jiayang, a senior genetic scientist and former
vice-president of CAS, had been hired by Dupont to work on biotechnology,
and accused Li of representing the interests of multinational companies by
helping them promote GMOs (Y. Li, 2013). The fact that the media openly
blamed a senior incumbent government official of a potentially improper for-
eign link was scarce in China. But it was not unique. Sun Zhengcai, a former
crop scientist who was Agricultural Minister between 2006 and 2009 during
which the Ministry approved the biosafety certificates of China’s two types of
GM rice and one type of GM corn, was also a target for open attack long
before his fall as a political star in July 2017 (Unknown, 2014). Overseas
observers widely thought Sun’s fall a sacrifice to pave the way for Xi Jinxing’s
life-long tenure because he used to be considered a promising future generation
of State leaders (Buckley, 2017).
Cui Yongyuan repeatedly and openly questioned MOA and its officials in
his Weibo account and his CPPCC proposals (Cui ended his CPPCC mem-
bership in 2019 after retiring from CCTV), often using very humiliating
words. The MOA’s apparent weak strength in the authoritarian political
hierarchy may be another piece of evidence implying bureaucratic fragmen-
tation (INT20161226, INT20170823).
Lawyers and anti-biotechnology activists repeatedly sued MOA for hiding
important information regarding its approval of biosafety certificates of
124 GMO controversy

both China’s own GM varieties and imported soybean and corn. China
Justice Online (https://wenshu.court.gov.cn), operated by the Supreme Peo-
ple’s Court of China, recorded two lawsuits against MOA. There are cer-
tainly more such litigations as Chinese courts often refused to accept an
accusation against a government agency (X. Yang, 2016). Although MOA
won both lawsuits, the fact that a ministry was sued for lack of transparency
by the public in authoritarian China was an indication that the ministry’s
authority was discounted in the public sphere and this impression encour-
agedmoretojoinanti-GMOactivism.
Although the perceived agency weakness encouraged activists, it does not
mean the real power of the agency was low. But in the GMO case, while the
MOA could dominate the technology’s development agenda at early stages,
the jurisdiction to make key policies went beyond the ministry’s authority
after it became a hot “issue”(INT20161110b, INT20161118, INT20170823).
This power erosion was first reflected in 2001 when China was eager to make
its GM food labeling rule to fend offthe possible impact of flooding US farm
imports after China’s expected WTO entry.
In 2010, the biosafety certificate issuance triggered protests from red prin-
celings, over 120 leading Chinese scholars’effort to submit a petition to NPC
in March 2010 (X. Tian, 2010), and the concentrated adverse reporting by the
media, including official outlets like Outlook Weekly published by Xinhua
Agency. Since then, the vast sensitivity of the GMO issue has reportedly
resulted in an attitude disparity among top Chinese leaders.
In March 2011, a national exhibition was held to show offthe milestone
achievements of the 16 mega science and technology initiatives launched in
2008. All Politburo standing members attended the event. Premier Wen went to
the booth of agricultural biotechnology, reiterating his support, but Hu Jintao
and several other members intentionally avoided stopping there (INT20161226).
Hu’s avoidance of the biotechnology booth did not mean he rejected
GMOs. In 2008, he inspected the Peking University College of Life Sciences
and praised the GM cotton research there. In June 2011, during his inspection
in Hubei Province, he specifically visited HZAU’s GM rice lab, but the official
Xinhua Agency story about the Hubei inspection (Zou & Zhang, 2011)
intentionally omitted this visit (Q. Zhang, 2017). Meanwhile, Premier Wen
reportedly was pressured within the Politburo for his outspoken support for
GM technology (INT20161110a). Hence, there was a deadlock. Top Chinese
leaders constrained themselves from talking about GMOs to reduce sensitiv-
ity and avoid controversy, but activists interpreted this as a policy concession,
which further encouraged activism.
Chinese scientists spared no effort to lobby policymakers (INT20170723).
In 2011, scientists submitted a CAS consultative report on GMOs to the top
leadership, and in 2013, a total of 61 CAS and CAE (the Chinese Academy
of Engineering) academicians signed a petition to central leadership to
appeal for quicker commercialization of GM rice. The effect was far from
satisfactory. The CAS consultative report and academicians’petition did not
GMO controversy 125

result in any policy change (INT20161221). One leading scientist com-
plained: “The situation was too poor. The highest official I can meet [for the
GMO issue] was MOA vice minister [who was not a key decision-maker]”
(INT20161009).
Despite the paramount ideological role science enjoys in China (Jia & Liu,
2014), the science-politics alliance here appeared to be weak. “Chinese leaders
pay attention to science, but it is preconditioned that they think science is free
of problems. When facing strong public protest, the leaders themselves would
hesitate whether the science in question is reliable,”one senior science policy
advisor told me. “Top Chinese leaders today are highly responsive to public
opinion. They are particularly worrying that offending the public would cause
social unrests”(INT20170619).
Chinese leaders’high-profiled support for science is very utilitarian
(Cao, 2004). While research on GM technology is an issue of science
policy, the decision to commercialize GM crops is far more complicated,
involving policy considerations of international trade, intellectual property
rights and public protests. Therefore, other factors seemed to play an
equally significant, if not more significant, role in the policy-making pro-
cess (Cao, 2018).
This subsection examines components associated with the fragmented
authoritarianism (FA) framework underlying the GMO controversy in
China. While FA factors generally played a role in promoting the dispute,
they were different from the pattern displayed in the hydropower con-
troversy in which bureaucratic fragmentation was salient. In the GMO
controversy, although MOA did not have a robust bureaucratic challenger,
the fragmentation existed among political ideologies, members of top lea-
dership and different experts, as well as between activists and establishments.
The degree to which this fragmentation existed was much broader and
deeper than in the hydropower controversy and other controversies/social
contentions, including the debates on nuclear power which I will explore in
the next chapter.
5.4.3 Anti-GMO framing and mobilization
So far, I have used the political process theory to analyze China’s GMO
controversy as a social movement. Tarrow and other scholars maintain that
political opportunity should not be considered a static social structure (Meyer
& Minkoff, 2004; Tarrow, 1996). With this theoretical leniency, we can find
that on the basis of the perceived agency weakness, Chinese leaders’policy
disparity and insecure science-politics alliance, China’s opening to interna-
tional NGOs, the shaking public confidence on food safety, the rise of
Maoism in post-reform China, and media’s commercialization formed a
political opportunity structure favoring anti-GMO activism.
In terms of framing and cultural artifacts that Tarrow (2011) listed as the
second dimension for political process theory, anti-GMO actors legitimatized
126 GMO controversy

them within this political opportunity structure by framing themselves as
either defending public interests, as revealed in Table 4.2, or inheriting the
legacy of socialism. Activists and dissenting experts effectively mobilized
more public figures, civil resistance to GM foods through mass media, Maoist
websites and other media platforms discussed in the previous section.
Ordinary Chinese people may not be motivated by abstract public account-
ability, but they were anxious about food safety. For years, scandals on food
safety have been the No. 1 topic dominating the public opinion agenda. No
other food safety issues are as concentrated in one term as GMOs, which, as
Herring (2008) argued, has become an omnipotent negative frame. This frame,
together with the political safety of the topic, has made anti-GMO an ideal topic
for public mobilization. On the other hand, the grave public concerns with the
issue also lure more and more new activists and potential opinion leaders to
come to the anti-GMO front to seek public attention. My WeChat public
account article analysis has revealed that in a given period, hot GMO articles
spread across different types of public accounts ranging from lifestyle to cooking
and religion. Similarly, while a group of diehard activists has maintained and
driven the GMO controversy, one can find new anti-GMO activists, and claims
chronically rose in WeChat, Weibo and other non-official platforms, resulting in
a sustainable social mobilization against GMOs.
Using the above material, Figure 5.8 demonstrates the three social move-
ment elements –political opportunity structure, framing and mobilization –
of the political process theory. The intersection of the three circles represents
combined factors leading to China’s intensified GMO controversy.
As I argued in the Introduction, social movement theories have a tremendous
advantage in interpreting widespread public science controversies as they bring
in actors and their strategic actions to deal with opportunities. In this process,
communication factors such as the media and the Internet are instrumentally
explored by activists to utilize opportunities. People’s attention to the disputed
topic is also an important parameter. In the GMO controversy, activists effec-
tively used the attention and personal concern to boost public rejection of GM
foods, which then brought more opinion-makers to tap the field.
But with only political and communication dimensions, one cannot fully
understand why activists had the intellectual confidence and necessary knowl-
edge to challenge the claimed scientific consensus on the safety and economic
prospect of GM crops. If the activists’side did not have the fundamental belief
that they could counter orthodox knowledge, they might not have been able to
perceive the emerging political opportunities. On the other hand, if policy-
makers and the public fully accepted the knowledge maintained by mainstream
scientists about GMOs, then activists might not have been able to network and
mobilize mass resistance. All these questions need further scrutiny, for which
social movement theories per se cannot offer a ready answer and guidelines. I
will examine these aspects in terms of the knowledge-control regime and civic
epistemology in the following section.
GMO controversy 127

5.5 Knowledge control and contention
5.5.1 Knowledge-control regime in China’s GMO controversy
In the previous section, I indicated the importance of knowledge in shaping
political opportunities for the GMO debate. The knowledge-control regime
concept clarified by Hilgartner (2017) can be highly relevant here. Although
the GMO controversy took place more in public spheres than in labs, the idea
of various control regimes still holds. According to Hilgartner (2017, p. 14),
knowledge-control regimes do not determine action but structure the cate-
gories, routines, identities, rules, expectations, menus of options and other
resources that actors draw on to interpret situations and guide action. As we
can expect, for most “regular”sciences, their knowledge production and
application can be routinely performed within such a structure, often sup-
ported by political power (Jasanoff, 2004a). But the widespread public con-
troversy on GMOs toppled such “routines, identities, rules, expectations and
menus of options”at the societal level of knowledge-control regime, even
Polical opportunity
structure:
Leadership and bureaucrac
fragmentaon
Open to intl NGOs; Media
commercializaon; Rise of
Maoism
m
Framing issue as
food safety and
public
accountability
Mobilizaon:
Bureacrats,
professionals,
middle class and
lower class
mobilized
respecvely
GMO controversy as a social movement
Figure 5.8 Political opportunity structure, framing and mobilization in China’s anti-
GMO activism
Source: Drawn by the author
128 GMO controversy

though scientists had primarily maintained their knowledge-control regime
within the professional biotechnology circle.
Given agriculture’s political and symbolic importance in China, China
had actively developed modern agricultural biotechnology since the 1970s
when it began to open the door. Deng Xiaoping even concluded that the
ultimate solution to agriculture could only rely on biotechnological engineering
(X. Deng, 1988/1993b). A knowledge-control regime was developed to place
technical supremacy over conventional cropping (INT20161118, INT20160816).
The scheme was extended to agricultural economics which calculated economic
and farmers’health benefits of planting the GM cotton China commercialized in
1997 (Pray, Huang, Hu & Rozelle, 2002) and confidently projected such benefits
if China commercialized GM rice (J. Huang, Hu, Rozelle & Pray, 2005).
At the very beginning of the regime formation, no effort was taken to deal
with science and technology controversies (INT20161118). A senior science
journalist put it straightforwardly. “Scientists thought they can handle poli-
tical leaders and completely ignored the possible public resistance”
(INT20170723). In promoting their disciplines, these scientists seemed intent
to distinguish their research from conventional breeding, observed another
senior science journalist who has long reported biotechnology advances in
China (INT20160816).
Agricultural biotechnology scientists also ignored the effort to introduce bio-
safety governance pushed by ecologists and botanists (INT20161215). To social
and humanities sciences, pro-biotechnology scientists even showed their con-
tempt. “GMO scientists disdained to have a dialogue with we social science
scholars,”said a leading Chinese rural sociologist based at an agricultural
university (INT20161114).
Indeed, what Chinese GMO scientists did was nothing more than regular
science where major scientific breakthroughs are followed by an effort to
model their applications and project their benefits based on an optimistically
estimated adoption rate. In the process, various aspects of knowledge, such as
local knowledge or hidden social structures, are routinely neglected. When
there is no significant controversy, neglected knowledge may be ignored. But
GMO controversies which had accompanied the technology when China
began to develop it made many aspects of the neglected knowledge salient,
continuously stoking the disputes, similar to the situation in the West as
observed by anthropological scholars (G. D. Stone, 2010).
The aforementioned rural sociologists’studies on the structural decline of
Chinese countryside in the face of labor and capital outflow to coastal manu-
facturing centers belonged to this type of knowledge. The worry that imported
GM soy would severely impact soy farmers in northeast China (indeed, the
impact had already happened) was another type of consideration largely neglec-
ted in GM scientists’analytical modeling. But in the Chinese public sphere, the
salience of rural decline and impacts on farmers were at least equal to agricultural
technical progress, if not more salient. In the sense of knowledge-control regime,
GMO controversy 129

at the societal level of such a regime, “routines, identities, rules, expectations and
menus of options”are simply out of biotechnology scientists’control.
One cannot be an expert in every field. When these rural sociologists, inter-
national trade analysts, STS scholars, ecologists and other dissenting experts
raised GMO issues, they often publicly mentioned the technology’s potential
risks, though most of them did not have the professional background to study
its health and environmental risks. This knowledge insufficiency was often
quickly taken by the biotechnology side to attack them.
As compared with their reluctance to dialogue with external knowledge,
Chinese biotechnology scientists spared no effort to maintain orthodox con-
clusions on the safety and benefits of GM crop and food. On ScienceNet.cn, a
leading website primarily targeting scientists but also publicly accessible, a
social network analysis on the blog comment relationship of ScienceNet.cn
users showed that a high majority of network nodes were from people sup-
portive of GMO, with only one biotechnology-negative node, a botanist and
organic farming advocate (Li & Jin, 2019).
On ScienceNet.cn and other Chinese public platforms, articles and texts to
refute the dissenting studies on GMO safety –such as the rejected Séralini et
al. (2012) –were widely circulated among peer scientists and science commu-
nicators. After the 2009/2010 controversy on the biosafety certificate of GM
rice, agricultural biologists’efforts to reject domestically published papers (e.g.,
Z. Zhang et al., 2015) were also enhanced (INT20161215, INT20170617).
Partly due to the enormous controversy surrounding GMOs, Chinese science
communicators and science journalists nearly unanimously united on the pro-
biotechnology side, many believing defending GMOs to be an essential task of
maintaining the authority of science and some using support for GMOs as a dis-
tinction between true or false science communicators (journalists) (Jia & Li, 2016).
Utilizing the report and censorship mechanism of leading social media
platforms in China such as Weibo and WeChat, scientists and science com-
municators consistently requested that these platform operators censor the
rumor posts and public account articles with false content regarding GMOs.
On many occasions, the request was valid. A recent Chinese study also
showed that more than 77% of WeChat-based public account articles were
positive to GMOs (Jin, 2017). While my above analysis of the most recent 50
highest-read articles shows different results, Jin’s (2017) result is reasonable,
because it might reflect the fact that most science communicators and writers
are biotechnology supporters who, together with the establishment media,
produce the most significant number of GMO-related WeChat articles. But
due to the widespread public concerns about GM food safety, those negative
articles were more likely to attract the audience to read.
Despite the effort, polls showed public acceptance of GM food continued
declining (Cui & Shoemaker, 2018) and anti-GMO public opinions remained
rampant (Jin, 2017). In a recent advance in January 2019, activists widely
reported and celebrated that a classic nutrition textbook –Nutrition and Food
Hygiene –newly added “negative”GMO contents (C. Zhao, 2018). The four
130 GMO controversy

pages of material (one section of the book’s Chapter 9), named GM food
management, did nothing more than describe the potential risks of GM food
and say that therefore, labeling was needed.
Why has Chinese biotechnology scientists’successful management of the
consensual statement on GMO safety not been transformed into public support
and consensual statement across different disciplines? Once again, we can apply
the idea of multiple knowledge-control regimes. For regular science, a con-
sensual statement in a central professional circle may naturally transform to
broad support, possibly through trade and negotiation hidden to outsiders
(Galison, 1997). Modern knowledge is featured with its specification and pro-
fessionalization (Adhikari & Sales, 2001). A routine practice might include
some components while excluding or ignoring minor dissenting ideas such as
the ones contained in Nutrition and Food Hygiene.
But given a widely attended controversy, activists tend to grasp and amplify
the differences. On the other hand, once GM food became a publicly salient
issue, food nutrition experts found that to maintain the governing frame of
their knowledge-control regime (in food nutrition), which means “an orga-
nized set of schemata that provides a template that actors employ to guide
action and interpretation”(Hilgartner, 2017, p. 12), they had to address issues
relevant to the public concerns, such as the safety of GM food. Otherwise, it
could be a sign that the control of their fields was less authoritative
(INT20161115).
In the GMO controversy, different knowledge branches were sooner or later
enlisted in the social argumentation against GMOs. In terms of knowledge-
control regime, the biotechnology side has no power to control the spread of
anti-GMO argumentations, despite the expert consensus on GM food safety
and optimistic economic prospects.
To view the GMO controversy only from this knowledge-control regime per-
spective, however, is not enough, for any dispute might experience a similar
process, but few of them are as sustained as in GMO case. Civic epistemology
offers another perspective for our understanding, especially if we place this per-
spective in the dynamic communication process of public science controversies.
5.5.2 Civic epistemology and conspiracy theories
Given the sustained civil resistance to GMOs, it is necessary to investigate the
dispute from the perspective of civic epistemology (Jasanoff, 2011b), which
represents the stylized, culturally specific ways in which the public expects the
state’s expertise, knowledge and reasoning to be produced, tested and put to
use in decision-making. Due to the long historical memory of food shortages
and social unrest caused by the deficiency, generations after generations of Chi-
nese leadership placed maintaining sufficient food supplies on the top of their
policy agenda. In the 1980s, and then across the first two decades of the new
century, most of the annual No. 1 Documents of the CCP Central Committee,
symbolically the most important policy of the year, dealt with the so-call Three
GMO controversy 131

Nong (countryside, agriculture and peasants) affairs. Although the percentage of
agricultural outputs in gross domestic product (GDP) had decreased from 24.6%
in the 1980s to 18.3% in 1997 (the year when China commercialized GM cotton)
and then to 7.2% in 2018 (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 1981, 1998,
2019), the symbolic importance of agriculture did not.
For ordinary Chinese people, due to the long-time propaganda linking
national prosperity and science and technology progress, most welcome high-
tech development of agriculture. People see parallels between the support for
high-tech adoption in agricultural production, national food security and
their concern about food safety. To them, it is necessary to develop science
and technology to promote social progress, but the development should not
threaten personal food safety, or even just bring a potential threat.
In the early days of agricultural biotechnology development in China, the
public showed strong support for the technology (J. Huang et al., 2006b; L.
Lü, 2009). But as a result of anti-GMO activists’continuous effort to nega-
tively frame GMOs as morally stigmatized, public support for biotechnology as
aspecific high-tech solution dramatically decreased and the concern over the
technology’s negative impacts on food safety continuously increased.
Amidst the repeated exposure of food and plant scandals in contemporary
China ranging from using industrial pigment for food to adding the industrial
material melamine to milk, people of different social status developed their
own “culturally specificways”to understand GMOs. The middle class had
great concern about food safety. A national poll in 2009 found that more than
50% of the middle class felt intense anxiety about food safety (Ouyang, 2010).
The survey was confirmed by my interview with an organic food activist
(INT20160823) and by two recent polls that found people either with gradu-
ate school degrees (Cui & Shoemaker, 2018) or with higher biotechnology
knowledge (Ren et al., 2016) had more concerns about GM foods than other
social groups. Though the two subsamples may not completely match, they
can represent the overall status of the middle class.
Although the middle class might have basic biotechnology knowledge or
the potential to get it, they still chose to believe some rumors. The most
widely circulated ones were the lists of GM fruits and vegetables in the
market. Most foods in the list, such as grape tomato and colored pepper, were
not genetically modified at all.
While the rich and middle class tried to avoid GM food with their money,
many people in China embrace conspiracy theories. Guangxi He et al. (2017)
indicated that more than 40% of the Chinese public believed that GMOs were a
conspiracy of the Western powers to control China. Following the wide public
protest against the biosafety certificates of GM rice and GM corn in 2010, three
best-selling books –GMO War (Gu, 2011), Secrets of Freemasonry (X. He,
2011) and Unrestricted Biological War: The Conspiracy of GM Foods and Vac-
cines (Chai, 2011) –were published in China. They unanimously claimed that
GMOs were a conspiracy of the Western ruling class to control the world (the
difference is they defined different groups as Western ruling class).
132 GMO controversy

