Geoengineering the Sublime: China and the Aesthetic State

Abstract

Geoengineering for aesthetic and utilitarian
ends, this essay argues, is part and parcel of the
banal operation of state power in contemporary
China. In contrast with Kantian articulations of
the sublime, turn-of-the-century thinkers like
Zhang Jingsheng and contemporary Chinese
politicians and scientists espouse an ecological
sublime undergirded by mechanistic and utilitarian
logics expressed through techniques of altering
earth systems. Intervening in earth systems to
produce an experience of the ecological sublime,
therefore, operates as an aesthetic modality of
power—one that positions the Chinese State as the
mechanistic producer of beauty and utility in nature.

Full text

PROMETHEUS IN CHINA
Techno-Optimism and Its Discontents
VOLUME 7, ISSUE 2, JUL–DEC 2022

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VOLUME 7, ISSUE #2
JUL–DEC 2022
CHIEF EDITORS
Ivan FRANCESCHINI, Nicholas LOUBERE
GUEST EDITOR
Andrea Enrico PIA
EDITORIAL BOARD
Darren BYLER, Yige DONG, Kevin LIN,
HollySNAPE, Christian SORACE, Shui-yin
Sharon YAM, Hong ZHANG
ISSUE CONTRIBUTORS
Marine BROSSARD, Corey BYRNES, Jenny
CHAN, Howard CHIANG, Christopher
CONNERY, Giulia DAL MASO, Brian DeMARE,
Ting GUO, Stevan HARRELL, Brian HIOE,
Xinmin LIU, Matthew LOWENSTEIN,
Ghassan MOAZZIN, Sadia RAHMAN,
Jesse RODENBIKER, Sigrid SCHMALZER,
Seiji SHIRANE, Richard SMITH, Dorothy
J. SOLINGER, Peter THILLY, Jeffrey
WASSERSTROM, Michael WEBBER, Emily
T. YEH, Margherita ZANASI, Jerry ZEE,
CharlieYi ZHANG
COPY-EDITING
Jan BORRIE
EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS
Diego GULLOTTA, Lili LIN, Arthur KAUFMAN
ART DIRECTION
Tommaso FACCHIN
COVER ARTWORK
Daniele CASTELLANO
TABLE OF CONTENTS
EDITORIAL P. 7
BRIEFS P. 11
OP-EDS P. 17
WULUMUQI ROAD P. 18
Christopher CONNERY
BIOPOLITICAL BINARIES (ORHOW NOT TO
READ THE CHINESE PROTESTS) P. 32
Christian SORACE, Nicholas LOUBERE
THE GREAT ENTRENCHMENT: AN
UNOFFICIAL SYNOPSIS OF ‘TWENTIETH
PARTY CONGRESS SPIRIT’ P. 40
Holly SNAPE
LYING FLAT: PROFILING THE TANGPING
ATTITUDE P. 50
Marine BROSSARD
PRAISING A DEAD DICTATOR: HOW US
OFFICIALS’ VISITS TO TAIWAN WADE INTO
COMPLEX HISTORICAL DEBATES P. 64
Brian HIOE
CHINA COLUMNS P. 73
CHINA’S SOFT POWER, COUNTER-
LOCALISATION, AND THE ROLE OF
STATELESS UYGHURS IN TURKEY P. 74
Sadia RAHMAN, Darren BYLER
COSMOPOLITAN (DIS)ILLUSION: MIGRATION,
STATE POLICIES, AND THE MIRAGE OF THE
SHANGHAI EXCEPTION P. 80
TingGUO
FOCUS P. 87
WHY CHINA CANNOT DECARBONISE P. 88
Richard SMITH