It is naive to blame the public’s embrace of a GMO conspiracy on their low
scientific literacy. Adopting the concept of civic epistemology, one may
understand the embrace of conspiracy as the historically and culturally
shaped ways for many disadvantaged people to understand GMOs. Indeed,
Guangxi He et al. (2017) found those aged over 50 and those with lower
education were more likely to believe a conspiracy theory in the GMO issue.
Left behind in China’s fast and state capitalism-driven economic growth, this
group of the population was the direct followers of Maoist activists’anti-
GMO campaigns.
Another logic of the civic epistemology underlying the mass perception
of GMO conspiracy is a political polarization specific to China. “The logic is,
Chairman Mao is against the United States; GMO is thought to be a US
strategy against China, so following Mao means opposing the United
States and GMOs,”a communication scholar told me during an interview
(INT20170828).
Combining the different findings, we find a convergent public opinion to avoid
using biotechnology for food production. In the above analysis of the civic epis-
temologyof Chinese citizen regarding GMOs, a common feature is that scientific
knowledge per se did not shape people’s attitude to GMOs. Instead, a combina-
tion of political, socioeconomic and cultural considerations dominated both
dissenting experts and ordinary people’s decision-making process, echoing civic
epistemology’s rejection of a public understanding of science (PUS) model as a
way to deal with science policies (Jasanoff, 2011b).
This civic epistemology perspective goes hand-in-hand with the knowledge-
control regime analyzed in the previous subsection. Because the scientific
community’s regime failed to control knowledge production and transmission
at the societal level, the public was more likely to encounter messages alien to
the progress belief (e.g., that technology is an essential solution to food safety).
On the other hand, when some radical experts and opinion leaders sensed the
high public attention to and concerns about GMOs, they were more likely to
link their publicly expressed views to the controversial technology to snatch
more attention resources.
5.6 Chapter conclusions
This chapter examined factors triggering and sustaining the GMO controversy in
China from the perspectives of communication, social movements and knowl-
edge control. Media commercialization and the rise of social media, the political
opportunity structure allowing penetration of NGOs and emerging Maoism and
suffering bureaucratic fragmentation, and GM scientists’failure to monopolize
knowledge-control regimes all contributed to the long-lasting GMO controversy.
Meanwhile, GMOs being framed as a food safety and public accountability issue
and high public attention highlighted scientific uncertainties and disparities,
motivated opinion leaders and other allies with different knowledge equipment,
and helped activists mobilize various resources against the technology.
GMO controversy 133

To better understand China’s GMO controversy, the three dimensions –
communication, social movements and STS scholarship –have to be inte-
grated. The media provided an arena for contention which was made possible
due to the specific political opportunity structure listed above. The media plat-
forms contributed to the development or breakdown of knowledge-control
regimes. The public knowledge arising from these regimes provided legitimacy
to both biotechnology scientists and anti-GMO activists.
A specific theoretical contribution of this chapter is the communication
factors in the political opportunity structure and knowledge-control regimes
in the public attention market. A higher public concern of GM food safety
amplified through communication channels created a broader opportunity
structure for activists and other actors and mobilized more otherwise neglec-
ted “routines”to become salient. There seemed to be a positive feedback
loop, making GMO controversy the most prolonged and most intensive S&T
contention in contemporary China.
Note
1Wuyouzhixiang’s website used to be wyzx.com. But it was closed by the Chinese
government in 2012, possibly due to its extreme leftism. See https://www.bbc.com/
zhongwen/simp/chinese_news/2012/04/120406_china_wuyouzhixiang. Later the web-
site moved much of its content to a new site literally called Wuyouzhixiang Online
Journal at wyzxwk.com, which is still active at the time of writing. In this book, the
two websites are treated identically.
134 GMO controversy

6 The nuclear power debate in a narrow
political opportunity structure
6.1 Introduction
In the past 30 years, nuclear power has achieved tremendous progress in
China. According to the National Energy Administration (NEA), by the end
of 2017, 37 nuclear power reactors were in operation in the Chinese main-
land, and 19 reactors were under construction, with a total capacity of 21.87
million kilowatts. The number of nuclear reactors under construction in
China ranked first in the world (National Energy Administration, 2017).
Despite the significant progress, nuclear power also experienced controversies
in China, although the intensity is far below other science and technology dis-
putes such as GMOs, hydropower and waste incineration. Street protests halted
the proposed construction of two nuclear fuel recycling facilities in Guangdong
Province’s Jiangmen and Jiangsu Province’s Lianyungang in 2012 and 2016
respectively. Between 2016 and 2018, the Chinese government did not issue a
new construction permit to any nuclear power plant (NPP).
How should we understand the situation surrounding nuclear power conten-
tion in China that is so different from patterns of GMO and hydropower con-
troversies? Is there any political opportunity structure in the country that can
fuel anti-nuclear campaigns? Has the knowledge control pattern played a role
in nourishing nuclear power controversies? This chapter will examine how
communication, sociopolitical and knowledge control factors jointly shape the
unique situation of the social contention surrounding nuclear power.
6.1.1 Media framing, public attitude and anti-nuclear social movements
Partly due to its military origin, the civil use of atomic energy attracted pro-
tests worldwide from the very beginning (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989;
Rudig, 2014). The ebb of the initial protests in the 1960s can be associated
with the decline of overall public concern during this decade (Kasperson et
al., 1980), which was associated with the media’s widespread framing of the
technology as a significant scientific progress (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989).
The public attitude toward nuclear power was both shaped by the media
(Mazur, 1981, 1990) and influenced by organized social movements. In the
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160212-6

latter half of the 1970s, anti-nuclear power campaigns became the central
focus of social movements in Western Europe and the United States.
Like other science and technology controversies, the public disputes against
nuclear power started with or at least echoed the internal disagreement
among experts (Nelkin, 1971, 1995). Despite dissenting expert views, the
regulators like the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) seemed to favor more
industrial interests due to the agency’s deep links to the industry (Jasper,
1992). The policy impact of anti-nuclear movements in terms of halting or
delaying proposed plant construction was often limited (Giugni, 2007;
Giugni, McAdam & Tilly, 1999).
Structural analysis showed that anti-nuclear campaigns’emergence, develop-
ment and policy effect were mostly bounded within the so-called political
opportunity structures. According to Kitschelt (1986), institutional arrange-
ments and historical precedents for social mobilization of the United States,
West Germany, France and Sweden resulted in different political opportunity
structures, facilitating the development of protest movements in some instances
but constraining them in others. For example, the more open political repre-
sentation in Sweden and the United States assisted anti-nuclear activists to adopt
more lobbying processes while France and Germany’s more formal political
structures led to more street politics (Tompkins, 2016). Political opportunity
structures have also impacted the policy effects of anti-nuclear movements in the
four democracies.
In former Soviet Union nations, the emergence of anti-nuclear activism was
associated with a rise in nationalism and the pursuit of national independence
from the control of Soviet empire (J. I. Dawson, 1995, 1996) or a revolt
against the Soviet techno-bureaucracy (Schmid, 2004). However, after the
collapse of the Soviet Union, the anti-nuclear movement quickly dissolved.
The best explanation, according to Dawson, is that the anti-nuclear move-
ment offered a surrogate for nationalism and anti-communism. Similarly, in
Taiwan, the anti-nuclear movement became a surrogate for political struggle
in the newly democratized society (M.-S. Ho, 2003).
The Chernobyl accident in 1986 was a primary trigger for anti-nuclear power
activism in the former Soviet Union. Indeed, the major nuclear accidents –
Three Miles Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima –have severely impacted public
attitudes to nuclear power (Bolsen & Cook, 2008; Y. Kim, Kim & Kim, 2013;
Rosa & Dunlap, 1994; Siegrist & Visschers, 2013; Visschers & Wallquist, 2013),
but in most cases, the accidents’impacts were short-lived, and other variables,
such as institutional trust and prior support, played a more constant role in
deciding public attitudes (Siegrist & Visschers, 2013; Visschers & Wallquist,
2013). For example, Slovic, Flynn, Mertz, Poumadere and Mays (2000)
found that the French nuclear plants that partly caused the higher public
acceptance of nuclear power in France than in the United States were all
financially supported by the State-owned sector (notably Électricité de
France (EDF)) while in the United States, the dominant players were all
private investors.
136 The nuclear power debate

6.1.2 Nuclear controversy from the knowledge-making perspective
Given the considerable controversy surrounding nuclear power, STS scholars
and science communication academics have paid attention to the con-
troversial technology, enabling nuclear power to dominate their research
agenda for decades (Suerdem, Bauer, Howard & Ruby, 2013). According to
them, because few other technologies raise so many social costs –prolifera-
tion, terrorist abuse, routine health damage, the social perception of “low
probability-high damage”accidents, civil liberties and obligations to future
generations –opposition to nuclear power could be reasonable and legitimate
(Bickerstaffe & Pearce, 1980).
Wynne’s (1992) classic study on the disputed contamination of Cumbrian
sheep farms in England by Chernobyl disaster’s radioactive pollutants can be
taken as an empirical example of this direction. The study revealed that sheep
farmers’lay know-how of airflow and topography triumphed over the pro-
fessional knowledge of radioactive experts commissioned by the government,
demonstrating the problems with the government’s ban on sheep sales and
breaking the knowledge monopoly by experts in the highly professional field.
In East Asia, STS scholars found that in Japan, techno-nationalism that
drove Japanese elites to seek to catch up with the West in economic and mili-
tary terms as rapidly as possible created the essential momentum for nuclear
development (Fujigaki & Tsukahara, 2011; Kelly, 2015). Similarly, in South
Korea, the introduction of nuclear power was considered a modernizing and
empowering force that would develop and strengthen the nation (Hong, 2011).
As noted in the first chapter, South Korean’s progressive sociotechnical ima-
ginaries for nuclear power were sharply different from the US imaginaries that
nuclear needs to be contained (Jasanoff& Kim, 2009, 2013). There is no doubt
that nuclear power enjoys similar positive sociotechnical imaginaries in China.
Anti-nuclear power campaigns have led to the stigmatization of nuclear
power (Tannenwald, 2005), but Schmid (2015) found that although people
widely linked the Chernobyl accident to poor management, the Soviet
Union’s nuclear industry workers were, in fact, a high-quality, self-disciplined
and proud group. The accident was a result of a systematic failure of the
technology. Schmid’s depicting of high-quality nuclear power workers is rele-
vant to the study in this chapter.
6.1.3 Public attitude toward nuclear power in China
Accompanying China’s great leap forward in nuclear power, Chinese scholars
have performed several surveys on public views about atomic energy (G. He,
Mol, Zhang & Lu, 2013, 2014; Y. Wu, 2017). Generally speaking, public
acceptance of nuclear power was high, ranging from 74% of respondents in
the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen in 2008 (Z. Chen, Kong & Geng, 2009)
to 72% of participants in 2015 (Y. Wu, 2017). Nearly 68% agreed that nuclear
power’s benefits outweigh its harm (C. Zhang, Huang & Ren, 2016). The
The nuclear power debate 137

support rate was much higher than the 28% support rate in 18 IAEA (Inter-
national Atomic Energy Agency) countries and 20% in OECD (Organization
for Economic Co-operation and Development) members (Y. Wu, 2017). An
earlier study on public risk perception also found that the Chinese had less
concern about high-technology such as the radioactive threat from nuclear
power plants (NPPs) (Xie, Wang & Xu, 2003). However, the Chinese public
had a quite low knowledge of atomic power (Y. Guo & Ren, 2017; Yu et al.,
2012), and the knowledge level had a significant impact on their acceptance
of nuclear power both in general terms and in their hometown (L. Deng,
Zheng & Zhou, 2016).
As in other countries, in China the Fukushima nuclear accident dramatically
decreased Chinese acceptance of nuclear power and increased their risk percep-
tion (G. He et al., 2014; L. Huang et al., 2013; C. Sun, Zhu & Meng, 2016), but
it also enhanced people’s knowledge about nuclear power (L. Huang et al.,
2013). Though immediately after the accident, public trust in government low-
ered (L. Huang et al., 2013), confidence in government and scientists to deal
with a nuclear crisis remained high and showed no significant change from
before the disaster (G. He et al., 2014). Several years after Fukushima, public
support for nuclear power largely resumed (Y. Wu, 2017), and the Chinese public
generally maintained high trust in the nuclear information provided by govern-
ment (in general), nuclear regulators and scientists (L. Deng & Tu, 2016; G. He
et al., 2013, 2014; Y. Wu, 2017). Echoing the public’s high trust in government
was the Chinese people’smoresignificant concern about risks that threaten
social stability and economic development (Xie et al., 2003).
The general high trust in government was not always translated to actual
support for nuclear facilities in one’s backyard. Studies found that two NIMBY
(Not In My Back Yard) campaigns that suspended a proposed NPP in Rushan,
Shandong Province in 2009 and a proposed nuclear fuel recycling plant in
Jiangmen city, Guangdong Province in 2013 could largely be attributed to inap-
propriate engagement measures by local governments and insufficient disclosure
by industry (J. Dai et al., 2015; Zeng et al., 2015). In both cases, social media
platforms (BBS in Rushan and Weibo in Jiangmen) played an active role in
fueling the public protests (R. Huang & Sun, 2016). Thus, well-organized public
engagement and communication activities could contribute to a higher social
acceptance of nuclear power (L. Deng, Zhou & Zheng, 2016; G. He et al., 2013).
On the other hand, case studies and media stories show that unlike in other
NIMBY activities such as those against trash incineration facilities (Stan-
daert, 2017) and Para-xylene plant (Jia, 2014a) where street protests domi-
nated the agenda, some local anti-nuclear power campaigns have shown a
high level of elite-led public deliberations, which are generally rare in
authoritarian China (L. Deng & Jia, 2019; D. Yan & Li, 2014).
These studies reveal China’s high public acceptance of nuclear power for
the sake of national interests and a strong public belief in the government’s
capacity to handle nuclear safety at a time when public trust in government
on food safety issues was declining (X. Lü & Zhao, 2009). The acceptance
138 The nuclear power debate

and belief, possibly arising from pride in China’s independent development of
atomic weapons, constitute the national sociotechnical imaginaries underlying
the nuclear controversy examined in this chapter.
6.2 Contemporary nuclear contentions in China
With the term “Two Bombs, One Satellite,”the achievement of nuclear
technology has long been celebrated as a source of national pride in China.
Chapter 3 detailed China’s nuclear power development and the contentions
it has encountered in the country. Despite the national pride, nuclear power
has not been free from controversies and NIMBY protests. After the
Fukushima disaster, anti-nuclear power activities sprang up in Wangjiang
county in Anhui Province, Lianyungang of Jiangsu Province and Jiangmen
of Guangdong Province. There were other low-profile local resistance activ-
ities to nuclear power in Guangxi’s Fangchenggang and Hubei Province’s
Xian’ning.
Yet, the anti-nuclear power activities are largely elite-driven. The main
participants in the nuclear power debate, ranging from Wangjiang’s Four
Seniors and Wang Yinan to Wu Hui and other activists, can all be considered
elites. Few public participants can be perceived.
Elite activists were isolated from NIMBY movements against nuclear
power. In July 2013 and August 2016, street demonstrations in Jiangmen and
Lianyungang resulted in the suspension of the two proposed CNNC nuclear
fuel recycling facilities (Buckley, 2016b; C. Yang, 2013). No anti-nuclear elite
activists were involved in these street protests, though during the Lianyungang
protest local protesters were found to distribute Wu’s article “Nuclear power
destroys China”(INT20161011).
Elite appeals seemed to result in policy effects. In November 2016, the 13th
Five-Year Plan of Power Industry released by NDRC and NEA did not
mention inland NPPs. However, in spring 2018, the policy tone towards
nuclear power suddenly became positive. By January 30, 2021, China became
the world’s third-largest player in both nuclear power reactors in operation
and installed generation capacity.
Summarizing China’s nuclear power controversy, one can find a very dif-
ferent pattern from those of hydropower and GMOs. Although the post-
poning of inland NPP constructions and AP1000 loading were widely
considered to be associated with the challenges raised by Wang Yinan and
other dissenting experts, the policy effect was limited as compared with the
hydropower and GMO controversies. The nuclear dispute was also low
profile and limited mainly to elite circles. Except for the Four Seniors’action
in Wangjiang, the Chinese media reported few other debates. Unlike with
hydropower, the nuclear power industry’s reaction was overall quick, though
as compared with GMO contention, which involves a large number of both
activists and pro-GMO science communicators, few external experts joined
the debate.
The nuclear power debate 139

6.3 Media and the nuclear controversy in China
6.3.1 Examining conventional media reporting of nuclear power
As discussed in the above section, China’s nuclear controversy was low pro-
file, and most of the disputes seemed not to have received intensive media
reporting. Figure 6.1 charts the four sampled media outlets’coverage of
nuclear power (see Chapter 2 for sampling rubrics). A striking feature was the
sudden surge of media stories in 2011 when the Fukushima accident occur-
red. Given Fukushima’s disastrous character, this is understandable but what
makes nuclear power reporting different is that other than the Fukushima
disaster, no other news event has significantly boosted the number of nuclear
power stories.
Media outlets had different reporting strategies. As an urban tabloid in
Shanghai, XEN had a low daily reporting of nuclear power before the Fukush-
ima disaster. According to Table 6.1, before the Fukushima accident, regular
XEN reporting of atomic energy was mostly in the business section, as Shanghai
is a manufacturing center of nuclear power equipment. Due to nuclear power’s
low relevance to urban life, this may also be the only significant link between the
sector and XEN. But after the accident, high concern about radioactive leaks
among residents in coastal Shanghai drove XEN to increase nuclear power
reporting dramatically. The dominant theme of such reporting changed to
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2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
PD XEN SW CSD
Figure 6.1 Number of the sampled media articles on nuclear power in China (2000–2017)
Source: Collected and cleaned by the author; PD: 2000–2017; SW: 2002–2017; XEN:
2002–2017; CSD: 2007–2017
140 The nuclear power debate

nuclear safety. After the Fukushima accident, XEN’scoverageofdomestic
atomic power remained positive or at least neutral, mostly in economic frames.
Table 6.2 shows that PD, as a CCP mouthpiece, predominantly reported
nuclear power as a symbol of China’s science and technology progress,
independent innovation and economic growth. The Fukushima disaster
dramatically halted the tone and pushed PD to focus more on promising
the safety of domestic nuclear power facilities in addition to blaming
Japan’s poor behaviors. However, as China began to export atomic power
technologies (Masood & Buckley, 2013), “nuclear power goes outside”
became a new propaganda theme for PD to praise the sector.
My data collection of CSD, unfortunately, starts in 2007, later than the
other three sampled media outlets, due to a database availability constraint.
CSD focused on science and technology aspects of nuclear power, including
fusion research such as ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental
Reactor) in which CAS, the publisher of CSD, has been heavily involved. The
Fukushima accident seemed to increase the newspaper’s interest in nuclear
energy. Table 6.3 shows the themes of CSD’s nuclear power reporting. Besides
Fukushima-related stories, CSD intensively reported senior scientists’appeals
to increase China’s nuclear power development despite Fukushima and their
promise of its safety. Among the four sampled outlets, if we do not consider
one censored story in SW, CSD is the only medium among the four sampled
Table 6.1 XEN’s nuclear power coverage (2002–2017)
Before 2011 After 2011 Total
Positive reporting 17 40 57
Negative reporting 16 267 283
Neutral 81 182 263
Nuclear power safety 18 310 328
Business & economy 47 41 88
Development 527
Environment & ecology 10 9 19
Engineering and technique 10 7 17
History & culture 31316
International treaty & military nuclear 11617
Science popularization 31518
Politics & national interests 51318
Regulatory & public accountability 76067
Science & technology 538
Total 114 489 603
(Source: Author’s collection and coding)
The nuclear power debate 141

Table 6.2 People’s Daily nuclear power coverage (2000–2017)
Before 2011 After 2011 Total
Positive reporting 166 44 210
Negative reporting 11 61 72
Neutral 199 137 336
Nuclear power safety 31 115 146
Business & economy 117 41 158
Development 21 9 30
Environment & ecology 16 6 22
Engineering and technique 63 11 74
History & culture 18 6 24
International treaty & military nuclear 36 12 48
Science popularization 10 9 19
Politics & national interests 16 20 36
Regulatory & public accountability 18 4 22
Science & technology 30 9 39
Total 376 242 618
(Source: Author’s collection and coding)
Table 6.3 China Science Daily nuclear power coverage (2007–2017)
Before 2011 After 2011 Total
Positive reporting 63 169 232
Negative reporting 7 117 124
Neutral 41 221 262
Nuclear power safety 68894
Business & economy 25 83 108
Development 8715
Environment & ecology 13 53 66
Engineering and technique 13 71 84
History & culture 12 16 28
International treaty & military nuclear 145
Science popularization 02828
Politics & national interests 156
Regulatory & public accountability 05050
Science & technology 32 102 134
Total 111 507 618
(Source: Author’s collection and coding)
142 The nuclear power debate

newspapers to have interviewed anti-nuclear activists and dissenting experts,
indicating the elite nature of the nuclear debates.
As I pointed out in previous chapters, SW as a liberal media outlet heavily
reported negative aspects of hydropower development and initiated China’s
anti-GMO activism, but when reporting nuclear power, its style shifted. While
the Fukushima accident impelled SW to include negative reporting about
nuclear safety and public accountability frames, it was about Japan’s nuclear
power industry. When shifting back to China, SW took a neutral tone to
examine competition between nuclear enterprises, nuclear waste site location
and safety challenges in the business frame, rather than in its long-used public
accountability frame for investigating regulatory loopholes. The liberal media
did not quote any domestic anti-nuclear power activist in its news stories. On
June 19, 2014, SW published a Q&A with Wang Yinan to criticize inland
nuclear power development, but Guangdong Provincial Propaganda Depart-
ment censored the story (X. Hu, 2014) (INT20160923b). To balance the arti-
cle, on June 20, 2014, SW published another opinion article written by a
nuclear supporter to defend the industry against Wang’s criticism (W. Zhang,
2014). Table 6.4 reports the basic coding results of SW nuclear articles.
Indeed, anti-nuclear activists repeatedly complained that the media could
hardly report the anti-nuclear voices due to the alleged censorship as a result
of the lobbying effort by nuclear power industry as a strong vested interest
group (INT20160923b, INT20161229). But the claim might not be true.
Besides Wu Hui’s conspiracy claims, the only censored media article my field
Table 6.4 Southern Weekend nuclear power coverage (2002–2017)
Before 2011 After 2011 Total
Positive reporting 3811
Negative reporting 220 22
Neutral 11 30 41
Nuclear power safety 2911
Business & economy 918 27
Development 15 6
Environment & ecology 15 6
Engineering and technique 00 0
History & culture 00 0
International treaty & military nuclear 01 1
Science popularization 02 2
Politics & national interests 15 6
Regulatory & public accountability 012 12
Science & technology 21 3
Total 16 58 74
(Source: Author’s collection and coding)
The nuclear power debate 143

interviews can confirm is the SW’s Q&A with Wang, perhaps because, in
Guangdong Province, the ratio of nuclear energy to total electricity supplies is
the highest nationwide (reaching 11.9% by 2020) (China Energy News, 2018).
Instead of being censored, journalists have widely avoided investigative
reporting of nuclear power. One senior editor of an official science and tech-
nology newspaper stressed that she had never received any censorship directive
from the Central Publicity Department on nuclear power coverage. However,
“journalists were reluctant to report negative news about nuclear power
because they worried about the military background of the nuclear power
sector, the ingrained image that nuclear represents national prosperity and the
long-held belief that there was no [significant] news in the nuclear power
industry”(INT20160925a). She was echoed by another senior journalist of the
same newspaper who talked with me.
In a separate interview, a former science editor at a leading liberal news
magazine confirmed a similar point: “An in-depth investigative story costs a
lot of energy. Journalists would not touch [investigative stories of] nuclear
power because they perceived there would be lack of public interest due to the
small presence of nuclear power in the country”(INT20170106).
A third media source, a former environmental editor at the abovementioned
Guangdong-based liberal media outlet, mostly shared the view. “We de fen d
public interests, but there seem not many news-making events in the nuclear
sector”(INT20161022).
A fourth media source, a science journalist, working with a liberal news
magazine famous for its journalist professionalism (where the second source
used to work), said when reporting nuclear power issues, she has insisted on high
rationality to avoid amplifying the potential but highly unlikely risks associated
with nuclear power. She attended a debate joined by nuclear power experts
and activists. “I was reluctant to interview and quote the activists because
their claims on nuclear power risks seemed too extremist while nuclear
industry experts’comments seemed more reasonable and evidence-based”
(INT20161217).
On the other hand, official Chinese media outlets have every reason to posi-
tively report nuclear power due to its symbolic images of national science and
technology progress, independent innovation, substantial economic return and
most recently China’s proud international expansion. Table 6.5 below provides
evidence. According to Table 6.5, most articles of the four sampled media
outlets on the history of nuclear power positively eulogized Chinese nuclear
scientists’devotion and contribution to national independence (before Fukush-
ima 80% positive and post-Fukushima 75.8%). Besides, among science and
technology framed sample articles, 55% were positive (before Fukushima
59.5% and post-Fukushima 50.5%), and only 2% were negative.
Consistent with the media’s restrained reporting of nuclear power is a
restrictive media morphology. My field studies revealed that most official media
outlets have a somewhat stable news team reporting the beat, either science or
business and energy reporters for a long time. In the hydropower case, energy
144 The nuclear power debate

Table 6.5 Main themes of the sampled media articles on nuclear power in China (2000–2017)
Article
number
Theme
percentage
Positive Positive
stories’
percentage
of the
theme
Negative Negative
stories’
percentage
of the
theme
Neutral Articles with
visible con-
troversy or
uncertainty
Percentage of
articles with
visible con-
troversy
within the
theme
Nuclear power safety 58 9.1% 11 19.0% 22 37.9% 25 30 51.7%
Business & economy 203 31.8% 53 26.1% 2 1.0% 148 11 5.4%
Development 34 5.3% 26 76.5% 1 2.9% 7 1 2.9%
Environment & ecology 41 6.4% 27 65.9% 7 17.1% 7 9 22.0%
Engineering and
technique 93 14.6% 55 59.1% 0 0.0% 38 6 6.5%
History & culture 35 5.5% 28 80.0% 0 0.0% 7 0 0.0%
International treaty &
military nuclear 39 6.1% 3 7.7% 0 0.0% 36 11 28.2%
Science popularization 13 2.0% 5 38.5% 0 0.0% 8 2 15.4%
Politics & national
interests 23 3.6% 8 34.8% 0 0.0% 15 3 13.0%
Regulatory & public
accountability 26 4.1% 4 15.4% 4 15.4% 18 9 34.6%
Science & technology 74 11.6% 44 59.5% 1 1.4% 29 8 10.8%
Total 639 100.0% 264 41.3% 37 5.8% 338 90 14.1%
After the Fukushima Accident (March 11, 2011)
Nuclear power safety 522 40.9% 28 5.4% 295 56.5% 199 215 41.2%
Business & economy 178 13.9% 40 22.5% 30 16.9% 108 88 49.4%
Development 23 1.8% 15 65.2% 0 0.0% 8 6 26.1%
(Continued)
The nuclear power debate 145

Article
number
Theme
percentage
Positive Positive
stories’
percentage
of the
theme
Negative Negative
stories’
percentage
of the
theme
Neutral Articles with
visible con-
troversy or
uncertainty
Percentage of
articles with
visible con-
troversy
within the
theme
Environment & ecology 74 5.8% 12 16.2% 47 63.5% 15 23 31.1%
Engineering and
technique 83 6.5% 39 47.0% 2 2.4% 42 11 13.3%
History & culture 33 2.6% 25 75.8% 5 15.2% 3 0 0.0%
International treaty &
military nuclear 20 1.6% 2 10.0% 2 10.0% 16 7 35.0%
Science popularization 54 4.2% 13 24.1% 0 0.0% 41 23 42.6%
Politics & national
interests 55 4.3% 7 12.7% 23 41.8% 25 24 43.6%
Regulatory & public
accountability 126 9.9% 12 9.5% 58 46.0% 56 82 65.1%
Science & technology 109 8.5% 55 50.5% 3 2.8% 51 18 16.5%
Total 1277 100.0% 248 19.4% 465 36.4% 564 497 38.9%
(Source: Collected and coded by the author; PD: 2000–2017; SW: 2002–2017; XEN: 2002–2017; CSD: 2007–2017)
Table 6.5 (Cont.)
146 The nuclear power debate

reporters tended to report the sector positively, but environmental journalists
often offset and outvoiced their effort due to the media’s active pursuit of
environmentalism agenda.
In the nuclear power case, however, few environmental journalists were
involved in reporting the nuclear power sector, for reasons indicated above
(INT20161022). The implication of this low diversity will be explored in the
following section examining knowledge-control regimes.
Taken together, the nuclear power industry’s positive images, Chinese
journalists’self-censorship partly due to their perceived limited audience
interest, and the atomic industry’s active public communication efforts
have effectively restricted the media’s role as a platform for anti-nuclear
activism. Can the Internet and social media that have eroded the dom-
inance of conventional media and decentralized the communication pro-
cess topple the pattern?
6.3.2 Nuclear power controversy in the social media era
To examine the Internet and social media role in China’s nuclear disputes,
one can first investigate whether the sampled print media’s reporting of
nuclear power was comparable with people’s online behaviors, including
online searches and BBS postings. Figure 6.2 to Figure 6.6 present such
information.
Data embodied in the above graphs are not entirely satisfactory. Baidu.com
introduced its Baidu Index service covering media trends only after 2011,
while Google does not offer a media trends service. On the other hand,
Google’s Chinese search data is likely minimal since 2010 when its search
engine was blocked in China, and Chinese residents needed to use a virtual
private network (VPN) to cross the Chinese Internet wall, hence dramatically
reducing the number of Chinese users. But comparing with the Baidu Index,
Google Trends can provide a chance for triangulation. Baidu search and
25 29 43 40 57 62 47
85 94
55 78
593
182
137 111
71
119
86
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Figure 6.2 Combined four sampled Chinese media nuclear power articles (2010–2017)
Source: Author’s analysis; PD from 2000, CSD from 2007, XEN from 2002 and SW
from 2000
The nuclear power debate 147

Google search seemed to have comparable morphology though their time
scales were different.
All media and search data showed a high wave around March 2011 when the
Fukushima accident occurred. There were several significant waves in the Baidu
search data, such as in December 2014 (December 1–7) and January (January
12–18), April (April 20–26) and May 2015 (May 18–24). In terms of the weekly
unit of Baidu search (Figure 6.4) and Baidu media index (Figure 6.3), the two
roughly matched (e.g., they matched in three of the four periods except January
12–18, 2015). But when I manually checked the sampled media data, I found the
wave crest of the sample media stories did not correspond to the waves in search
results and Baidu media index.
I further searched Baidu news search engine (news.baidu.com) for the
above periods (December 1–7, 2014; January 12–18, 2015; April 20–26,
2015; and May 18–24, 2015). The search returned results ranging from 47 to
85. No article reported blockbuster nuclear news, such as new disasters or
anti-nuclear campaigns such as the NIMBY street protests in 2013 and
2016. Although I did not make a systematic coding, a skim was enough to
judge there was nearly no adverse reporting except the tiny amount on the
leftover issues of Fukushima. Instead, dominant stories were the appeal to
recover nuclear power momentum before Fukushima, new technology or
engineering advances, and events to celebrate the 60th anniversary of
China’s nuclear power industry (1955–2015). No anti-nuclear activists or
dissenting experts were quoted in these articles.
Although the analysis on the data obtained from Baidu news index and Google
search engine was far from systematic and representative, it confirmed the finding
of my systematic coding of articles from the four sample media outlets. Nuclear
power’s progress and technological innovation rather than its safety
Figure 6.3 Chinese media articles mentioning nuclear power searched through Baidu
Index (2011.01–2019.01)
Source: index.baidu.com, searched on January 25, 2019; Url: https://index.baidu.com/
v2/main/index.html#/trend/%E6%A0%B8%E7%94%B5?words=%E6%A0%B8%E7%
94%B5
148 The nuclear power debate

concerns drove people’s interest in the sector, as revealed in their online
search behaviors.
However, the interest in nuclear power based on its progress seemed limited
and short-lived. The Baidu search data demonstrated that the maximum daily
search, including during Fukushima accident, was around 3,000, while the
average daily search across the past eight years was just 1,010. The lack of
mass interest no doubt restricted the public impact of anti-nuclear power
activism, which has been marginalized by the established mass media. The
status also frustrated activists’efforts to utilize social media platforms ranging
from blogs to Weibo and WeChat.
Searching the two major blog portals –Sina blog and BlogChina –with the
key terms “nuclear power”and “nuclear energy”for bloggers returned about
330 bloggers. Known activists or dissenting experts operated none of them.
Two blog accounts were linked to local anti-nuclear activism in Rushan of
Shandong Province and Xinxiang of Henan Province, both with less than five
Figure 6.4 Baidu users’online search of the keyword “nuclear power”(2011–2018)
Source: index.baidu.com, searched on January 25, 2019; Url: https://index.baidu.com/
v2/main/index.html#/trend/%E6%A0%B8%E7%94%B5?words=%E6%A0%B8%E7%
94%B5
Figure 6.5 Google Trend showing the online search of the keyword “nuclear power”
(in Chinese and China) (2004.01–2019.01)
Source: Google Trends; URL: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=
CN&q=%E6%A0%B8%E7%94%B5
The nuclear power debate 149

articles and stopping updates in 2008. Searching the names of crucial activists
or dissenting experts, I only found blog accounts belonging to the grassroots
anti-nuclear activist Wu Hui and the senior scientist He Zuoxiu who sharply
criticized inland nuclear power. Among the 34 blog posts in the scientist’s
account in BlogChina.com, six were dedicated to nuclear power. As of Jan-
uary 26, 2019, each nuclear power articles had 4,661 views on average, and
six comments per capita.
Wu posted 146 blog articles since he opened a Sina blog account in 2009
(he had another Sina blog account that was closed in 2008, without any
nuclear power relevant articles), including 12 articles dedicated to anti-nuclear
power, all posted after Fukushima. The average visit of these articles, as of
January 26, 2019, was 4,568. The comments and republishing posts were
higher, 60 and 100 respectively, partly because the activist has concentrated
more on a locally relevant campaign against the proposed Taohuajiang NPP
in his hometown Hunan Province. Despite the more significant number of
comments, there was no evidence that his blogs have mobilized local opposi-
tion to the plant that was strongly supported by the local government.
The small number of views and comments indicate low public response to
the nuclear power issue, including anti-nuclear activism, especially if we con-
sider the fact that most blog articles were published not long after the 2011
Fukushima disaster. The low number of visits seemed not caused by little
public interest in the bloggers as they also published articles on other topics,
winning tens of thousands of views.
As compared with the low-profile activists in the blog world, the nuclear
industry was active. Nearly all major nuclear power plants or proposed pro-
jects had their official blog accounts. Several leading public communicators of
nuclear power and radioactive science, both individual and institutional, also
had their presence.
1129276
15
189
22
11 18 15 22
36
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Figure 6.6 The frequency of high-impact BBS posts on “nuclear power”(in Chinese)
on Tianya.com (2003–2017)
Source: bbs.tianya.cn, collected by Kai Liu
150 The nuclear power debate

On the other hand, although in the public blogosphere little anti-nuclear
activism was visible, on ScienceNet.cn, published by CAS and operated by
CSD, which is noted for its blogs written by thousands of scientists (X.
Huang & Zhan, 2010), a number of severe blog articles questioning nuclear
power can be found, some with more than 10,000 views. As ScienceNet.cn’s
primary readers are scientists whose number is much fewer than the audiences
of public media, 10,000 views is a pretty high number. This fact, together with
CSD articles quoting major dissenting experts on the nuclear power issue,
indicates the elite, professional feature of China’s anti-nuclear activism.
Moving from blogs to the more popular Weibo, one can identify more
impassive public reactions to the nuclear power issue. Combining keyword
searches, topic searches (with hashtag # and the keyword “nuclear
power”),andtargetedsearchinkeyactors’Weibo accounts, I selected four
nuclear-negative tweets among the total of (only) 12 negative tweets I
found eligible for Weiboreach.com analysis (over 30 forwards) and all the
four such available positive tweets. I input them for Weiboreach.com ana-
lysis. The four negative tweets produced altogether 670,000 independent
views, much fewer than the four high-impact nuclear-positive tweets,
whose total reader numbers reached 3 million. Although the two sets of
Weibo tweets might not be genuinely comparable because they were posted
at a different time in varying contexts, the big difference between the view
number for the two types of tweets showed the lack of market for anti-
nuclear debate on social media.
On the other hand, the highest viewed nuclear power topic on Weibo was
worth further exploration. A former nuclear engineer with a Tsinghua mas-
ter’s degree started his own business of instant noodles, claiming the reason
for his entrepreneurship: “Nuclear power is safe, but food safety is less satis-
factory!”Since its debut in early December 2018, the Weibo topic has
attracted 12.8 million views and 7,300 comments by the time of my data
collection in late January 2019.
Weibo was indeed used in anti-nuclear NIMBY activities (R. Huang & Sun,
2016), but the dominant social media platform has not become an arena for
regular anti-nuclear power activism. People’s anti-nuclear emotion as revealed
in their Weibo tweets was far less than the industry’s use of it as a promotion
for nuclear power’s legacy and positive image.
Finally, a brief examination of WeChat revealed similar results. My field
observation on WeChat only identified two WeChat groups focused on anti-
nuclear activism, each with only a dozen members. A January 7, 2019 search
of the 100 highest read WeChat public account articles with gsdata.com found
none of them had a clear anti-nuclear tone. Then I specifically searched activists
and dissenting experts’names to see their WeChat public account articles. The
search on January 27 returned with 14 different articles, with the earliest dates
back to March 2015 (gsdata.com only supported search in recent three months
from the search time). Except for one 2015 piece questioning inland nuclear
power whose views reached 13,000, all other articles were read by less than 5,000
The nuclear power debate 151

readers. Nearly all anti-nuclear power articles were accompanied by refutations,
either by official nuclear power organizations or individual atomic engineers.
Like Weibo, the lukewarm reaction to WeChat-based anti-nuclear articles
reflects the low public attention to the issue. A triangulation across blogs,
Weibo and WeChat showed that nuclear power is far from a hot topic most of
the time in China. This low interest has led online editors to not spend their
energies in promoting such tweets or posts. “Unlike GMOs, the audience’s
few views result in an algorithm naturally avoiding recommending this type of
contents,”said an editor at an algorithm-based media (INT20170725).
Although anti-nuclear power voices can be heard on social media, their low
public attention, together with conventional media’s friendly tone to the
energy, inhibited mass mobilization against it. But the media alone cannot
reach this effect. Instead, the inhibiting political opportunity structure should
be the primary force curbing regular anti-nuclear activism in Chinese society.
6.4 Examining nuclear contention as a social movement
6.4.1 Restrictive political opportunity structure
Taking China’s nuclear power controversy as a social movement, we can find
that the three dimensions –political opportunity structure, frames and mobi-
lization (Tarrow, 2011) –driving social movements were relatively restrictive
in the case of anti-nuclear activism. Among them, the political opportunity
structure plays a central role. Due to China’s lack of institutionalized demo-
cratic bodies which Kitschelt (1986) found essential to Western democracies’
anti-nuclear movements, we have to investigate both the political establish-
ments and sociopolitical elements forming political channels.
Due to its unique importance, the nuclear power industry has enjoyed a much
higher political status than average sectors. For example, the top leader (nor-
mally chairman and Party secretary) of CNNC has always been a member of the
200-member CCP central committee, usually consisting of ministers and gover-
nors. With political power only less than the Politburo, CCP central committee is
China’s main policymaking body. Fewer than ten of its members commonly
come from industry, including the nation’s top bank leaders, presidents of two
petroleum giants, CNNC head and defense industry top executives.
Among China’s political establishments, the Chinese People’s Political
Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China’s“upper house”which plays a vital
role in its consultative Leninism (Tsang, 2009), has not raised any open
debate against nuclear power. My field study only identified one CPPCC
delegate who openly questioned nuclear power development. However, with-
out other delegates’support, he can hardly raise the nuclear power issue into
group discussions at the political body’s annual plenary meetings. Without the
endorsement of more members, he had to personally submit his policy pro-
posal to relevant agencies, such as NEA and NNSA, through their offices for
152 The nuclear power debate

letters and visits
1
, which makes it hardly possible to produce any policy
impact (INT20170730).
By contrast, the nuclear power industry has a much more concentrated pre-
sence in CPPCC. In 2018, CNNC alone contributed to seven delegates to the
13th CPPCC in its economics and science and technology groups. The appear-
ance was complemented by business executives in CGNPC and other power
firms, as well as scientist delegates who studied high-energy physics and other
nuclear-related disciplines. For example, two scientists at the CAS Institute of
High-energy Physics (IHEP) were elected CPPCC members (IHEP, 2018).
Although the total number was small in relation to CPPCC’s2100plusdele-
gates, their concentration in the science and technology group (112 members)
and business & economy group (130 members) seemed enough to raise pro-
nuclear power proposals and block any potential anti-nuclear proposal. During
NPC and CPPCC annual plenary meetings, jointly held in March, the nuclear
industry represented by CNNC and CGNPC often convened press conferences
to brief their new CPPCC proposals or NPC motions.
CPPCC and NPC are examples of arenas where the political opportunity
structure does not open wide enough for anti-nuclear activism. In a broader
sense of the structure (Meyer & Minkoff, 2004), China’s specific sociopolitical
and economic condition also contributes to constrained anti-nuclear activism.
In the previous section, I analyzed Chinese media’s reluctance to initiate
and amplify any nuclear power controversy. In terms of political opportunity
structure in an undemocratic nation, this also means the lack of political
channels for anti-nuclear activism.
Among other elements, the nuclear power sector’s resource concentration
and power monopoly, which rendered the industry a primary target of social
movements in Western democracies in the 1970s and 1980s (Kasperson et al.,
1980; Opp, 1986), instead have played an inhibiting role for the social move-
ment in developmentalism-dominated China. “A nuclear power project easily
reaches 30 to 50 billion yuan [in investment], which will significantly promote
the local economy and tax revenues of hosting cities. Therefore, local gov-
ernment will try every effort to attract a nuclear power plant and then ensure
its successful construction and operation,”said a senior journalist affiliated
with the official Xinhua Agency who has reported on the nuclear power
industry for years (INT20160923a). His remark was consistent with the eco-
nomic and business frame dominating Chinese media’s non-Fukushima
nuclear power reporting, as shown in Table 5.5. The frame accounted for
31.8% of the sampled media reporting of nuclear power before the Fukush-
ima accident, the largest. After the Fukushima disaster, the frame’s percen-
tage decreased to 13.9%, the second largest after nuclear safety’s 40.9%. The
nuclear safety frame was mostly applied to situations related to the Fukush-
ima accident and post-disaster impacts and rescue.
Unlike a hydropower dam which is often located in remote southwestern
provinces, all NPPs in China sit in affluent coastal areas –particularly Guang-
dong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shandong (the four richest Chinese provinces in
The nuclear power debate 153