SKY RIVER: PROMETHEAN DREAMS OF
OPTIMISING THE ATMOSPHERE P. 96
Emily T. YEH
RISE INTO DUST: GOVERNING LAND AND
WEATHER SYSTEMS IN CONTEMPORARY
CHINA P. 102
Jerry ZEE
PROMETHEUS BRINGS WATER:
DEVELOPMENT AND FIX-FIXING
INCHINA P. 108
Stevan HARRELL
MANIPULATING WATER IN CHINA P. 116
Michael WEBBER
PROMETHEUS AND THE FISHPOND: A
HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF AGRICULTURAL
SYSTEMS AND ECO-POLITICAL POWER IN
THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA P. 124
Sigrid SCHMALZER
SITUATING THE ‘SCIENCE’ CRAZE IN CHINA:
THE STILLBIRTH OF SIMULATED ‘VILLAS’ IN
ORDOS 100 P. 132
Xinmin LIU
GEOENGINEERING THE SUBLIME: CHINA
AND THE AESTHETIC STATE P. 138
Jesse RODENBIKER
THE PROMETHEAN ANT FOREST:
ALIBABA’S APP AS AFINANCIALISING
ENVIRONMENTAL TOOL P. 144
Giulia DAL MASO
SPECULATIVE LANDSCAPES, PROMETHEAN
MIRAGES, AND ECO-POIESIS P. 150
Corey BYRNES
CONVERSATIONS P. 161
THE OPIUM BUSINESS: ACONVERSATION
WITH PETERTHILLY P. 162
Margherita ZANASI, Peter THILLY
IMPERIAL GATEWAY: ACONVERSATION
WITH SEIJISHIRANE P. 170
Jeffrey WASSERSTROM, Seiji SHIRANE
FOREIGN BANKS AND GLOBAL FINANCE IN
MODERN CHINA: ACONVERSATION WITH
GHASSANMOAZZIN P. 175
Matthew LOWENSTEIN, Ghassan MOAZZIN
TIGER, TYRANT, BANDIT,
BUSINESSMAN: ACONVERSATION WITH
BRIANDeMARE P. 179
IvanFRANCESCHINI, BrianDeMARE
POVERTY AND PACIFICATION:
ACONVERSATION WITH
DOROTHYJ.SOLINGER P. 183
Jenny CHAN, Dorothy J. SOLINGER
DREADFUL DESIRES: ACONVERSATION
WITH CHARLIEYIZHANG P. 191
Shui-yin Sharon YAM, Charlie Yi ZHANG
TRANSTOPIA IN THE SINOPHONE
PACIFIC: ACONVERSATION WITH
HOWARDCHIANG P. 201
Shui-yin Sharon YAM, Howard CHIANG
CONTRIBUTORS P. 206
BIBLIOGRAPHY P. 211

I
f you walked through one of China’s megaci-
ties in the past few decades, the sky was most
likely grey. Air pollution reached record highs;
haze was omnipresent. The skies over major cities,
including Beijing, exemplified this banal aesthetic
feature of urban life. Living with pollution became
commonplace—in part because of China’s role as a
global manufacturing centre. For decades, China
has been a factory for the world. Processes of
industrial production in China are inextricably
interlinked with embodied emissions, consump-
tion, and profits of the Global North, particularly
in places like the United States and Western
Europe (Bergmann 2013). These global relation-
ships of production and consumption contribute
MADE IN CHINA / 2, 2022
PROMETHEUS IN CHINA
138
Blue sky in Beijing, 2016. PC: Kentaro
Iemoto (CC), Flickr.com
Geoengineering
the Sublime
China and the Aesthetic
State
Jesse RODENBIKER
Geoengineering for aesthetic and utilitarian
ends, this essay argues, is part and parcel of the
banal operation of state power in contemporary
China. In contrast with Kantian articulations of
the sublime, turn-of-the-century thinkers like
Zhang Jingsheng and contemporary Chinese
politicians and scientists espouse an ecological
sublime undergirded by mechanistic and utilitarian
logics expressed through techniques of altering
earth systems. Intervening in earth systems to
produce an experience of the ecological sublime,
therefore, operates as an aesthetic modality of
power—one that positions the Chinese State as the
mechanistic producer of beauty and utility in nature.

technoscientific intervention and social control are
put in motion—with more or less effect. When the
Chinese Government desires precipitation, scien-
tists and environmental engineers seed clouds (云
种散播) with silver iodide (see Yeh’s essay in the
current issue). Local officials demand the closure
of factories. Environmental engineers control air
quality in close contact with local authorities. The
Beijing Weather Control Office, for instance, is
tasked with controlling not only Beijing’s sky, but
also the air over Hebei Province and the Inner
Mongolia Autonomous Region. Nearly 40,000
scientists and bureaucrats work in this govern-
ment office dedicated to the dream of geoengi-
neering the sky.
Geoengineering entails deliberate, large-scale
intervention in earth systems—often the introduc-
tion of a chemical element or technical device—to
alter environmental conditions toward specific
ends. I consider state efforts to beautify the natural
world through geoengineering interventions in
earth systems as geo-aesthetic engineering.
Examples of geo-aesthetic engineering in
China abound. The 2008 and 2022 Olympic
Games, as well as the 2014 Asia-Pacific Economic
significantly to China’s grey skies. In addition,
coal has been the predominant source of energy in
China’s cities, further darkening the dusky dome
above.
Concerns about the effects of air pollution on
human health crystalised in Chai Jing’s person-
ally narrated 2015 documentary, Under the Dome.
After its release, the film made waves, garnering
hundreds of millions of views and rallying a public
outcry for greater official efforts to mitigate pollu-
tion (Chai 2015). It was quickly censored. Grey
skies and the adverse effects of pollution on human
bodies, it turns out, are not only of concern to
Chinese society, but also highly sensitive matters
to the Chinese authorities. The documentary
contributed to increasing the visibility of rampant
pollution and the harmful effects of state-directed
development on the natural world and everyday
life.
In contemporary China, the politics of visibility
are paramount. As such, the aesthetic forms of the
sky—its colour and material consistency—have
become matters of official government interven-
tion. State weather-control systems routinely seek
to transform the material nature of skies across
China’s territory. When the Chinese authorities
decide to turn the sky from grey to blue, bureau-
cratic levers are pulled and the clanking gears of
Foggy sky in Beijing, 2013. PC: @green_kermit (CC),
Flickr.com
MADE IN CHINA / 2, 2022 139
PROMETHEUS IN CHINA