terms of GDP) –where local governments have extensive resources and high
capacity to advance major industrial projects. The nuclear power industry, on
the other hand, does not merely wait for or rely on local host governments.
According to an industry insider, while maintaining a high intensity of regular
public education, the industry usually spent massive efforts making sure the
planned nuclear power projects were written into the provincial five-year devel-
opment plans to ensure legitimacy. After that, nuclear power investors would
mobilize officials from the provincial level to host local governments. Local
opinion leaders would also be invited to model atomic power plants –normally
Qinshan NPP for CNNC and Dayawan NPP for CGNPC –to experience how
beneficial an NPP can be to residents (INTINT20161023).
The governance structure of China’s nuclear power industry further shut down
organized resistance to the industry. Nuclear power safety is governed by the
National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA) under SEPA/MEP/MEE, the
most critical government agency behind environmental activism such as the anti-
hydropower movement. It is widely acknowledged that ENGOs generally con-
sider SEPA/MEP as one of their few government allies (Y. Sun & Zhao, 2008)
and are reluctant to turn hostile to the agency by provoking the nuclear power
sector. Although most ENGO sources I interviewed did not admit this, they
walked away from anti-nuclear activism. Funding could be another factor. A
former China representative of a European environmental foundation said
despite the organization’s anti-nuclear stance in Europe, it has not introduced
such activism to China or funded local ENGOs for this activity.
In addition to political opportunity structure, anti-nuclear activists in
China also found it hardly possible to win the frame competition, another
critical element Tarrow (1996) identified for a successful social movement.
The previous section has revealed the media’s cold attitude to anti-nuclear
activism. But activists themselves had to avoid an overall anti-nuclear image.
Instead, they either targeted inland nuclear power, or focused on the lower
efficiency of the energy, or opposed the great leap forward of the NPP con-
struction, or stressed the possible management loopholes.
Two prominent factors make it hard for anti-nuclear activists to frame their
actions as legitimate: the nuclear power sector’s close ties with SEPA/MEP/
MEE and its past glory and symbolic image of independent innovation.
Nuclear power is strongly framed as a solution to China’s environmental woes
ranging from the severe haze caused by air pollution to its high carbon
intensity (Zhou, 2014). The link to the environmental agency indeed corro-
borates the frame, as experts and officials affiliated to MEP widely endorsed
the claim to place nuclear power as clean energy either in meetings, govern-
ment documents and media interviews (W. Guo, 2014).
The sector’s revolutionary legacy, a foundation for its positive sociotechnical
imaginaries (Jasanoff& Kim, 2009), and its image of competence in serving the
public (Siegrist, Cvetkovich & Roth, 2000) shielded nuclear power from any
growing public dissatisfaction. The nuclear power industry’srevolutionary
legacy to successfully make an atomic bomb from scratch and its later
154 The nuclear power debate

development of civil nuclear power result in an image of technological compe-
tence among the public and the media. The independent innovation frame
enjoyed by the nuclear power sector has won the appreciation of generations of
Chinese leaders from Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin to Xi Jinping and pre-
mier Li Keqiang. The latter even called the nuclear power sector a highlight card
for the exports of Chinese innovation (Party Committee of CNNC, 2017).
As shown in the previous chapter, the growing leftism movement joined
hands to attack GMOs, which were framed either as a conspiracy of Western
powers against China, or a capitalism symbol to exploit peasants. But the
revolutionary legacy of nuclear power sector makes it nearly wholly free of
this stigmatized frame. “Leftists cherishes Chairman Mao. One of the most
notable achievements of Mao is his determination to develop the atom bomb.
So, leftism-oriented nationalists tend to link the nuclear power industry to
Mao’s legacy, making it free from being branded as a Western conspiracy,”
said a Chinese communication scholar (INT20170828).
In summary, in addition to the narrow political opportunity structure, the
clean technology frame of nuclear power endorsed by the environmental agency
and the sector’s revolutionary and innovation images have primarily inhibited
activists from negatively framing atomic energy. Meanwhile, MEP’sendorse-
ment of nuclear power has also limited established ENGOs’involvement in anti-
nuclear activism. The absence of ENGOs, plus media workers’reluctance to
make critical reporting of atomic energy, made social mobilization for anti-
nuclear activism hardly sufficient. Figure 6.7 indicates the situation.
Despite these restrictive factors and limited impacts, there were still
NIMBY events against nuclear power, even resulting in project suspensions.
Activists and dissenting experts can always openly question the industry. In
addition to the triggering role of the Fukushima accident, internal conflicts
and fragmentation of China’s nuclear governance, as revealed by the frag-
mented authoritarianism (FA) framework, also contributed to the occurrence
of NIMBY events and controversies related to nuclear power.
6.4.2 Fragmented authoritarianism and anti-nuclear activism.
Although the political opportunity structure was narrow for China’s anti-nuclear
power activism, activists have desperately tried to exploit the fragmentation to
widen the opportunity structure. Wangjiang’s civil movement against Pengze
NPP in Jiangxi Province is a typical example of fragmented elements that can
fuel certain activities against nuclear power (L. Deng & Jia, 2019).
As discussed above, a mighty host government can effectively constrain
local protests within its jurisdiction, but Wangjiang belongs to the neighbor-
ing province of Anhui, which is on the other side of Yangtze River. After the
Four Seniors raised the anti-Pengze NPP flag, Pengze county’sofficials
requested to meet their counterparts in Wangjiang several times but were
refused. Although the Chinese media are generally reluctant to tap negative
news of nuclear power, two dramatic plots –Wangjiang government’sofficial
The nuclear power debate 155

document against nuclear power and the Four Seniors’symbolic image of
elite self-governance –attracted their attention (INT20161217).
On the Four Seniors’side, they effectively mobilized residents in Wang-
jiang’s jurisdiction. Advertising boards against nuclear power were erected,
and residents who worked for the preliminary construction of Pengze NPP
were mobilized to inform about the advance of the nuclear project. With the
support of Wangjiang residents, the Four Seniors were able to charge that
Pengze NPP staffs used valuable gifts to trade for Wangjiang stakeholders’
endorsement in its public consultation process (INT20161206).
Narrow polical opportunity
structure for acvism:
Lack of bureaucrac fragmentaon
Strong power monopoly
Media reluctance
Environmental agency sponsorship
Low involvement of ENGOs
Public inaenon
Nuclear power frames
hosle to acvism:
Naonal glory
S&T progress
Environmental friendly
Independent innovaon
Low mobilizaon:
Disconnecon between local
NIMBY and elite acvists
Media reluctance
Low involvement of ENGOs
Public inaenon
Narrow polical
opportunity structure,
restricve frames, low
mobilizaon, and their
lile interacon inhibited
China's an-nuke acvism
Figure 6.7 Narrow political opportunity structure, unfriendly framing and low mobi-
lization for China’s anti-nuclear activism
Source: Drawn by author
156 The nuclear power debate

The privilege of experts who supported the Four Seniors to submit internal
reports to top national leadership further enlarged the fragmentation. CAS
members can directly brief top state leaders on science and technology issues.
He Zuoxiu as a CAS member managed to submit relevant policy briefs to top
policymakers, including President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang
(INT20171221), a sign of China’s bureaucratic fragmentation (Nathan, 1986).
By contrast, the pro-nuclear side seemed powerless in this aspect. Accord-
ing to an industry source (INT20170723), since 2008 when NEA was set up,
CNNC and other State-owned energy giants can only report to NEA to
reflect their policy appeals, apparently to limit the expanding power of state-
owned energy giants. The bureaucratic fragmentation made the nuclear power
industry suffer a procedural disadvantage in political debates.
Nonmainstream knowledge and expertise within the nuclear power indus-
try were other fragmented resources that activists and dissenting experts could
utilize. Activists often stressed responsible engineers and experts within the
sector empowered them to identify the problems of nuclear power. According
to the above industry insider (INT20170723), the nuclear fuel recycling sector
within the industry could be the primary source of expertise for activists,
because the latter’s protests could highlight the importance of the long-
neglected atomic fuel recycling.
But the nuclear fuel recycling side was blindsided by NIMBY activities in
Heshan and Lianyungang. The fuel recycling portion did not have as much
public communication experience as their NPP counterparts. Hence, they had
not surveyed public opinion nor tried to appease local opinion leaders in host
regions (INT20161023). When online protests convened to push citizens to
the streets (R. Huang & Sun, 2016), they were utterly unprepared.
Local governments in some host regions, then, also become somewhat
fragmented elements of nuclear power development. When developmentalism
dominated the agenda, bringing in nuclear projects best satisfied local offi-
cials’desire to pursue political achievements. But since President Xi Jinping
came to the center of Chinese political power, the central leadership more and
more stressed the importance of maintaining social stability rather than unu-
sual economic growth (Lampton, 2015). Facing the potential risk to trigger
social unrest, some local governments of host regions became less friendly to,
or at least not wholeheartedly embracing of, nuclear power projects. The
quick success of NIMBY activities in Heshan and Lianyungang resulted from
this bureaucratic logic. An official of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region’s
Fangchenggang city with an ongoing six-reactor NPP reported that resident
relocation for the NPP “nearly made his skin peel off”(D. Yan & Li, 2014).
“The rising risk awareness of local officials on the nuclear power project
possibly causing street protests is changing their policy priority. Perhaps this
is one of the policy impacts of China’s anti-nuclear debates,”said a Chinese
communication scholar who has been following nuclear controversies across
the country for several years (INT20170915).
The nuclear power debate 157

In summary, despite the overall restrictive political opportunity structure,
fragmentation within and outside the nuclear power industry still enabled acti-
vists and dissenting experts to initiate controversies. Activists never hesitated to
utilize the fragmentation. In their petition to higher government leaders against
Pengze NPP, for example, the Four Seniors hinted that mounting local dis-
satisfaction could lead to unwanted street protests, threatening political stability.
No doubt this intentional effort contributed to the possibilities brought by frag-
mented bureaucracy associated with nuclear power governance.
On the other hand, although bureaucratic fragmentation played a role in
facilitating anti-nuclear debates, the activism and its policy impacts were short-
lived and limited, hardly enough to institutionalize the capacity to mobilize both
elite and grassroots support. The weak strength explained the resumed momen-
tum of the nuclear power industry in spring 2018. Theoretically, this is an indi-
cation that the emerging FA framework existing in and beyond nuclear power
sector had to be subject to the more restrictive political opportunity structure.
As illustrated above, the nuclear power sector not only linked to a con-
strained political power regime but also co-existed with an effective knowl-
edge-control regime. The regime strengthened the constraints affecting anti-
nuclear activism.
6.5 Interpreting knowledge-making in nuclear disputes
6.5.1 Knowledge-control regime in China’s nuclear power sector
Institutionalized knowledge monopoly
As compared with hydropower and GMOs, the nuclear power sector has
evolved a much stronger knowledge-control regime. Starting from the atom
bomb development era, China’s nuclear scientists and engineers concentrated
in remote, mysterious Gobi bases, which made them not only far from urban
prosperity, but also free of the political turmoil of the disastrous Cultural
Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s.
What was isolated was not only the geographical and spatial location but
also knowledge production. Nuclear science and technology education was
limited to top universities such as Tsinghua, Xi’an Jiaotong and Shanghai
Jiaotong universities, Hefei-based University of Science and Technology of
China (USTC) and Wuhan-based Huazhong University of Science & Tech-
nology (HUST). The research was restricted to individual CAS institutes
(such as institutes of Applied Physics in Shanghai, of Theoretical Physics in
Beijing and Modern Physics in Lanzhou), China Institute of Atomic Energy
(CIAE) now under CNNC, Tsinghua’s Institute of Nuclear Technology
(which has an undergraduate wing, the Department of Engineering Physics)
and USTC. Many of these institutions are veiled in mystery and named with
a number. For example, Tsinghua’s Institute of Nuclear Technology was
named No. 200 in Changping District while CIAE is called Institute 401.
158 The nuclear power debate

Although since the 1970s, China began to open its door to international
collaborators to commercialize nuclear power, the quasi-isolation system
remains active today, partly because nuclear knowledge production and
learning are highly professionalized. By the end of 2017, China Nuclear
Society has only certified 18 Chinese universities’nuclear programs. Among
them, Tsinghua University enjoys paramount status. In 2016, Tsinghua Uni-
versity’s Department of Engineering Physics celebrated its 60th anniversary,
announcing it had cultivated 20 generals and 32 CAS and Chinese Academy
of Engineering (CAE) members. CNNC hosted 61 CAS or CAE academi-
cians. CAS and CAE have honored a total of 2,400 academicians since 1956.
CNNC announced in June 2018 that it would set up a Chinese University of
Nuclear Industry in the coastal city of Tianjin.
Studies on the health impact of nuclear radiation are also concentrated in
a few institutions, including the National Institute for Radiological Protec-
tion (NIRP) under the Chinese Center for Disease Control (China CDC),
the Institute (Department) of Radiation Medicine under the Chinese Acad-
emy of Medical Sciences (CAMS), Beijing Institute of Radiation Medicine
(BIRM) under the Chinese Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS)
and radiation medicine departments at a very limited number of medical
universities. Although radiation medicine is now widely adopted at Chinese
universities and hospitals, few of these ordinary institutions have the privi-
lege to examine NPPs’health impacts.
The institutional concentration contributed to the monopoly in knowledge
production. Unlike in the hydropower field where experts of various back-
grounds can comment on environmental issues and in the GMO case where
food safety concerns push the unchecked distribution of false information,
nuclear power knowledge production and certification are highly controlled
within the small number of institutions and top experts. According to one
Chinese communication scholar who studies nuclear power controversies, a
leading nuclear safety modelling expert at a top university used to tell him
that when the expert failed to model the desired nuclear facility safety indices
and expressed a bit of suspicion on the current safety measures, his aging
advisor –a CAS academician –warned him not to become a rebel of the
nuclear power industry (INT20170915).
While the anecdotal evidence cannot be independently confirmed, it is clear
that professionals and knowledge production in the field are somewhat dis-
ciplined. The self-discipline echoes Schmid’s (2015) observation on the former
Soviet Union’s nuclear power industry. In China, disciplined knowledge pro-
duction is associated with industry professionals’self-confidence and their
recognition of their past glory.
This past glory and its associated sociotechnical imaginaries can become a
living component of the knowledge-control regime, just as it helps shield the
nuclear power industry from many moralist attacks. In the knowledge-control
regime, it maintains knowledge defenders’self-identity and their confidence,
authorizes its legitimacy, silences dissenting voices and mobilizes necessary
The nuclear power debate 159

political resources when needed. Even He Zuoxiu, the senior CAS member,
complained that his views questioning the feasibility of inland nuclear were
not reflected in relevant CAE consultative reports and his attendance at the
consultation process wasn’t recognized with authorship.
Knowledge control in public engagement
While disciplining internal dissidents, the nuclear power sector is active in
promoting nuclear safety ideas in the public sphere. In addition to the
publicity departments of major industrial players such as CNNC and
CGNPC, which are often staffed with several hundred employees to sup-
port science popularization, public relations, affected community appease-
ment, public and external publications, and academic sponsorship, two
major industrial groups, China Nuclear Energy Association (CNEA),
which mainly represents industry, and China Nuclear Society (CNS) that
primarily represents academics, have proactive public publicity depart-
ments. Among the 210 national societies affiliated with CAST (which is
legally the umbrella organization of all national natural science societies),
CNS was one of the few organizations that continuously won CAST’s
annual award for science popularization.
In the early 2000s, several years before NIMBY movements began to
spread across China
2
, media articles promoting nuclear power’s safety and
efficiency were widely published in the sampled media outlets, describing
concerns about nuclear safety as irrational. “As compared with biotechnology
experts, the nuclear power sector has a strong self-awareness in science
popularization and strong organized capacity to implement it,”said a leading
science journalist of a Party mouthpiece (INT20170723).
He was echoed by a liberal news magazine’s science editor. “Whenever I
had a request or query, I can always find amiable nuclear experts to consult
with”(INT20160816). The same magazine’s energy reporter echoed: “Unlike
other state-owned energy conglomerates, nuclear power enterprises’PRs are
very capable. At news conferences, companies regularly prepared suggested
questions for attending journalists. Many of these questions prepared by other
industry players are nonsense. But in the question list prepared by nuclear
companies’PR, you can nearly find every question a journalist wants to ask”
(INT20170825).
Together with the favorable sociotechnical imaginaries that the nuclear
power industry enjoyed, the cooperation regularly received friendly
responses from the media, steering them to positively report the industry
in standard time and balancing their reporting with the industrial voice
when there were unfavorable events like the Fukushima accident or local
NIMBY activities. This media orientation was corroborated by the above-
mentioned media morphology of keeping a stable “nuclear journalist”
team for the beat. As media sociology scholarship has revealed, for both
general media (Carlson, 2009) and science journalism (Schäfer, 2011), a
160 The nuclear power debate

closer tie between journalists and their sources produces more favorable
reporting of these sources.
Risk management and its socially constructed allies
In its effort to reassure the public, the Chinese nuclear power sector, and the
worldwide nuclear industry alike, adopts a strategy to admit uncertainty and
potential risks but to assure the public (and particularly officials and political
leaders) that the uncertainty is an unavoidable feature of industrialization; the
risk associated with nuclear power is the lowest or most controllable as com-
pared with other conventional technologies/applications such as driving cars;
and the nuclear industry has the complete capacity to control the risks. The
preamble of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s basic safety
principles for NPPs claimed that “safety is never absolute in any endeavor.
All of life is hazardous in some way”(International Nuclear Safety Advisory
Group, 1999, p. 1).
Science studies scholars have shown that admitting uncertainties/risks
but assuring effective management of them is a strategy to increase the
epistemic authority of science (Shackley & Wynne, 1996; Zehr, 1999).
Nuclear power experts seek precisely this type of epistemic authority.
Nearly every industry interviewee showed his/her embrace of this ration-
ality. Correspondingly, rejecting or worrying about controllable low risk
would be considered irrational.
Built on studies on the epistemic significance of uncertainty/risk manage-
ment, Jia et al. (2017) further explored how the societal forces –the media,
the government and policy agenda –interact with scientists’uncertainty
management. In China’s nuclear power case, besides sponsorship by SEPA/
MEP/MEE, journalists also helped strengthen the nuclear power sector’s
uncertainty/risk management, further securing its knowledge-control regime.
“Nuclear power is not 100% perfect, but as compared with other energies, it is
the most advantaged. Coal is heavy polluting; wind and solar energies are
unstable and too expensive; hydropower cannot assure water supply in winter.
There are risks, but they are under control,”said an energy reporter working
for a leading business news magazine (INT20170825).
The situation is similar to the US media’seffort to keep the GMO con-
troversy from escalating through the professionalization of reporting the beat
(M. C. Nisbet & Huge, 2006) or a “rational”tradeoffbetween potential risks
and perceived benefits (Steiner & Bird, 2008). Both M. C. Nisbet and Huge
(2006) and Steiner and Bird (2008), however, neglected the role of low public
attention in influencing journalists’behaviors. Above I mentioned that low
public awareness led journalists to perceive reporting nuclear power as less
rewarding. Meanwhile, low public attention meant a low availability of alter-
native sources and experts’views to journalists, leading the latter to adopt the
dominating agenda and risk management paradigm of nuclear power.
The nuclear power debate 161

In mid-March 2011, after the Fukushima accident, widespread concern
about radiation contaminants floating to China led the Chinese public to rush
to buy iodized salt because taking iodine pills can reduce radiation harm. The
buying rush, however, was depicted as an irrational behavior in various media
and online articles, in which nuclear experts’claim of no radiation pollution
from Fukushima paralleled science communication experts’comments on the
public irrationality. Because salt’s Chinese pronunciation (yan: 盐) is the same
as “words”(言), which in Chinese are the second character of the term
“rumor”(yaoyan: 谣言), a new Chinese word “rumored salt”(谣盐) was
created, still pronounced as “yaoyan”. The newly created term “rumored
salt”was widely used in newspapers, websites, magazine, social media and
public education events, vividly and satirically indicating an irrational public
and its poor scientific literacy (W. Liu, 2011). The frame was so robust that it
is still regularly used today to satirize the public’s fear of rumored harms and
its rejection of orthodox official knowledge (L. Xu, 2018).
The nuclear power sector’s monopoly in knowledge production, its dom-
inance in the public communication agenda and engaging media strategies,
and its pragmatic uncertainty/risk management all resulted in (a) robust
knowledge-control regime(s). When developing the concept using the example
of the Human Genome Project (HGP), Hilgartner (2017) demonstrated that
as compared with competing efforts, the knowledge-control regime(s) repre-
sented by HGP best matched the existing knowledge production practice,
scientists’expectations and the public understanding of the genome sequen-
cing. No doubt China’s nuclear power sector had a similar situation.
Combining findings in the previous sections, one can find that the knowl-
edge-control regime of the nuclear power sector allied with China’s political
power, but its epistemic authority primarily did not rely on the political
power’s coercive force. Instead, a whole set of societal, institutional and
knowledge-making arrangements and a full set of social actors consciously
and unconsciously enabled the regime to implement its knowledge control
and strengthened the effect of such authority. In which case, given the high
strength of the control, why can we still hear the controversies and debates
raised by outsiders, even though the policy impact was relatively limited? We
can understand this by tracing activists’alternative knowledge building as a
way to break the knowledge-control regime of the nuclear power sector.
6.5.2 Alternative knowledge and challenges to knowledge control
Alternative knowledge seeking
The lack of public resistance to nuclear power does not mean the Chinese
public highly embraced atomic energy. Instead, according to the idea of civic
epistemology, which “refers to these culturally specific, historically and poli-
tically grounded, public knowledge-ways”(Jasanoff, 2011b, p. 249), the gen-
eral public has not meaningfully examined the relevance of nuclear power and
162 The nuclear power debate

made rational choices about nuclear energy, due to their culturally, histori-
cally and politically bounded circumstances. The low connection of atomic
energy to most ordinary people and their lack of attention to the energy/
technology further corroborated the preference. In reality, the choice was
epistemologically translated to the public’s tolerance of nuclear power.
The activists and dissenters, as members of the public, initially did not
explicitly take up anti-nuclear activism. Their challenge to the knowledge-
control regime of the nuclear power sector started from their encounter with
knowledge different from dominant views. STS scholars have well examined
this alternative knowledge and its role in counterattacking the orthodox
regime (Irwin, 1995; Wynne, 1992). Chinese anti-nuclear activists adopted a
similar strategy.
Among others, international sources of alternative knowledge were crucial to
Chinese dissenters. Although in the early 2010s, when the Chinese actors deb-
uted, global anti-nuclear power movements had dramatically declined (Joppke,
1991), legacies were embodied in environmentalism advocacy materials.
For example, the nuclear power knowledge of the Wangjiang Four Seniors
primarily came from a series of books questioning nuclear power’s promises
ranging from economic efficiency to the fight against climate change after the
Fukushima disaster. The book was introduced to China by the Heinrich Böll
Foundation, a Germany-based anti-nuclear charity.
Similarly, an abovementioned grassroots activist heavily relied on a classic
US textbook on environmental studies, Living in the Environment, authored
by G. T. Miller (2007) to construct his dissident knowledge system
(INT20161127). He was commissioned to translate the book that raised the
nuclear waste issue. It seemed to the activist that nuclear waste had become
an unsolvable issue. Later, when Maoism-oriented nationalism shaped his
belief, he developed his version of a conspiracy theory: a central strategic goal
of the US policy toward China is to control the latter with GMOs so that it
can dump nuclear waste to China.
Disadvantaged social groups often use conspiracy theory as a tool to pro-
test dominant knowledge (Sunstein & Vermeule, 2009). The grassroots acti-
vist’s undergraduate major was soil chemistry. He has not gone to graduate
school. He found his academic training could not equip him for challenging
the orthodox knowledge about nuclear power. But a conspiracy theory based
on what he perceived as a widely-admitted fact (nuclear waste cannot be
entirely disposed of) could empower him against the dominance of orthodox
nuclear power knowledge. It could counteract the atomic energy sector’srisk
management strategy (there are risks beyond the sector’s imagination), its cred-
ibility won by historical glory (China’s nuclear power industry imported tech-
nologies from the West) and its environmentally-friendly frame (nuclear waste is
a non-disposable and much more severe ecological woe than regular pollution).
In contrast to the grassroots activist, a dissenting computational physicist
working at a top Chinese university said his involvement in the ITER project
which explores nuclear fusion as an energy solution changed his initial belief
The nuclear power debate 163

on atomic power (INT20170619). According to the dissenting physicist, ITER
participants heavily criticized current fission technologies. “I became aware
that the current fission technologies weren’t a good idea, neither do the so-
called next generations of nuclear power, such as traveling wave reactor pro-
moted by Bill Gates. ITER’s fusion technology cannot become a feasible
energy solution either.”Although not a nuclear engineer, his expertise still
provided professional support to more proactive activists.
Others harvested the knowledge necessary to launch a more destructive
attack: Questioning the legitimacy and reliability of the nuclear power sector.
Such knowledge primarily came from the favorite alarmist book A NPP
Employee’s Last Will written by the former Japanese anti-nuclear activist
Hirai Norio, who used to be a nuclear engineer (Hirai, 2011). The book
depicted how Fukushima Daiichi tried to make profits by lowering safety
investments and surveillance, hiring cheap, low-qualified workers, and expos-
ing employees to high nuclear radiation. The greedy image of Japanese NPP
managers gave activists an excuse to split commercial nuclear power devel-
opers from the historically glorious military nuclear enterprises, framing the
former as vested interest groups.
Another type of alternative knowledge was reflective articles and mem-
oirs, such as the autobiography The First Nuclear Era of Alvin M. Wein-
berg (1915–2006), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) former
director (Weinberg, 1994, 1996), and articles of former CNNC vice pre-
sident Li Yulun (1940–2018) (e.g., Y. Li, 2013) on nuclear safety manage-
ment and potential risks. Both Weinberg and Li are hardly atomic energy
skeptics. However, with their half-a-century working experience, both of
them raised warnings against the dangers of organizational failures and
human negligence. Weinberg even used the term “Faustian bargain”to
describe the potential danger nuclear energy might impose on human
society (Weinberg, 1994, pp. 175–200).
The alternative knowledge encouraged activists and dissenting experts to
challenge the nuclear power sector’s knowledge monopoly. The challenging
process also provided chances for them to network with each other. Although
the alternative knowledge was not enough to topple the knowledge-control
regime of the nuclear power sector, it helped initiate controversies in which acti-
vists adopted various discourse strategies to shake nuclear power’s knowledge
dominance.
Discourse strategies against knowledge control
In the previous section which examined social movement aspects of nuclear
contention in China, I briefly described the internal disputes of the nuclear
power industry, particularly the tension between power generation and
nuclear fuel processing, as evidence to support the FA framework.
Clearly, nuclear fuel processing engineers would not topple the whole indus-
try when they raised the issue of higher unprocessed nuclear waste, but activists
164 The nuclear power debate

amplified and reframed the unharmonious voices from within the nuclear
power industry, such as the potential safety management challenges, insufficient
social organization to support massive atomic energy development, and accu-
mulating nuclear wastes. The claims against potential risks raised by Weinberg,
Li, and other engineers were alarms to peers, but activists took them as a
powerful weapon –both as contrary evidence against nuclear power and as a
symbol that the industry’sfoundersbetrayedit.
In their debates with the nuclear power industry, activists and dissenting
experts took a strategy to reject the rationale of the industry’sriskmanage-
ment. As mentioned above, the atomic energy industry has adopted a plan to
admit potential low risks but demonstrate its high controllability. Citing
Fukushima NPP’smanagementflaws exposed by Hirai (2011) and Tokyo
Electric’s(FukushimaNPP’s owner) poor disaster handling, Wang Yinan
rejected the rationale by distinguishing nuclear power safety design from man-
agement practice. “The blueprint of nuclear power is always preconditioned by
on-site workers with perfect technological capacity, without discussing whether
staffon site has such capacity,”she wrote (Y. Wang, 2015a). She further poin-
ted out that vulnerability of the complicated pipe arrangement in NPPs, the
lack of engineering experience in safety surveillance, the inevitable human
errors, the unsafe storage of spent nuclear fuel, and the unprocessed nuclear
waste have made atomic energy far from reliable as boasted by industrial
experts.
Based on these claimed problems, Wang further quoted Premier Li
Keqiang’s remarks to require “absolute nuclear safety”during his inspection
at an HRR1000 demonstration plant in 2015 to challenge the nuclear power
industry’s concept of controllable risks (Y. Wang, 2015c). According to the
article, absolute safety means not only theoretical modeling but also wholly
reliable engineering practice and highly qualified and responsible staff.
Strictly speaking, politicians’stress on absolute nuclear safety is at a dif-
ferent level from the technical sense of the atomic energy industry’s con-
trollable risks. The former does not necessarily exclude manageable risks but
requires risk controllers to be entirely responsible, careful and competent.
However, by quoting political leaders’slogans, Wang and other activists
highlighted the nuclear power industry’sprofit-driving behaviors, questioned
and downplayed Chinese nuclear power firms’implementation capacity, and
forcefully embraced new risk factors (e.g., terrorist attacks) which she claimed
were neglected in the nuclear power industry’s risk assessments. Thus, in
terms of discourse strategy, activists utilized political discourse to overcome
the scientific discourses of the nuclear power industry, breaking its knowledge
monopoly in nuclear safety.
In other channels, activists and dissenting scientists also challenged the
nuclear power group’s hegemony in terminology. For example, in a public
commentary published in bilingual environmental site China Dialogue, He
Zuoxiu used the reactor-year (the number of years all reactors operate) calcu-
lation adopted by the nuclear power industry to refute the industry’s theoretical
The nuclear power debate 165

probability of nuclear disaster. He argued that based on the frequency of major
atomic energy disasters from Three Mile Island to Chernobyl and Fukushima
and China’s expansion speed to build new NPPs, China is highly likely to suffer
asignificant nuclear accident by 2030 (Z. He, 2013).
His calculation was refuted by the industry as a too simple and layman
method, as he has not considered the technological improvement, staffquality
and social characteristics. Chinese media almost did not notice the article.
However, his simple and easily understandable method is another attempt to
challenge the risk assessment practice dominated by nuclear power sector
based on complicated models.
Thus far, in this subsection, I have summarized the alternative knowledge
activists absorbed and the discourse contention they adopted to challenge the
knowledge control regime of the nuclear power sector. With small networks
based on WeChat chat groups, these activists and dissenting scientists
exchanged their knowledge, expertise and perceived loopholes of nuclear
power knowledge-control regime. The networking and knowledge exchange
strengthened individual activists’knowledge base and fueled their activism.
For example, a proposal by the aforementioned anti-nuclear CPPCC member
submitted to energy authorities seemed precisely based on the remarkable
points raised in Wang Yinan’s articles against inland (Y. Wang, 2015b) and
Bohai Bay NPPs (Y. Wang, 2016).
6.6 Chapter summary
With the alternative knowledge and their dynamic discourse strategies, acti-
vists and dissenting scientists have indeed made significant achievements in
shaking the knowledge-control regime of the nuclear power sector. However,
the communication, political, economic, cultural (sociotechnical) and
bureaucratic resources nuclear power enjoys in China have resulted in a
restrictive political opportunity structure, a competitive cultural environment
and a weak network for realizing social mobilization for anti-nuclear acti-
vism. Although activists had chances emerging from fragmentation within the
nuclear power industry, and sometimes between the industry and its local
hosting governments, and although the FA framework associated with
China’s nuclear power sector has helped activism achieve specific policy
effects, such as the delay of AP-1000 reactors’fuel loading and the morator-
ium on inland NPP construction, this fragmentation cannot topple the overall
restrictive political opportunity structure in nuclear power governance. As a
result, it is unlikely that the nuclear power industry will lose its expansion
momentum.
If the major theories and concepts applied in this chapter can be presented
synthetically, this chapter provides evidence to show that political process
theory centered in political opportunity structure has the most potent expla-
natory role in analyzing nuclear controversies in China. The FA framework
166 The nuclear power debate

has a moderate role in understanding individual campaigns, but their policy
impact has to be subject to the more general political opportunity structure.
China’s overall authoritarian political system, in which the government
ministries play the central governance role, may be blamed for causing the
situation. As a result, when there isn’t a deep bureaucratic schism like the one
between SEPA/MEP/MEE and the water/energy departments in the case of
hydropower controversy, and when nuclear power has enjoyed a much more
privileged status than other science and technology topics, the fragmentation
existing within the nuclear industry or between nuclear industry and hosting
governments cannot facilitate the final success of anti-nuclear activism. The
fragmentation cannot fuel debates on nuclear power as a widespread and
long-lasting science and technology controversy either.
But without a careful calculation of the role of knowledge and commu-
nication patterns, the political/social movement side is not enough for us to
understand the nuclear controversy in China. For a complicated science and
technology issue deeply rooted in China’s modernization dream like nuclear
power, knowledge is an integral component of the political dimensions of
nuclear controversy. For example, the knowledge-control regime of nuclear
power is closely associated with the restrictive political opportunity structure
the anti-nuclear activists encounter. On the other hand, the restrictive political
opportunity structure can reinforce the knowledge-control regime. Similarly,
the sociotechnical imaginaries about a progressive and proud nuclear power
image also support the constraints on activism imposed by the restrictive
political opportunity structure and inhibit the effect of activists’anti-nuclear
framing effort. The current chapter is only an early step to explore this
dynamic and interactive relationship.
Notes
1Unlike the NPC where 30 representatives’endorsement is needed to submit a motion,
CPPCC proposal does not require other members to endorse. However, a one-member
proposal is often considered trivial and organizationally neglected. All government
agencies in China have offices for letters and visits to deal with public complaints.
Policy proposals through these offices are often unattended (Thireau & Linshan, 2003)
2In China, landmark NIMBY events were Guangzhou’s protest against Lizhuang
trash incineration plant and Xiamen’s protest against a PX plant around 2008
(R. Huang & Yip, 2012).
The nuclear power debate 167

7 Why are science controversies
so different?
7.1 Introduction
In the preceding chapters, I traced the development of significant science and
technology controversies –resistance to hydropower, the GMO controversy
and the nuclear power debate –in contemporary China. I also analyzed
communication, sociopolitical and knowledge-making factors underlying
their emergence and evolvement. Consistent with a group of science commu-
nication and STS scholars (e.g., Irwin, 1995, 2014; Jasanoff, 2011a, 2017;
Wynne, 1992), my study revealed that in China as elsewhere, primary
public science and technology controversies are far more than a product of
poor public understanding of science or emotional rejection of potentially
hazardous technologies.
Instead, both the widespread GMO controversy and the relatively more
elitist campaigns against hydropower and nuclear power resulted from a
combination of factors ranging from the changing media environment, emer-
ging political opportunities and the evolving knowledge-control regime to the
strategic actions adopted by activists and the public distrust of scientific
experts and officials behind them. These factors and activists’strategic efforts
to utilize the opportunities associated with them lead to varying patterns of
science and technology controversies in the domain of social movements that
are worth communication and STS scholars’attention (Epstein, 1996, 2008).
More concretely, the public resistance to hydropower controversy was a
concentrated reflection of rising environmentalism and ENGOs which have
effectively utilized emerging public environmental awareness, bureaucratic
fragmentation, publicity-pursuing media and the shackled knowledge-control
regimes, although given the remoteness of the protesting sites and limited
public attention, anti-hydropower activism did not show a high level of public
participation (Tilt, 2014). The GMO controversy, on the other hand, was
widespread in Chinese society, although few established civil society groups
were involved, and scientists increased their efforts to maintain knowledge
control. The fragile science-politics alliance, the fragmentation within central
leadership and widespread public concerns all created a favorable political
opportunity structure for anti-GMO activists. By contrast, the nuclear power
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160212-7

controversy showed both narrow political opportunity structure and robust
knowledge-control regimes, thanks to nuclear power’s link to military pur-
poses, its past glory and its strong business-politics alliance, as well as lack of
public attention.
Below in this chapter, while addressing the working research questions, I will
first re-examine the most crucial elements in the media and communication
system, social movement angle and knowledge control aspect of the three sample
controversies. Then a comparison of theoretically important components
underlying these controversies will be provided. Finally, I will discuss the possi-
bility of integrating different aspects of these factors to achieve a comprehensive
understanding of public science and technology controversies.
7.2 Media and science controversies
The first set of research questions is about the role of communication ele-
ments, such as the media and Internet, in developing the GMO, hydropower
and nuclear power controversies. China’s media commercialization and par-
tial liberalization have played an important, if not always central, role in
promoting, amplifying, sustaining and in some case even triggering the
hydropower, GMO and nuclear power controversies in the country. However,
in different disputes, media involvement and communication patterns differed
from each other.
In the hydropower controversy, organized resistance of ENGOs (whose
early members originated from or were closely linked to the media) to dam
building was consistently supported by the mass media and the anti-dam
activism also enabled the media outlets to exploit environmental reporting as
asymboltofulfill the media’s watchdog role for public interests. With the reg-
ular beat reporting covering the power industry succumbing to the rising
environmental agenda, the developmentalism that dominated the Chinese press
until the early 2000s gave way to the discourses of environment conservation
and public accountability.
Similarly, Chinese media were active in reporting GMO controversies and
even initiated the early debates regarding the technology. Their reporting of
GMOs shared the public accountability frame they used for hydropower
coverage, but food safety issues replaced the environmentalist agenda. Despite
the lack of organized involvement of NGOs, widespread public concerns
about food safety inspired a diversified media reporting of GM food.
The nuclear power controversy experienced an entirely different media sce-
nario. The media stories were generous in framing atomic energy development as
symbols of national honor, science and technology progress and independent
innovation. Journalists structurally avoided news topics questioning nuclear
power. Although the Fukushima accident brought widespread concerns on
nuclear safety, this did not change the Chinese media’s general tone when
reporting domestic nuclear power development, and few of them offered plat-
forms for anti-nuclear activism.
Why are science controversies so different? 169

The media performance was associated with the actors’behaviors. The
hydropower industry’s failure to deal with the media resulted in an imbal-
anced media picture, strongly favoring activists’environmentalism claims.
Despite their initial impassiveness, biotechnology scientists later increased
public communication, but their effort was countered by mushrooming anti-
GMO campaigns, mingling serious intellectual challenges with rumors and
conspiracy claims. The nuclear power industry started its risk communication
long before nuclear became a controversy within China. Their active public
communication effort won support from most media outlets.
In both the hydropower and GMO controversies, journalists not only
received messages from activists but also worked as activists, initiating dis-
putes with their stories. However, in the debate on nuclear power, it was
hardly possible to identify any journalist directly involved in the activism
against nuclear power.
While the nuclear power sector has relatively made a stronger effort in
media communication and public relations, the reasons for more negative
reporting of hydropower and GMOs than nuclear power could be structural
factors. The hydropower controversy met the media’s environmentalism
agenda (the inadequate response of the sector fueled the trend) while the
escalated media interest in reporting GMOs was associated with the extensive
public attention to food safety and the media’seffort to snatch the attention.
In the nuclear power case, lack of public awareness interacted with journalists’
risk avoidance to produce low media attention.
Together with conventional media, the Internet also became a significant
promoter of science and technology controversies. By timely distributing
controversy-inducing articles from print media, highlighting and organizing
debates, and collecting background information in science and technology
controversies, online portals harvested visits while fueling and intensifying
controversies. G. Yang and Calhoun (2007) outlined the interaction between
the media, Internet and civil society groups in China’s advancing green
politics.
The arrival of social media intensified the communication pattern of the print
media era. Strong public attention and concerns enabled the GMO controversy
to remain a hot issue on Weibo and WeChat, offsetting scientists’media training
efforts and the government’s media censorship. Social media continued to host
positive frames related to nuclear power and the general public’sindifference to
the topic inhibited anti-nuclear debates from spreading online.
Although hydropower, GMO and nuclear power controversies in China
were not possible without the media, Chinese media’s facilitating or inhibiting
these controversies was often a result of the role other sociopolitical and
knowledge factors played in structurally triggering and shaping science and
technology controversies. Correspondingly, the media have become an inte-
gral part of the process. For example, due to the lack of institutionalized
democracy in China, the media have played a role within the political
opportunity structure.
170 Why are science controversies so different?

7.3 Communication patterns
In the previous section, I summarized the role of media in facilitating the
science and technology controversies. Now I will further consider the
communication patterns involved in these S&T disputes. As examined
across the empirical study chapters, public attention and the associated
issue cycle are an essential backbone factor underlying science and tech-
nology controversies. Significant public awareness encourages more new-
comers and more diversified topics, such as in the GMO case. In a less
concentrated public attention setting, such as in the hydropower con-
troversy, activists had to create new public problems. The necessary time
and travels of activists to create these new issues regarding southwestern
dams resulted in periodically hot media events. By contrast, low public
attention in the nuclear power setting inhibited anti-nuclear debates from
becoming a hot public issue.
Consistent with public attention was the actors’strategies for dealing with
their perceived public awareness. In the nuclear power case, event-driven
journalists and editors avoided investigative reporting of the nuclear power
sector because of a tradeoffbetween high potential risks and low rewards
(low public attention). The beat covering practice for highly professional
areas intensified journalists’avoidance behaviors. Reporting on the less
attended nuclear power sector was dominated by senior energy and science
journalists preferring to ally with the industry (and academics behind it)
while similar professional beat coverage of hydropower was replaced peri-
odically by environmental journalists. During the peak time of the GMO
controversy, generalist journalists replaced science journalists to become the
main actors reporting the controversial technology, precisely opposite to the
phenomenon revealed by M. C. Nisbet and Huge (2006) in their studies on
the US elite media.
Communication technology change has profoundly shaped the pattern of
science and technology controversies too. Scholars have widely recorded the
impact of the fast growth of the Internet, social media and mobile commu-
nication on disputes, including the hydropower (G. Yang & Calhoun, 2007),
GMO (J. Fan et al., 2013; Q. Xu et al., 2018) and nuclear power (R. Huang
& Sun, 2016) controversies in China, but my book exemplifies the interaction
of this technology change with other factors such as public attention and
knowledge control/monopoly patterns. The intention of Internet editors to
attract more online visits promoted the initiation of online forums/special
topics for hydropower and GMO debates and allowed these editors to tolerate
false but sensational news on GMOs spreading online, but the same editors
avoided initiating such online forums on nuclear power. Wang Yinan, the
anti-nuclear elitist activist, was never involved in such debates, possibly
because Internet editors shared the reward/risk logic with conventional jour-
nalists. The media behavior is also related to the knowledge-control regime
that shaped public knowledge of nuclear power.
Why are science controversies so different? 171

7.4 Tracing the sociopolitical roots of science controversies
7.4.1 Political opportunity structure for science controversies in China
Political opportunities arising in a gradually opening society
The second set of research questions is about the relevance of social movement
theories to China’s hydropower, GMO and nuclear power controversies. Of
various theoretical components, the political opportunity structure is the most
crucial element.
My study indicates that science and technology controversies occurred
during a period of loosening political control amidst China’s gradual open-
ing-up and market-oriented reform (Cao, 2018; Y.-W. Lei, 2018; Mertha,
2008; Zeng et al., 2015). These policy shifts created political opportunities in
the sense that public science and technology controversies had apparent
policy and political implications.
As early as the mid and late 1980s, the debate on Three Gorges Project
(TGP) initiated the first large-scale science and technology contention in which
dissenting experts, if not activists as in the more recent period, challenged the
central government’s decision to build the massive dam (Lee, 2013a). In the
process, science and technology issues were primarily understood as a non-
political issue, allowing authorities to tolerate harsh debates. Throughout the
contentions, few dissenting experts and activists were physically punished if
they were not involved in other politically salient protests. However, this is also
because most debate participants carefully maintained the boundary between
science (or environment) and politics.
The loosening political atmosphere in China resulted in more participating
actors. Among these actors, NGOs, the media and dissenting experts are the
most important. The post-TGP hydropower controversy became a real bat-
tlefield of China’s local ENGOs while Greenpeace was the most potent
initiator and promoter of GMO contention in China. In the case of nuclear
power, dissenting elites arose as the main actors.
The Chinese media, too, are a significant component of the political
opportunity structure. In the hydropower and GMO cases, the media not only
timely reported activists’challenges against dams and GM foods, but also
organized and participated in various contentious events. For example, Wang
Yongchen of China National Radio arranged numerous journalistic inspec-
tions along the Upper Yangtze and Yellow rivers, and these inspections
accompanied activists’ongoing protests against dams in Dujiangyan, Nu
River and Jinsha River. For GMOs, the 2004 cover story in Southern Week-
end (SW) (J. Liu, 2004) questioning scientists’interests behind their effort to
commercialize GM rice practically postponed GM rice commercialization in
China. Many activists, such as Wang Yongchen and Liu Jianqiang of SW,
author of the SW cover story, among many others, turned out to be leading
activists in environmental movements (H. Wang, 2016).
172 Why are science controversies so different?

Academic allies of activists also provided fuel for public science and technol-
ogy controversies, while the increasingly diversified Chinese society enabled
experts directly involved in internal and professional debates to voice their con-
cerns publicly. ENGOs often stimulated experts’views. Some academics, such as
Fan Xiao of Sichuan Geological Survey, became activists themselves.
External resources were often crucial to the formation and evolution of
science and technology controversies. Internationally funded Greenpeace was
the central actor in activism against GMOs while international funding and
expertise from partner organizations such as International Rivers and profes-
sional materials such as those in the book Silenced River (McCully, 1996)
significantly supported ENGOs’anti-dam activism.
Political opportunity structure and fragmented authoritarianism
While in the circumstances of authoritarian China, loosened political control,
liberalizing media, emerging ENGOs and dissenting experts can all be called
political opportunities, these circumstances or their combination do not defi-
nitely constitute a political opportunity structure (Meyer & Staggenborg,
1996). In Kitschelt (1986), a political opportunity structure is narrowly
defined as a political structure for policymaking, but Tarrow (1996, 2011)
seemed to take a more lenient view on the definition of political opportunity
structure. In this book, I adopted an eclectic approach. As long as the political,
social and knowledge opportunities, including the ones listed above, can com-
bine to facilitate or block science and technology controversies structurally, I
would apply the political opportunity structure concept for analysis.
As for structural factors underlying social movements, including science
and technology controversies examined in this book, the bureaucratic frag-
mentation in China has played a crucial role in promoting them, due to
China’s authoritarian regime. Given China’s authoritarian nature, the
bureaucratic fragmentation should be considered an essential form of the
analytical framework of fragmented authoritarianism (FA) (Mertha &
Brødsgaard, 2017), though it has been suggested that FA should embrace
more actors such as journalists and activists (Mertha, 2009) and even scien-
tists (Brødsgaard, 2017). The existence of fragmentation itself does not mean
that a social movement can be naturally facilitated. The bureaucratic frag-
mentation has to be combined with other factors to promote or inhibit the
evolution of scientific controversies.
In the hydropower controversy, the schism between the hydrological
department and the environmental agency as well as hydropower develop-
ments’conflicts with construction, historical conservation, wildlife protec-
tion and agricultural agencies enabled the ENGOs’actions, helped
mobilize supporters and in many cases directly halted dam construction
(as in the Xiaonanhai case). But one shouldn’t consider that bureaucratic
antithesis was automatically translated to rejection of dam buildings. After
all, most planned dams in China were constructed and put to operation.
Why are science controversies so different? 173

Instead, the bureaucratic schism offered the necessary political opportunity
structure for activists to concentrate resources, exert influence and obtain
knowledge to target specific hydropower projects. Indeed, what made the
hydropower controversy more salient is the effect of activism. After the
unsuccessful attempt against TGP, most other dams that raised intense
debates –Nu River dams, Yangliuhu in Dujiangyan, Xiaonanhai and
Tiger Leap Gorge –were suspended or halted. The bureaucratic fragmen-
tationhadtoworkwithotherelements,suchasactiveENGOs,effective
framing and knowledge control factors to drive or block major public
science and technology controversies.
In the GMO controversy, there were many minor traces of bureaucratic
schisms, such as the initial struggle of SEPA/MEP/MEE to dominate bio-
technology governance with the goal of implementing China’s commitments
to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. But, as Chapter 4 examined, SEPA
never put serious effort into the struggle for dominance, and anti-GMO
activists did not ally with SEPA as in the hydropower case. Another internal
fragmentation –the protests from Maoist princelings –also played a role by
pressuring individual members within the top leadership and by legit-
imatizing grassroots protesters. In terms of political opportunity structure,
this was a less clear structure. However, the Ministry of Agriculture
(MOA)’s relatively weaker or at least perceived weaker power, as indicated
by the media openly impugning its incumbent vice-minister, may be con-
sidered a sign of a less restrictive political opportunity structure. No matter
whether MOA was weak, given food safety/security’s supreme importance to
Chinese politics and its people, any single ministry cannot withstand and
control enormous public opinion pressure caused by people’swidespread
concerns about GM foods, enabling grassroots activists to rise to dominate
anti-GMO activism.
In the nuclear power controversy, although elitist activists and dissenting
experts against the nuclear power industry were visible and the debates they
raised produced some policy effects, there was not a political opportunity
structure friendly to anti-nuclear activism. The glorifying national socio-
technical imaginaries about nuclear power, the sector’s concentrated power
and resources, its military links, SEPA/MEP/MEE’s alliance with the industry,
media’s reluctance to be involved, and stable knowledge-control regimes of
nuclear power all structurally inhibited controversies from being expanded
and amplified.
But the fragmentation within the nuclear power sector also provided
opportunities to activists and some NIMBY activities. These opportunities
can also be considered structural, as they were related to structural and
institutional arrangements. However, these opportunities were offset by fac-
tors such as bureaucratic integration and the State’s desire to promote nuclear
power as a symbol of national innovation capacity. As a result, activism
around nuclear power controversies only produced a limited policy impact.
174 Why are science controversies so different?

Examining hydropower, GMO and nuclear power controversies, one can
find that putting the FA framework into the political opportunity structure
has the most efficient explanatory power. Fragmentation, no matter whether
it is a bureaucratic one or involves many new actors, creates essential oppor-
tunities, but it is still constrained in a macro-political structure and influenced
by activists’framing strategies, the establishment’s knowledge control and
other sociotechnical factors.
7.4.2 Framing and mobilization in the public attention market
Public accountability frames across settings
Successful framing is considered by one branch of social movement scholars
as a central element to social movements (Snow, 2013; Snow et al., 1986). For
Tarrow and other promoters of political process theory, framing is essential
but is not considered as central. According to previous chapters, framing
seems an element subject to the political opportunity structure, but this does
not mean it is less critical. Instead, within a specific political opportunity
structure, framing can still play a crucial role.
In the hydropower, GMO and nuclear controversies, activists framed these
controversies primarily as public credibility issues. Hydropower companies,
GMO scientists and the nuclear industry were framed as vested interest
groups, putting public interests at risk. Correspondingly, the media frequently
adopted a public accountability frame when reporting GMO and hydropower
topics. But the frame was not so useful in the nuclear controversy due to
journalists’self-censorship to avoid risk, the positive national sociotechnical
imaginaries of nuclear power, and the knowledge-control regime of the
nuclear power sector (to be discussed below).
Under the umbrella of a public accountability frame, environmentalism
agendas dominated anti-hydropower efforts while GMOs were predominantly
considered a food safety issue. As analyzed in Chapter 3, most media articles
that framed hydropower as an environmental issue showed a negative tone or
visible controversy. This framing was related to the fact that the main anti-
hydropower force was ENGOs, which effectively mobilized the media. It was
also caused by China’s increasing embrace of environmentalism in its rapid
economic progress that caused severe environmental woes. On the other hand,
nuclear power was free from the attack of environmentalism frames. SEPA/
MEP’s alliance with the nuclear power sector largely exempted the industry
from being attacked by ENGOs as well as environmentalism frames.
For GMOs, the early effort against the technology, initiated by Greenpeace
and supported by other more elitist international groups such as Third World
Network, framed it as an environmental issue, threatening biodiversity. How-
ever, activists soon found the frame was not appealing in China. Utilizing the
broad public concerns about food safety and the general dissatisfaction with
government transparency, anti-GMO activists forcibly adopted a public
Why are science controversies so different? 175

accountability frame and reached their desired effect. In addition to food safety
concerns, Maoist activists further stigmatized agricultural biotechnology with a
conspiracy theory, claiming GMO was a US conspiracy to control or conquer
China. This frame, though logically ridiculous, was even accepted by 40% of the
population (G. He et al., 2017).
Social mobilization during controversies
With the invincible public accountability frame, activists achieved effective
social mobilization in the hydropower and GMO debates. SEPA/MEP/MEE’s
relatively friendly attitude to a civil society fueled the development of
ENGOs, which mobilized environmental and ecological research organiza-
tions and scientists against dam building. Frequent expert seminars targeting
journalists, and regular journalists’field inspections in the Yangtze and
Yellow rivers guided and joined by environmental, geological and wildlife
protection experts united to form an amplified anti-dam tone. A mobilization
network of activists-experts-journalists-environmental officials created strong
and consistent public opinion pressure on the hydropower side.
The mobilization of anti-GMO forces demonstrated an entirely different
scenario. GMO debates were participated in by a large proportion of the
population, though established local ENGOs were generally less involved.
Greenpeace initiated the discussion, involved the ecological scholars and
consistently provided debate material with its surveillance of illegal planting
of the first GM rice in central China and then GM corn in northeast Chinese
provinces.
Following Greenpeace, Chinese STS scholars questioned the credibility of
biotechnology science, legitimatized public concerns and mobilized dissenting
experts (including a few scientists and much more agricultural economists and
rural sociologists). Maoist activists expanded the anti-GMO fronts by enga-
ging red princelings, some military generals and leftist organizations and
continuously generated anti-GMO messages often stuffed with conspiracy
theories. Fast-developing Internet and mobile communication enabled various
activists to cross-refer and modify different sources of information (such as
grafting a conspiracy claim onto Séralini’s retracted study on GM corn
(2012)) to expand their influence. As a result, the Chinese government post-
poned commercialization of all GM crops after GMOs became a widespread
public controversy.
Compared with hydropower and GMOs, the mobilization of anti-nuclear
activism was far less successful. There is no organization involved at the
national level. The impromptu organizers of NIMBY events never connected
to anti-nuclear activists or dissenting experts. These activists and experts’
voices were seldom amplified by the media to recruit more new participants.
The established Chinese ENGOs were not involved in any anti-nuclear activ-
ity, either in terms of producing and transmitting articles or in actual opera-
tions. Although activists and dissenting experts had a chance to submit their
176 Why are science controversies so different?

appeals to the top leadership, the lack of social protests as a result of poor
mobilization did not exert any pressure, so that the leadership could still
make its decisions based on professional judgment primarily offered by the
nuclear power sector.
Public attention as a movement moderator
Examining the framing and mobilization process involved in hydropower,
GMO and anti-nuclear controversies, one can find public recognition was also
a factor which can hardly be neglected. Here the Downs (1972) issue-atten-
tion cycle, which describes cyclical waves in media attention and historical
shifting among different frames of an issue (M. C. Nisbet & Huge, 2006), can
be borrowed to help illustrate the phenomenon.
In developmentalism-dominated China, an environmental agenda has
trouble attracting public attention. Utilizing the black-and-white image of
dam building proved successful in attracting public attention. However, at the
time of rising anti-dam activism, nearly all dam building was located in
remote southwestern China, so protesting dams and organizing journalists to
report the protest involved much time and resources. This situation resulted in
a highly periodical issue cycle and significant issue concentration (primarily
focused on environmental and ecological affairs) in the hydropower con-
troversy. The lack of public attention and high involvement costs also inhib-
ited the participation of average public citizens. As a result, only the targeted
dam projects were halted, while most hydropower developments that have not
been problematized continued.
When activists successfully framed the GMO controversy as a food safety
issue, the public began to devote much more attention to it. These grave public
concerns and perceived public awareness triggered more and more actors to get
involved, and their involvement brought increasingly diversified topics and
events, ranging from protesting vested interest groups to complaints against
lack of transparency. The claims that MOA-affiliated kindergartens did not use
oil made from GM crops and that at the 2008 Beijing Olympics GM food
ingredients were forbidden were all topics brought in by grassroots protesters.
The escalated public attention thus resulted in the consistent controversy on
GM foods, with new material repeatedly being brought into the debates.
The nuclear power controversy suffered the lowest public attention given its
closed nature, elitist agenda and little perceivable environmental impact. The
situation could explain the reluctance of the media to devote investigative
reporting in the area. The Fukushima accident temporarily changed the low-
attention status, but the public attention quickly faded as there was no report
of irradiation contamination from Japan to China. Together with the fading
public awareness is the diversion of some public intellectuals, such as STS
scholar Jiang Xiaoyuan, from the field. Thus, only a few diehard activists and
dissenting experts remained in the area. Although some activists and experts
had channels to submit reports to the central leadership so that the
Why are science controversies so different? 177

controversy could be maintained in the policy domain, the controversy’s
public impact remained low. The low public attention enabled policymakers
to make decisions based primarily on professional suggestions.
The above summary of framing strategy and mobilization effort in hydro-
power, GMO and nuclear power controversies show that in public science and
technology controversies, activists’framing and mobilization strategies are often
associated with perceived public attention. The interaction of these elements
within specific political opportunity structures has shaped the different evolution
patterns of science and technology, which I will summarize below.
7.5 Examining knowledge-control regimes
The third set of research questions is about the relevance of various STS
concepts, such as knowledge-control regimes, civic epistemology and national
sociotechnical imaginaries, to China’s hydropower, GMO and nuclear power
controversies. Of the various ideas, the knowledge-control regime is used most
widely in this book.
Knowledge stands in a central position in science and technology con-
troversies. The public debates about any controversial science and technology
issue, including hydropower, GMO and nuclear power examined in this book,
are primarily about the credibility of individual knowledge claims, the claim-
makers and the claimed application of the knowledge in question (Jasanoff,
2017). However, without taking consideration of social movement angles,
scholars may lose sight of how actors’actions promote, reject, maintain and
diffuse this knowledge credibility (Breyman et al., 2017; Epstein, 1996).
Using the hydropower, GMO and nuclear power controversies as case studies,
this book finds that major STS concepts regarding knowledge, particularly
knowledge-control regimes (Hilgartner, 2017), civic epistemology (Jasanoff,
2011b) and national sociotechnical imaginaries (Jasanoff&Kim,2009),are
deeply embedded in the controversy process. Meanwhile, the strategic actions by
actors of both sides to mobilize various knowledge resources to overcome
knowledge barriers profoundly influence the development of controversies.
For hydropower development, the publicly visible knowledge-control
regime was mainly embodied in the hydropower industry’seffort to maintain
developmentalism discourse (Lee, 2014), ensure engineering credibility and
publicize technological achievements. In terms of the knowledge of engineer-
ing side (including sediment and hydrological studies), post-TGP the hydro-
power sector has maintained an active control, but the industry seemed to
make only a minimal effort in environment-related knowledge production in
the 1980s and early 1990s. However, during the southwest hydropower
debates starting in 2003, environmental knowledge became the main debating
point. Emerging ENGOs avoided engineering knowledge and mobilized
broad environmental expertise in the debates on dams’impacts on ecology,
biodiversity, fish habitats, earthquake and local households. Because of the
increasing salience environmental studies enjoyed in contemporary China,
178 Why are science controversies so different?

environmentalism triumphed over the developmentalism and engineering
credibility of the hydropower side in the public sphere.
The knowledge control strength of the hydropower sector was rather
weak in the public domain. Like other State-owned conglomerates, hydro-
power companies maintained a good relationship with reporters covering
the beat of hydropower and water resources. These journalists regularly
reported on the engineering achievements and developmentalism embodied
in them. However, within media outlets, hydropower controversies were
dominated by environmental or public affair journalists rather than energy
reporters. When the anti-dam campaign became a nationally hot media
event, environmentalists often had a more prominent platform to speak
within the media outlets.
Compared with hydropower, nuclear power’s knowledge-control regime has
enjoyed a more favorable condition. Nuclear science’ssophisticatedrequire-
ments of knowledge production, higher safety concerns and the sector’s military
link caused natural isolation in its education and knowledge production system.
Meanwhile, the vast quantities of nuclear science-related senior academicians, as
represented by CAS and CAE members, helped the sector win a dominant role
in the knowledge production system, which was supported by the sociotechnical
national imaginaries of nuclear power as a symbol for science and technology
progress, independent innovation and national prosperity. SEPA/MEP’sroleasa
nuclear safety regulator resulted in an alliance between environmental govern-
ance and the nuclear power industry both in policymaking and knowledge pro-
duction. Together with the keen publicity awareness of the nuclear power sector,
these factors jointly maintained nuclear power’s reliable, safe, innovative and
clean images in China’s public sphere. Chinese journalists’avoidance of launch-
ing investigative reporting of the nuclear power industry due to the low perceived
rewards of such reporting further increased the strength of the nuclear power
sector’s knowledge-control regime.
Similarly to hydropower and the nuclear power sector, China’s biotechnol-
ogy scientists also attempted to set up a knowledge-control regime by seeking
political allies. Meanwhile, its promoters meticulously maintained and high-
lighted a scientific consensus. However, when activists rose to challenge
GMOs from the perspective of public accountability in the food safety issue,
the scientific consensus quickly paled amidst attacks ranging from question-
ing scientists’credibility (and hence the credibility of the scientific consensus
the defamed scientists insisted on) and worrying about the fate of peasants
(suffering the impact of imported GM corn and soy) to conspiracy theories
and various rumors linking GMOs to health harms.
In the view of civic epistemology, food safety, the “US conspiracy,”and
peasants’fate were considered by the public as much more important than
the scientific consensus on GMOs and science and technology progress
embodied by biotechnology. It turned out that the science-politics alliance, as
well as the knowledge-control regime endorsed by such an alliance, could be
easily broken when politicians felt the massive pressure from public protests.
Why are science controversies so different? 179

The continued and intensified public attention to food issues, which can be
traced to the long historical memory of famines and disasters, also allowed
various new actors to bring various debating issues into GMO controversies,
further inhibiting the ought-to-be power of scientific consensus.
Summarizing this section’s discussion, one can see that the knowledge-
control regime has played an essential role in facilitating or inhibiting
public debates on science and technology issues. However, the effect of this
regime was also influenced by macro political factors, civic epistemology
and sociotechnical imaginaries of the science in question, the science-
media relationship and the level of public attention and participation.
7.6 Comparing different patterns
In the above sections, I summarized the evolution of hydropower, GMO and
nuclear power controversies from the perspectives of social movement theory
and STS frameworks such as knowledge control and national sociotechnical
imaginaries. Clearly, each of these theoretical frameworks can explain part of
the patterns of these controversies. Based on the above analysis, I present their
variant patterns per different academic traditions.
Table 7.1 shows that within different theoretical frameworks, the hydro-
power, nuclear and GMO controversies present different patterns. Using
these frameworks –social movement theories, knowledge-control regime
and fragmented authoritarianism –one can “predict”theresultofthese
controversies. For example, in both the hydropower and GMO cases, acti-
vists enjoyed a favorable political opportunity structure for their activism
while such structure was highly closed or unfriendly to anti-nuclear con-
troversies. Compared with the hydropower controversy, the GMO con-
troversy experienced a more significant number of political opportunities,
loosely defined. As a result, anti-hydropower activism succeeded in halting
nearly all targeted projects but the hydropower controversy as a whole
elapsed quickly. Anti-GMO activists did better to stop the commercializa-
tion of all GM crops. By contrast, anti-nuclear power activities could only
achieve minimal, unsystematic success by halting new NPP construction
for three years.
Meanwhile, when applied in the hydropower, nuclear and GMO con-
troversies, theories of different traditions were entirely consistent with each
other, so that one can be used to supplement others in making “predic-
tions.”For example, the nuclear power sector’s stronger knowledge-control
regime is coherent with the narrow political opportunity structure for anti-
nuclear activists while the hydropower sector’s lower level of knowledge
control in the environmental area seemed to link to the bureaucratic frag-
mentation between the hydropower sector and environmental agencies,
fueling anti-dam activities. In the case of GMO, biotechnology science
enjoyed high scientific consensus on GM food safety, but the knowledge-
control regime for scientific conclusions was dwarfed by mass protects
180 Why are science controversies so different?

Table 7.1 Different patterns of hydropower, GMOs and nuclear power controversies
Hydropower GMOs Nuclear power
Basic patterns of
controversies Collective efforts
of ENGOs to
resist hydro-
power projects
Long-lasting and
massive public
rejection.
Low-profile
internal elite
strife. No orga-
nized anti-
nuclear
campaigns
Social causes of S&T
controversies Growing public concerns about uncontrolled technologies;
Competing for knowledge claims; the rise of envir-
onmentalism and civil society; the rise of mass media,
Internet and social media; Scientists’slow response to
public concerns. Decreased public trust in the government
and official science.
The level of public trust
in orthodoxy science
(and technology)
Low Low Generally high
except the short
period after
Fukushima
accident
Media factors: Mass
media Media actively
reported hydro-
power con-
troversies to
highlight its
environmental
agenda.
Media actively
reported GMO
controversies to
win public
attention.
Media positively
reported domes-
tic nuclear power,
refusing to offer
platforms for
controversies.
Internet and Social
Media News portal edi-
tors actively
promoted
hydropower
controversies.
Social media
debates on
hydropower
were inactive.
News portal edi-
tors actively pro-
moted GMO
controversies.
Social media
diversified public
rejection of
GMOs and inten-
sified
controversies.
Few news portal
editors promoted
nuclear power
controversies.
Social media
debates on
nuclear power
were untraceable.
STS Knowledge
(kn)-control
regimes
Moderate Moderate to
weaker Strong
Sociotechnical
imaginaries
and civic
epistemology
No universal
sociotechnical
imaginaries of
hydropower
Sociotechnical
imaginaries of
food more for
substance than for
innovation
Sociotechnical
imaginaries of
atomic power as
national indepen-
dence, social
prosperity and
S&T progress
(Continued)
Why are science controversies so different? 181

featuring various claims from both different expert groups and grassroots
activists. As a whole, the knowledge-control regime was weakened, result-
ing in GMO activism’s most significant success among the three con-
troversies in question. So, the knowledge-control regime can be used
together with social movement theories to “predict”activism results.
But I used quotation marks for “predict/prediction”here because unlike
quantitative research which tries to measure every variable “exactly,”the
application of either social movement theories or STS concepts in the con-
troversies studied is rather context-dependent. For example, the FA frame-
work in hydropower was mainly reflected as a bureaucratic fragmentation
while in the GMO case, the less salient bureaucratic fragmentation gave way
Hydropower GMOs Nuclear power
Social
move-
ments
Political
opportunities
and political
opportunity
structure
Moderate
opportunities
and favorable
structure for
activism.
Many opportu-
nities and moder-
ate structure for
activism
Few opportu-
nities and unfa-
vorable structure
for activism
Activists’
frames of tar-
geted S&T
subjects
Lack of public
accountability in
the environment.
Lack of public
accountability in
food safety.
Avoidance of a
robust anti-
nuclear frame;
public account-
ability frame not
dominant in the
media.
Mobilization
of activists Periodically
effective mobili-
zation among
elites and
activists
Successful mass
mobilization Unsuccessful
mobilization
Fragmented
authoritarian-
ism (FA)
framework
Broad FA fra-
mework, with
visible bureau-
cratic fragmen-
tation between
hydropower and
environmental
agencies
Bureaucratic frag-
mentation less
salient, but actors’
massive participa-
tion brings exten-
sive fragmentation
Only minor
bureaucratic
fragmentation,
and little FA
within the
industry
Results of S&T con-
troversies as social
protests
Successfully
halted targeted
dams.
Entirely successful
in halting com-
mercialization of
all GM crops in
China.
Initiated con-
troversies but
achieved limited
success (delayed
new construction
permits for three
years)
(Source: Author’s summary)
Table 7.1 (Cont.)
182 Why are science controversies so different?

to an enormous fragmentation across the society. This fragmentation existed
among different knowledge claim makers (e.g., between scientists and STS
scholars and rural sociologists), different interest holders (agricultural biotech
firms versus organic farmers) and various political lines (Maoists are diehard
anti-GMO members as compared with other political groups). So, both
GMO and hydropower enjoyed a high level of FA, but their FAs were
different.
Why are science controversies so different? 183

8 Synergy of different theoretical
traditions in a comparative lens
8.1 Pattern difference and theoretical development
In the previous chapter, we saw that the three controversies demonstrated
apparent differences in all theoretical frameworks –communication patterns,
social movement theories and knowledge-control regime –adopted in this
book. As a result, they had different consequences. In the hydropower case,
activists successfully suspended all controversial dams; in the GMO con-
troversy, no new GM crop has been commercialized since 2007; yet in the
nuclear power case, the construction of new NPPs resumed in 2019, after
three years’pause.
Did the different fates perfectly reflect the predictions suggested by the adop-
ted theories, or were they primarily a result of various characteristics of the
selected cases? One may say anti-GMO debates are so salient simply because
people are worried about their food, while nuclear power’s low impact on their
life because of its low visibility, and the periodical hydropower controversy is
associated with the remote location of dams.
Throughout this monograph, I have not denied the case differences and
their role in causing differing evolution patterns of the controversies. For
example, the relationship of the disputes to people’s daily life results in dif-
ferent public attention, which is an essential component in both social move-
ment theories and the framework of the knowledge-control regime. However,
the case difference alone cannot sufficiently explain their different con-
sequences. As indicated in the first chapter, other similar controversies have
not resulted in a similar outcome to the studied ones. For example, Chinese
citizens also have a widespread concern about food additives, but this has
never been translated to a massive controversy in the same way as GMOs.
Meanwhile, ordinary people living in cities feel equally little impact from
hydropower and nuclear power, yet hydropower has experienced much more
severe disputes than nuclear power.
The reasons for the different case consequences include the actors involved,
their different sociopolitical situations and the various knowledge-making
processes. All these elements are theoretically relevant. In previous chapters, I
have repeatedly examined how different factors identified by theory result in
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160212-8

different evolution patterns of the cases. I will not repeat these arguments.
One point to be stressed here, however, is that the case characteristics interact
with the case’s sociopolitical situations, its knowledge-making ways and the
actors involved in the case.
The previous chapter shows that different theoretical frameworks are con-
sistent with each other in “predicting”the development of the selected con-
troversy cases –the anti-hydropower movement, the GMO controversy and
nuclear power debates. Indeed, these variant frameworks are not only mutually
supplemental but also interact with each other. Only by tracing interactions
among sociopolitical, knowledge and communication factors underlying public
science and technology controversies and by combining different theoretical
traditions, can we deeply understand the specific evolution pattern of various
disputes. I will explore this point below to deepen the application of inter-
disciplinary theoretical exploration and to illustrate a significant academic
contribution of this book.
8.2 Interactions of different theoretical frameworks
8.2.1 Interaction of different theoretical components in China
So far, I have examined China’s hydropower, nuclear and GMO controversies (plus
some minor controversies as background) using communication, social movement
and STS theories. Components from communication studies, social movement
theories and STS concepts interact with andstrengtheneachother,suggestingthat
they should not be separated. For example, in the hydropower case, activists orga-
nized journalists to carry out Yangtze and Yellow rivers inspections with the guide
of ecology and environmental scholars. In the process, activists, journalists, and
ecological and environmental experts formed a mobilization network against
hydropower development or individual dams. This process represents an essential
aspect of Tarrow’s (2011) political process theory. Meanwhile, the networking
activities were closely associated with the effort of competing with the hydropower
establishments’knowledge-control regime. On the other hand, as analyzed in
Chapter 4, the relative openness and salience of environmental knowledge-making
also helped weaken the knowledge-control regime of the hydropower establish-
ments. The weakened regime no doubt encouraged activists and journalists to
adopt more offensives against dam-building when necessary.
Nuclear power offers another, yet reverse example. The stronger knowl-
edge-control regime of the nuclear power sector cannot be separated from its
stronger political power and hierarchic governance structure. The latter can
relatively easily inhibit social movements against the nuclear power sector as
it can both mobilize coercive forces against activism and cut offpotential
internal allies from external activists. Nuclear-friendly media outlets offered
another example. Journalists’reluctance to made investigative reporting into
nuclear power was both caused by lack of public attention to nuclear power,
the inhibiting political power, and real and perceived knowledge monopoly.
Synergy of different theoretical traditions 185

In the GMO controversy, the high scientific consensus on GM food safety
did not translate to a stronger knowledge-control regime, because without the
endorsement of political power, the biotechnology sector has a low capacity
to control knowledge in the public sphere. In 2015 when the propaganda
department decided to manage adverse reporting of GMOs, the rise of social
media platforms and widespread rumors offset the policy effect. Hence, media
change further weakened the knowledge-control regime for GMOs.
There are many other examples across the three cases showing the interac-
tion between communication, social movement and knowledge factors. It is
interesting to notice that although these factors are categorized differently,
they overall are consistent or mutually strengthening rather than mutually
offsetting. To better understand their interaction, we will also need to con-
sider how different theoretical frameworks interact with each other.
8.2.2 Interaction of different theoretical frameworks
The call to utilize social movement theories to investigate controversial science
and technology issues has been made for up to three decades (Breyman et al.,
2017; Epstein, 1996; Hess et al., 2008; Martin & Groth, 1991), and in the first
chapter of this book, I also set this as a goal for my research. The study here
justified this call while bringing fresh evidence and material to the scholarship.
Based on the three controversy case studies, one can safely conclude that
social movement studies first of all help solve the question of why given similar
low public knowledge of science, some controversies can grow out of academic
circles to produce social impacts while others remained hidden from public
attention. They also address the question of why, among those publicly salient
science and technology controversies, some can produce significant policy
impacts (such as GMOs) and others go relatively unnoticed by policymakers
(such as nuclear power concerns). The three cases –hydropower, nuclear and
GMO –are all in the public domain, but the three cases can be combined to
compare with other controversies, such as nanotechnology, which has never
raised media attention and produced significant policy impact in China.
Taking account of social movement theories can also enable STS scholars
to deeply observe how actors involved in public science and technology con-
troversies perceive, utilize, or miss macro political opportunities. Moreover,
this approach also illustrates how actors use cultural resources to frame
themselves and their opponents. Delborne’s (2008) study of UC (University of
California) Berkeley scientist Ignacio Chapela’s strategic consideration of
protesting strategies after his controversial Nature paper on Mexican maize’s
GMO contamination was retracted is precisely one of these cases.
At their core, science and technology controversies are about the credibility
of knowledge and have been widely examined by STS scholars using various
concepts including Hilgartner’s (2017) knowledge-control regime. It is well
known that such knowledge-control regimes are about power; but using social
movement theories, one can more dynamically examine the role of power in
186 Synergy of different theoretical traditions

knowledge-control controversies. The current book makes an initial effort for
the dynamic examination of such a regime.
Meanwhile, STS and communication studies on knowledge can contribute
to social movement theories as well. Compared with STS scholars, conven-
tional social movement scholars remain less interested in examining knowl-
edge issues (Breyman et al., 2017), just as 30 years ago when Martin and
Groth (1991) made such a claim. Yet nearly all social movements/con-
troversies involve knowledge issues, though the knowledge may not be about
a narrowly defined science.
In the cases in this book, hydropower and GMOs were widespread public
controversies in China, and many actors without any science background or
any link to the science community have been involved, but from the very
beginning, without internal dissenting scientists/experts’widely broadcasted
critical views, they might not have become controversies at all. Chapter 3
found that the southwestern hydropower debates started from dissenting
experts’seminars on the Dujiangyan and Nu Rivers. Chapter 4 demonstrated
that the concerns about biodiversity loss caused by GM crops initiated the
GMO controversies that continued and later focused on food safety. In the
social contention process, no matter whether the dispute is about narrowly
defined science, certification and decertification form a pair of mechanisms
widely involved in the social movement (McAdam et al., 2001), and these
mechanisms are related to knowledge.
My study of the nuclear power protests’less successful fate also involved
knowledge factors, one of which being the nuclear power sector’sfirm
knowledge-control regime. The successful knowledge-control regime of the
industry isolated activists from potential supporters, such as the journalists.
Other STS concepts, such as national sociotechnical imaginaries, also play an
essential role in influencing or even shaping social movements. If such imagin-
aries are full of the expectation for science and technology progress and
national independence, as the nuclear power case shows, or full of modernist
imaginations of convenience and immediacy, such as mobile phones, con-
troversial concerns such as mobile phones’potential health harms may never
become a real public controversy. Frames, which are vital for mobilization in
social movements, are also contingent on knowledge and its production and
distribution (e.g., whether a grassroots activist has a chance to utilize particular
expertise claims to develop his/her frame against controversial science and
technology items).
The discussion here is not to try to set up an all-inclusive model to enlist all
sociopolitical and knowledge factors one by one in all circumstances. Contexts
matter. Disciplinary boundaries are inevitable. But the current discussion and
the empirical studies in this book can pave the way for a more systematic calcu-
lation of sociopolitical, knowledge and other factors such as economic forces.
Synergy of different theoretical traditions 187

9 Conclusion
9.1 Generalizing findings
This book traced the hydropower, GMO and nuclear power controversies in
contemporary China and identified a body of interactive sociopolitical,
knowledge and communication factors that have jointly shaped the evolu-
tion of these controversies. One major conclusion is that, just like other
social and political disputes, public science and technology controversies can
be considered social movements, with actors actively and strategically seek-
ing political opportunities –which are structurally caused by a batch of
sociopolitical and economic factors –to expand their impact or the impact
of their viewpoints.
The second conclusion is that the control of knowledge, conceptualized as
the knowledge-control regime, in a controversial case is central in enhancing
or inhibiting the public controversy’s evolution, but the regime is not just
about knowledge. Instead, it is the product of a collection of sociopolitical
and epistemic factors, which vary in different controversy settings. On the
other hand, the knowledge-control regime, its effect in controlling the knowl-
edge production and flow, and activists’perception of the regime are all cri-
tical portions of the political opportunity structure.
The third conclusion is that communication factors –including public
attention to controversial issues, media and journalists’roles in promoting
public debates, and the rise of new media –are essential to both political
opportunity structures and knowledge control. These factors are structurally
embedded in the evolution of controversy. For example, in the nuclear power
case, the Chinese media were either active in positively framing the energy or
reluctant to produce investigative reporting of the sector. This action increased
the effect of the knowledge-control regime of the nuclear power sector and
resulted in a relatively more restrictive political opportunity structure.
As revealed in Chapter 6, Chinese media and journalists’reluctance to
report negative news on China’s domestic nuclear power industry was par-
tially related to the perceived military link of the nuclear power industry,
resulting in journalists’risk avoidance behaviors. This finding, like many
others in this book, highlights the authoritarian nature of the Chinese regime.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160212-9

Further, this raises the question of the generalizability of this study’sfindings
and conclusions.
In a sense, the question is legitimate. China’s authoritarian regime enables
macro political power to play a more significant role in fueling the science and
technology controversies examined in this book than might have been true in
less authoritarian countries. However, the essence of the above conclusions is
not about the degree to which political power was involved in science and
technology disputes, but that these controversies should be treated like other
social movements that interact with knowledge factors. This finding is highly
generalizable and consistent with previous findings on scientificdissenters’
strategies for entering controversies (Delborne, 2008; Martin, 1998, 2010).
Another generalizable finding is the role of sociopolitical factors in con-
stituting the knowledge-control regimes of the controversy cases. In different
instances, sociopolitical factors involved in forming knowledge-control
regimes may vary, but what remains unchanged is that the type of knowledge
control also depends on a combination of sociopolitical and epistemic factors.
A third generalizable finding is that the communication factors listed above
have to be regularly considered in the pattern or dynamics of science and
technology controversies (Martin, 2014). Not all scientific debates demon-
strate the same dynamics. Actors adapt their behaviors depending on the
audience attention and the media agenda.
Although these findings are internationally generalizable, the three con-
troversy cases systematically examined in this monograph are not enough to
reveal the more detailed generalizable mechanisms underlying controversies.
The nature of the three studied cases as significant public science and tech-
nology controversies also prevents us from directly applying the conclusions
to more elitist scientific disputes. We need more research in this direction.
9.2 Limitations and future studies
This book’sfirst limitation lies in its research focus on China. Indeed, China
has a sharply different political system and environment from the Western
democracies on which both the mainstream STS and science communication
scholarships are built, which makes some theoretical findings of this book
challenging to generalize.
I admit this limitation, though would not frame it as a problem. Instead, I
want to justify my research conclusions despite the limitation. First, across all
three science and technology controversies I examined, a heavy influence of
political institutions can be easily identified. For example, activists and ortho-
dox scientists alike in the hydropower, GMO and nuclear cases tried their best
to brief top leadership. However, if we set aside the surface differences, we can
compare this with policy lobbying in Western democracies. The difference is
not that Chinese science and technology controversies are political while the
West’s are not. The difference is that politics in Chinese cases are less institu-
tional and occur with much less transparency. So, while the effort to re-examine
Conclusion 189

the application of this book’s conclusions in different contexts is necessary, it
does not mean these conclusions are not applicable. Similarly, while the efforts
of actors to depoliticize the frames for controversies may come from their
widespread concern about political prosecution that does not apply in non-
authoritarian nations, yet the pursuit of political correctness is everywhere.
Therefore, behaviors caused by the concerns about political challenges can be
compared with a similar effort in the West for political correctness.
For the second limitation, the development stage of China and its political
system bring up priorities different from the West. For example, except for
Greenpeace’s initial attempts, the GMO issue was not framed as an environ-
ment/ecology/biodiversity issue. Food safety and science and technology pro-
gress were the two dominant frames with different directions in terms of framing
the disputed biotechnology. The first is related to many generations’memory in
China of hunger and famines, and the latter is associated with Chinese people’s
eagerness to achieve national strength. The other side of the coin for this is
widespread belief in a Western conspiracy. But my justification for claiming
generalizability is that although the frames are different, we may consider their
similar impacts on social movements and knowledge-control regime.
As with all qualitative studies, there are other limitations. As a whole, the
discussions on embracing transferability versus generalizability by many
qualitative study methodologists (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Tracy, 2010) point
to issues relevant for my study.
Another major limitation is that, despite my extensive interviews, I still feel a
lack of access to many data and sources, such as State and ministerial leaders
or top industrial executives. I tried my best to understand their intentions. I
also tried to triangulate my observations as much as possible. Sometimes I was
lucky to have two separate sources to compare, for example, in the case of
attitude to GMOs among top leadership in the Hu Jintao-Wen Jiabao era. But
on most other occasions, I did not have such luck. I tried to avoid making any
definitive remarks.
9.3 Concluding remarks
So far in this concluding chapter, I have summarized the communication
factors, social movement theories and various knowledge-related concepts’
application in interpreting China’s hydropower, GMO and nuclear power
controversies; compared the different evolution patterns of these con-
troversies; discussed the integration of social movement theories and STS
concepts in understanding social contentions; and explored the relevance of
communication patterns to these controversies. A general conclusion seems
redundant here: public science and technology disputes are the results of a
body of interactive sociopolitical, knowledge and communication factors. We
should consider public science and technology controversies as social move-
ments, with actors actively and strategically seeking political opportunities to
expand their impact. The control of knowledge, resulting from epistemic,
190 Conclusion

communication and sociopolitical factors, allows or inhibits the evolution of
public scientific controversies.
Underlying these claims is my goal to push ahead the application of social
movement theories and STS concepts in offering a broad interpretation to
knowledge-related social unrest. Communication studies are necessary to
support this interpretation.
The theoretical significance of this book is therefore embodied in the ela-
boration of various theoretical components and their combined application in
understanding complex reality rather than developing a theory. For this latter
task, further research based on the current book is definitely needed.
Conclusion 191

Appendix
There are a total of 103 interviewees recorded in this table. The table is
grouped by the category of interviewees’primary role in this book, which can
be a formal profession (activists, scientists, social science researchers etc.) but
not limited to this profession, particularly in the case of activists who may
have other established professions. Within each category, interviewees are
chronologically ranked in accordance with the interview code, which is coded
with the date of the interview they received. The interview code, in the format
of INT+YYYY+MM+DD, was used in the text as an in-text reference.
When there were multiple interviews on the same date, a letter (a, b, or c) is
added at the end of the code. Within each category, a number is added before
the description just for reference. When the same person was interviewed
more than once, Ibid is used to replace his/her description.
Interviewee description and code
No. Profession or
description
Location of
the interviewee
Age range Interview
time
Interview code
Activists
1 Journalist-
turned anti-
GMO activist,
founder of an
organic food
group in
Beijing
Beijing 40–50 Tuesday,
August 23,
2016
INT20160823
2 Anti-nuclear
activist, energy
policy
researcher
Beijing 40–50 Friday,
September
23, 2016
INT20160923b
Ibid Beijing 40–50 Second
interview:
December
29, 2016
INT20161229a

No. Profession or
description
Location of
the interviewee
Age range Interview
time
Interview code
Ibid Beijing 40–50 Third:
interview:
December
21, 2017
INT20171221
3 Journalist-
turned environ-
mental activist,
former interna-
tional ENGO
member
Beijing 30–40 Monday,
September
26, 2016
INT20160926
4 Environmental
activist, inter-
national
ENGO
member
Beijing 30–40 Tuesday,
September
27, 2016
INT20160927
5 Anti-GMO
activist, self-
described
scientist
Beijing 70–80 Thursday,
September
29, 2016
INT20160929
6 Head of a
nationally lead-
ing ENGO
Beijing 30–40 Tuesday,
November
22, 2016
INT20161120
7 Activist and
activist-turned-
journalist
Beijing 30–40 Sunday,
November
27, 2016
INT20161122
8 Anti-GMO &
anti-nuclear
activist, leftist
South China 40–50 Saturday,
December
3, 2016
INT20161127
9 Anti-nuclear
activist, retired
local official
East China 70–80 Tuesday,
December
6, 2016
INT20161206a
10 Anti-nuclear
activist, retired
local official
East China 60–70 Tuesday,
December
6, 2016
INT20161206b
11 Anti-nuclear
activist, retired
local official
East China 70–80 Wednes-
day,
December
7, 2016
INT20161207a
12 Anti-nuclear
activist, retired
local official
East China 70–80 Wednes-
day,
December
7, 2016
INT20161207b
13 Anti-hydro-
power activist,
former liberal
Beijing 60–70 Thursday,
December
8, 2016
INT20161208a
Appendix 193

No. Profession or
description
Location of
the interviewee
Age range Interview
time
Interview code
14 Journalist-
turned environ-
mental activist
East China 40–50 Tuesday,
December
13, 2016
INT20161213
15 Journalist-
turned anti-
dam activist.
Head of local
ENGO
Beijing 60–70 Sunday,
December
18, 2016
INT20161215
16 Environmental
activist Shanghai 30–40 Thursday,
December
15, 2016
INT20161217
17 Environmental
anti-dam acti-
vist, self-
claimed scien-
tist. Head of
local ENGO
Southwest
China 50–60 Thursday,
December
22, 2016
INT20161221
18 Environmental
anti-dam acti-
vist, local
scientist
Southwest
China 60–70 Thursday,
December
22, 2016
INT20161222
19 Journalist-
turned environ-
mental activist.
Head of local
ENGO
Southwest
China 50–60 Friday,
December
23, 2016
INT20161223
20 Scholar-turned
environmental
activist. Head
of local ENGO
Southwest
China 50–60 Sunday,
December
25, 2016
INT20161225
21 Young environ-
mental activist Beijing 20–30 Wednes-
day, Jan-
uary 11,
2017
INT20170111
22 Young environ-
mental activist Beijing 20–30 Friday,
January
13, 2017
INT20170113
23 Journalist-
turned environ-
mental activist,
former interna-
tional ENGO
member
East China 40–50 Friday,
March 10,
2017
INT20170310
194 Appendix

No. Profession or
description
Location of
the interviewee
Age range Interview
time
Interview code
24 Environmental
activist, former
international
ENGO
member,
former head of
a nationally
leading NGO
Overseas 40–50 Monday,
May 15,
2017
INT20170515
25 Anti-nuclear
activist,
CPPCC
member, a
billionaire
South China 60–70 Sunday,
July 30,
2017
INT20170730
Government officials (including retired officials)
1 Incumbent
agricultural
official
Beijing 40–50 Thursday,
November
10, 2016
INT20161110b
2 Promoter of
hydro project,
former scien-
tist, retired
senior official
East China 60–70 Monday,
January 9,
2017
INT20170109
3 Incumbent pro-
paganda
official
Beijing 40–50 Thursday,
January
12, 2017
INT20170112
4 Former agri-
cultural official Beijing 60–70 Wednes-
day,
August 23,
2017
INT20170823
Industry sources
1PRofficial of a
nuclear giant South China 40–50 Sunday,
October
23, 2016
INT20161023
2 Engineer of a
nuclear giant South China Unknown Sunday,
October
23, 2016
INT20161023b
3 Engineer of a
nuclear giant South China Unknown Sunday,
October
23, 2016
INT20161023c
4 Engineer of a
nuclear
research
institute
Shanghai 30–40 Tuesday,
December
20, 2016
INT20161219
5 Head of local
medical website Shanghai 40–50 Tuesday,
December
20, 2016
INT20161220
Appendix 195

No. Profession or
description
Location of
the interviewee
Age range Interview
time
Interview code
6PRofficial of a
nuclear giant Beijing 40–50 Thursday,
December
29, 2016
INT20161229b
7 Nuclear engi-
neer-turned
nuclear PIOs
Shanghai 30–40 Thursday,
December
29, 2016
INT20161229c
8 The main
spokesperson
of hydropower
industry
Beijing 50–60 Friday,
January 6,
2017
INT20170106
9 Nuclear power
senior
executive
Shanghai 50–60 Second
interview:
June 15,
2017
INT20170615
10 PR official of a
nuclear giant Beijing 40–50 Friday,
June 16,
2017
INT20170616
11 Engineer and
VP of a nuclear
plant
East China 50–60 Friday,
June 16,
2017
INT20170616b
Journalists
1 Science
journalist Beijing 40–50 Tuesday,
August 16,
2016
INT20160816
2 Former science
journalist Beijing 30–40 Saturday,
August 20,
2016
INT20160820
3 Science
journalist Beijing 30–40 Monday,
September
19, 2016
INT20160919
4 Environmental
journalist Beijing 30–40 Wednes-
day, Sep-
tember 21,
2016
INT20160921a
5 Science
journalist Beijing 40–50 Wednes-
day, Sep-
tember 21,
2016
INT20160921b
6 Journalist Beijing 50–60 Friday,
September
23, 2016
INT20160923a
7 Science
journalist Beijing 40–50 Sunday,
September
25, 2016
INT20160925
196 Appendix

No. Profession or
description
Location of
the interviewee
Age range Interview
time
Interview code
8 Science
journalist Beijing 40–50 Sunday,
September
25, 2016
INT20160925
9 Science
journalist Guangzhou 40–50 Sunday,
October
16, 2016
INT20161016
10 Science
journalist Guangzhou 40–50 Saturday,
October
22, 2016
INT20161022
11 Former senior
journalist Shenzhen 60–70 Wednes-
day,
November
2, 2016
INT20161102
12 Science
journalist Beijing 40–50 Thursday,
November
17, 2016
INT20161115
13 Science jour-
nalist & web
editor
Beijing 40–50 Friday,
December
16, 2016
INT20161216
14 Science
journalist Beijing 30–40 Saturday,
December
17, 2016
INT20161217
15 Science
journalist Hangzhou 50–60 Monday,
December
19, 2016
INT20161218
16 Former science
journalist Hangzhou 40–50 Monday,
December
19, 2016
INT20161219
17 Former science
journalist Hangzhou 40–50 Sunday,
January 8,
2017
INT20170106
18 Former science
journalist Beijing 30–40 Monday,
January 9,
2017
INT20170108
19 Former news
portal & social
media science
editor
Beijing 30–40 Monday,
January 9,
2017
INT20170109
20 Environmental
journalist Beijing 20–30 Tuesday,
January
10, 2017
INT20170110
21 Former science
journalist Beijing 30–40 Saturday,
January
14, 2017
INT20170114
Appendix 197

No. Profession or
description
Location of
the interviewee
Age range Interview
time
Interview code
22 Science
journalist Beijing 20–30 Saturday,
July 23,
2016
INT20170723
23 Science
journalist Beijing 20–30 Saturday,
July 23,
2016
INT20170723
24 Former science
journalist Beijing 30–40 Tuesday,
July 25,
2017
INT20170725
25 Energy
journalist Beijing 30–40 Friday,
August 25,
2017
INT20170825
26 Environmental
journalist Beijing 50–60 Wednes-
day,
August 30,
2017
INT20170830
Science communication professionals
1 PIO1 of a
research
institute
Beijing 30–40 Sunday,
August 21,
2016
INT20160821
2 PIO2 of a
research
institute
Beijing 40–50 Sunday,
September
25, 2016
INT20160925c
3 Science com-
munication
expert
Beijing 30–40 Wednes-
day, Sep-
tember 28,
2016
INT20160928
4 PIO3 of a
research
institute
Central China 40–50 Tuesday,
December
27, 2016
INT20161226
5 Science com-
munication
expert
Beijing 50–60 Friday,
December
30, 2016
INT20161230
Social science researchers
1 STS professor Beijing 50–60 Tuesday,
September
20, 2016
INT20160920
2 Senior science
policy
researcher
Beijing 50–60 Thursday,
September
22, 2016
INT20160922
3 Senior
researcher, sci-
ence commu-
nication
Beijing 40–50 Tuesday,
October
11, 2016
INT20161011
198 Appendix

No. Profession or
description
Location of
the interviewee
Age range Interview
time
Interview code
Ibid Beijing 40–50 Second
interview:
September
15, 2017
INT20170915
4 Senior agri-
cultural policy
researcher
Beijing 50–60 Monday,
November
14, 2016
INT20161114
5 STS professor East China 40–50 Saturday,
November
19, 2016
INT20161117
6 STS professor Beijing 50–60 Sunday,
November
20, 2016
INT20161119
7 Risk commu-
nication
scholar
Beijing 50–60 Monday,
November
28, 2016
INT20161128
8 STS professor Beijing 30–40 Thursday,
December
8, 2016
INT20161208b
Ibid Beijing 30–40 Second
interview:
July 15,
2017
INT20170715
9 Communica-
tion scholar,
ENGO intern
Beijing 20–30 Monday,
January 9,
2017
INT20170109
10 Senior
researcher, sci-
ence policy
Ningbo/UK 50–60 Monday,
April 24,
2017
INT20170424
11 STS professor Beijing 50–60 Monday,
May 15,
2017
INT20170515
12 STS professor Beijing 50–60 Thursday,
May 18,
2017
INT20170518
13 STS professor Beijing 50–60 Saturday,
May 20,
2017
INT20170520
14 STS professor Beijing 30–40 Sunday,
June 18,
2017
INT20170618
15 Senior science
policy
researcher
Beijing 50–60 Monday,
June 19,
2017
INT20170619
Appendix 199

No. Profession or
description
Location of
the interviewee
Age range Interview
time
Interview code
16 STS professor UK 40–50 Friday,
July 21,
2017
INT20170721
17 Communica-
tion scholar Beijing 30–40 Thursday,
September
28, 2017
INT20170828
Scientists (natural science)
1 Senior agri-
cultural
scientist
Central China 60–70 Sunday,
October 9,
2016
INT20161009
2 Chemist Nanjing 50–60 Wednes-
day,
March 9,
2016
INT20160309
3 Senior agri-
cultural scien-
tist, former
CPPCC
member
Beijing 60–70 Wednes-
day,
November
9, 2016
INT20161110a
4 Senior agri-
cultural
scientist
Beijing 50–60 Friday,
November
18, 2016
INT20161118
5 Ecology
scientist Beijing 50–60 Thursday,
December
15, 2016
INT20161215
6 Senior life
scientist Beijing 60–70 Wednes-
day,
December
21, 2016
INT20161221
7 Senior environ-
mental scientist Southwest
China 70–80 Friday,
December
23, 2016
INT20161222
8 Senior environ-
mental scientist Central China 70–80 Monday,
December
26, 2016
INT20161227
9 Anti-nuclear
physicist Beijing 80–90 Friday,
December
30, 2016
INT20161230
10 Senior hydro-
power scientist Beijing 50–60 Wednes-
day, Jan-
uary 11,
2017
INT20170111
11 Senior environ-
mental scientist Beijing 50–60 Friday,
February
10, 2017
INT20170210
200 Appendix

No. Profession or
description
Location of
the interviewee
Age range Interview
time
Interview code
12 Space scientist
and active sci-
ence
communicator
Guangzhou 50–60 Tuesday,
March 28,
2017
INT20170328
13 Ecology
scientist Beijing 50–60 Saturday,
June 17,
2017
INT20170617
14 Anti-nuclear
physicist Beijing 50–60 Monday,
June 19,
2017
INT20170619
15 Senior hydro-
power scientist Beijing 50–60 Friday,
June 30,
2017
INT20170630
Appendix 201

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Index
Page numbers in italics refer to figures, those in bold indicate tables.
AEC (Atomic Energy Commission) 136
air pollution controversies 12–13, 154
alternative knowledge 27, 69, 91–3,
99–100, 163–4, 166
America see United States
analysis: government documents 33;
interview data 27; mass media data
28–32; nuclear controversies in China
167; social media data 32–3; social
movement theories 9–10; Weibo and
GMO (Genetically Modified
Organisms) 113
anonymity 34, 52
anti-biotechnology activism 107, 118, 124
anti-dam movements 12, 45, 67, 71,
84, 92
anti-GMO activism: differing science
controversies 168, 170, 174–6, 180;
framing and mobilization 126–8; and
hydropower controversies 101–4,
104–5; knowledge control and
contention 131–3, 134; and media
landscape 107; and nuclear power
debate 143; science controversies and
political opportunities 14; and social
media 112–16, 114–15; as a social
movement 118, 120–3, 121–2;
transitional China 51, 54–8; WeChat
(Chinese social media platform) 25–6
anti-hydropower movements: comparative
theoretical traditions 185; differing
science controversies 168, 175, 180;
hydropower, fragmentation and
knowledge-making 70, 74, 77, 83–4, 92,
96; science controversies and political
opportunities 12–13, 13–15, 17;
transitional China 36, 51
anti-incinerator movements 59–60, 65
anti-nuclear activism: alternative
knowledge and knowledge control
163–4, 166–7; campaigns 46–54, 117,
137, 138; conventional media report-
ing 143; differing science controversies
169, 174, 176; social media reporting
147–8, 150–2; as a social movement
135–6, 152–4, 155–8, 156; transitional
China 49, 51, 53; Weibo data 25
anti-PM2.5 movements 12–13, 62–3
article attitudes 28, 94–5, 107, 109,110
see also media themes
authoritarian regimes: conclusions
188–90; differing science controversies
173–5, 180, 182; GMO controversies
117–18, 124–6; hydropower,
fragmentation and knowledge-making
67, 81, 82–4, 84; nuclear power debate
138, 155–8, 167; research methods and
data 19; science controversies and
political opportunities 1, 5, 10–11, 17;
transitional China 33, 38, 50, 56
Baidu Baike 61
Baidu Index 23, 110–11, 147–9
Bauer, M. W. 3
BBS (Bulletin Board Systems) posts:
GMO controversies 112; hydropower
controversies in China 78–80, 79;
nuclear power debate 147, 150;
research methods and data 23–4, 32;
transitional China 49, 60, 65
Bijker, W. E. 66
biodiversity: conclusions 190; differing
science controversies 175, 178;
differing theoretical traditions 187;

GMO controversies 118; hydropower
controversies in China 70, 84, 93;
transitional China 40, 42–3, 55
biosafety certificates: biotechnology
governance 174; contemporary GMO
controversies in China 104; GMO
controversy as a social movement
118–20, 124–5; GMO social media
debate 112; knowledge-control and
contention 129–30, 132; transitional
China 56
blogs: GMO controversies 112–13, 123,
130; hydropower controversies in
China 78; nuclear power debate 150–2;
research methods and data 24, 32;
science controversies and political
opportunities 11; transitional China
52, 56, 60, 65
Britain see UK
CAAS (Chinese Academy of
Agricultural Sciences) 56, 118, 123
Calhoun, C. 170
CAS (Chinese Academy of Sciences):
controversies in transitional China 43,
47, 51, 56–7, 62–3; differing science
controversies 179; GMO controversies
108, 124, 126; hydropower
controversies in China 82–5, 97–8;
newspaper data 21; nuclear power
debate 141, 151, 153, 157, 159–60
CAST (China Association for Science
and Technology) 82, 84, 108, 123, 160
CCP (Chinese Communist Party):
controversies in transitional China 38,
40, 44, 51, 65; GMO controversies
132; hydropower controversies in China
73; nuclear power debate 141, 152;
sampled newspaper data 21;
science controversies and political
opportunities 10
CGNPC (China General Nuclear Power
Corporation) 47, 49, 53, 153–4, 160
Chernobyl accident 49, 136–7, 166
China Association for Science and
Technology (CAST) see CAST
(China Association for Science and
Technology)
China General Nuclear Power Corporation
(CGNPC) 47, 49, 53, 153–4, 160
China Institute of Atomic Energy
(CIAE) 47, 158
China Internet Network Information
Center (CNNIC) 54, 112–13
China National Nuclear Corporation
(CNNC) see CNNC (China National
Nuclear Corporation)
China Nuclear Energy Association
(CNEA) 52, 160
China Science Daily (CSD): GMO
controversies 106–7, 109; hydropower
controversies in China 72,95; nuclear
power debate 140–1, 146–7, 151;
research methods and data 21–2, 34n1
China Society for Hydropower
Engineering (CSHE) 71
China’s nuclear dream 46–8
Chinese Academy of Agricultural
Sciences (CAAS) see CAAS (Chinese
Academy of Agricultural Sciences)
Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) see
CAS (Chinese Academy of Sciences)
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) see
CCP (Chinese Communist Party)
Chinese People’s Political Consultative
Conference (CPPCC) see CPPCC
Chinese regime 11, 65, 188
CIAE (China Institute of Atomic
Energy) 47, 159
civic epistemology see also epistemic
issues: differing science controversies
178–80; in GMO controversy 103–4,
117, 128, 131–3; in hydropower
controversies 80, 87–93, 88–90,92,
99–100; nuclear power debate 163;
science controversies and political
opportunities 4–7, 17
CNEA (China Nuclear Energy
Association) 52, 160
CNNC (China National Nuclear
Corporation): contentions in China
139; controversies in transitional
China 47, 49, 53–4; knowledge in
nuclear disputes 159–60, 164; nuclear
contention as a social movement
152–5, 157
CNNIC (China Internet Network
Information Center) see China Internet
Network Information Center (CNNIC)
communication patterns: conclusions 184,
190; differing science controversies 169,
170, 171; GMO controversies 117;
hydropower controversies in China
71–80; nuclear controversy in China
167; social media data 23–4
communication studies 185, 187, 191
comparing theoretical traditions 184–5,
185–7
Index 227

confidentiality 34
conspiracy theories: conclusions 190;
controversies in transitional China 52,
56; differing science controversies 170,
176, 179; GMO controversies 104,
116, 123, 131–3; nuclear power debate
143, 155, 163; research methods and
data 30–1
consultative authoritarianism 10–11
contemporary GMO controversies in
China 104–5
contemporary nuclear controversies in
China 139
Controversy Manual (Martin) 2
controversy visibility 28, 31–3, 63, 95,
107, 184
Cornell University 21, 34, 38, 47, 81
CPPCC (Chinese People’s Political
Consultative Conference): controversies
in transitional China 38, 50, 53, 57;
GMO controversies 104, 124;
hydropower controversies in China 68,
80–1, 84–6, 92, 98; nuclear power debate
153, 166, 167n1; science controversies
and political opportunities 14
Creswell, J. W. 19
CSD (China Science Daily)see China
Science Daily (CSD)
Cui Yongyuan 25, 57, 104–5, 113–14,
116, 122–4
Dayawan NPP (Nuclear Power Plant)
47–9, 154
Delborne, J. A. 186
Deng Xiaoping: GMO controversies 123,
129; hydropower controversies in
China 67; nuclear power debate 155;
science controversies in transitional
China 36–7, 47, 49
Design on Nature (Jasanoff)4
differing science controversies 168–83;
communication patterns 171;
examining knowledge control regimes
178–80; introduction 168–9; media
and science controversies 169–70;
pattern comparisons 180–3, 181–2;
sociopolitical roots of science
controversies 172–3, 173–5,
175–8
discourse strategies against knowledge
control 165–6
disintegrated knowledge-making 93–9,
95, 97–8
Downs, A. 177
earthquakes 44–5, 69–70, 71, 91, 97, 178
East Asia 2, 7, 55, 66, 137
EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment)
Law: conceptualizing hydropower
debates in the STS landscape 87–9, 91,
94, 96; contemporary hydropower
controversies in China 70; media
reporting of hydropower controversies
71, 78; social movements and
hydropower controversies 68, 85, 87;
transitional China 40–1
ENGOs (Environmental Non-Govern-
mental Organizations): differing
science controversies 168–9, 172–4,
175–6, 178; GMO controversies 105,
107; hydropower controversies in
China 66, 68, 70–1, 78, 80, 82–92,
96–7; nuclear power debate 154–6;
research methods and data 34;
science controversies and political
opportunities 1, 10–11, 12–13, 13–14,
18; science controversies in transitional
China 36, 39, 41–6, 58, 60
environmental activism see also
anti-GMO activism; anti-hydropower
movements; anti-nuclear activism:
controversies in transitional China 42,
45, 60; ethical issues 34; hydropower
controversies in China 78, 84, 99;
nuclear power debate 154
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
Law see EIA (Environmental Impact
Assessment) Law
environmental journalism 39–40,76–7,
83, 107, 147, 169, 171
environmental knowledge production
94, 96
Environmental Non-Governmental
Organizations (ENGOs) see ENGOs
(Environmental Non-Governmental
Organizations)
epistemic issues see also civic
epistemology: conclusions 188–9,
190; GMO controversies 101, 117;
hydropower controversies in China
93, 99, 100; nuclear power debate
161–2; science controversies and
political opportunities 2, 4–6, 9;
transitional China 39, 63
Epstein, S. 4, 9
ethics: data analysis 29–31,33–4;
epistemic roots of S&T controversies
4; GMO controversies 57, 102–3, 107,
108, 113, 116
228 Index

ethics and Pandora frame 30–1, 107
experts fueling hydropower controversies
84–7, 85–6
FA (Fragmented Authoritarianism)
framework: differing science
controversies 180, 182; GMO
controversies 117, 124–6; hydropower
controversies in China 68–9, 80, 82–4,
87, 100; nuclear power debate 155–8,
167; and political opportunity
structure 173–5; research methods and
data 19; science controversies and
political opportunities 10–11, 17
Fan Xiao 44–5, 70, 91, 173
fish: controversies in transitional
China 42–4, 46; differing science
controversies 178; hydropower
controversies in China 70, 84, 89–91,
94, 96, 97–8
food safety: comparing theoretical
traditions 186–7; conclusions 190;
differing science controversies 169–70,
174–7, 179–80; GMO controversies
106–7, 116–17, 120–3, 126–8, 130–4;
mass media data analysis 30–1;
nuclear power debate 138, 151, 159;
science controversies and political
opportunities 9, 12, 14; transitional
China 63–4
Foucault, M. 5
Four Seniors 50–1, 139, 156–8, 163
framing analysis see also public
accountability frames: conclusions
188, 190; differing science
controversies 169, 174–5, 175–8;
GMO controversies 14, 102, 126–8;
government documents 33;
hydropower controversies in China 92,
99; mass media data 28–9, 31; nuclear
power debate 135–6, 155–6, 164, 167;
research methods and data 19; state
power 8–10
framing and mobilization 126–8, 175–6,
176–7, 177–8
France 47, 66, 136
Fukushima accident: differing science
controversies 169, 177, 181; nuclear
power debate 138–9, 140–1, 143–5,
147–51, 153–5, 161–2, 163–6; science
controversies and political
opportunities 14–15; transitional
China 49–51
future studies 189–90
Germany 4, 55, 103, 136, 163
GM (Genetically Modified) crops:
contemporary hydropower
controversies in China 105; differing
science controversies 176–7, 180,
182; GMO controversies as a
political movement 124, 126–7;
knowledge-control regimes 130; media
landscape of GMO controversies
in China 107–8; roots of GMO
contentions 101; science controversies
and political opportunities 13–14, 18;
theoretical traditions 184, 187;
transitional China 54–5, 57
GMO controversies 101–34 see also
GM (Genetically Modified) crops;
conclusions 133–4; contemporary
hydropower controversies in China
104–5; controversies in transitional
China 54–8; differing science
controversies 169–70, 180–1;
introduction 101–2, 102–3, 103–4;
knowledge control and contention
128–31, 131–3; media landscape
105–10, 110–17; nuclear power debate
139; and political opportunities 1–2,