Cooperation (APEC) and 2016 G20 summits, are
examples of international events that brought the
levers of geo-aesthetic engineering into action to
beautify the sky. These events, when the eyes of the
world were looking at China, were accompanied by
comprehensive campaign-style government inter-
vention that halted construction, manufacturing,
industrial production, and motor vehicle traffic,
while scientific efforts to alter earth systems
turned towards the aerial (Shen and Ahlers 2019).
Blue skies are fabricated through scientific tech-
niques and the everyday exercise of state power.
Sky aestheticisation, brought about through the
marriage of science and state power, visually proj-
ects the politics of a ‘Beautiful China’ (美丽中国)—
President Xi Jinping’s commonly used ideological
phrase to describe the project of national landscape
aestheticisation.
China’s Ecological Sublime
While most visible during high-profile events,
geo-aesthetic engineering is part and parcel of
the banal operation of state power in contempo-
rary China. The tandem mobilisation of scientific
techniques and government intervention over the
economy, society, and beauty is the hallmark of the
Chinese authorities’ Promethean ideology. Socio-
political theorist John Dryzek (2005: 67) describes
Prometheanism as the ‘belief that humans left
to their own devices will automatically generate
solutions to problems—and that an invisible hand
guarantees good collective consequences’. The
fusing of science and state power is fundamental
to contemporary China’s ideological stance that
technology in service of government will overcome
environmental problems.
Problems like urban pollution—floating partic-
ulates blocking an otherwise blue sky—are consid-
ered problems addressable through techniques
of state-led scientific intervention. Geo-aesthetic
engineering bolsters the position that technological
solutions backed by strong government interven-
tion can remedy human-induced environmental
problems and produce beauty. Aestheticising
the sky is but one example among a panoply of
commonplace bureaucratic processes aimed at
beautifying China’s landscapes.
Since Xi took office, the ideology of constructing
a Beautiful China has become a central pillar of
the country’s political platform and state ideology.
The Eighteenth National Congress of the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) in 2012 articulated the
project of constructing a Beautiful China along-
side the construction of an ‘Ecological Civilisation’
(生态文明建设). The forum describes the Beautiful
China project as enhancing the beauty of the envi-
ronment, society, and everyday people. Since Beau-
tiful China became a key part of CCP ideology, the
number of scientific papers and studies employing
the concept has increased significantly. New eval-
uation systems, scientific methods of aesthetic
measurement, and forms of spatial planning have
been proposed by China’s scientists (Fang et al.
2020; Chen et al. 2020).
This coalescence of state aesthetic ideology and
scientific techniques and practices, while formi-
dable, is not unprecedented. In fact, while the
current campaign is new, the notion of building a
Beautiful China did not originate with the changing
of the guard from Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping. In the
transition from the Qing Dynasty (1636–1911) to the
Republican era (1912–49), many schools of thought
emerged with their own prescriptions for forging
the ‘new’ China. Among the ideas advanced was
that of the ‘aesthetic state’—a state with the express
purpose of fostering beauty in society and across
the national landscape. One of the key progenitors
of this vision was Zhang Jingsheng (1888–1970), a
Chinese intellectual and aesthetician.
After studying in France at the University of
Lyon, Zhang returned to China to take a teaching
post at Peking University. In the early 1920s, he
delivered a series of lectures on the notion of the
aesthetic state, which he termed a ‘government
of beauty’ (美的政府). Melding Confucian Classi-
cism with German Romanticist philosophy, Zhang
described an aesthetic state as a government that
teaches how to appreciate beauty to guide society
toward ultimate happiness and personal attain-
ment (Zhang 1998; Lee 2006). The role of the
government, in Zhang’s theoretical formulation, is
MADE IN CHINA / 2, 2022
PROMETHEUS IN CHINA
140

to foster a commonsense appreciation of beauty in
the world by shaping society and nature through
‘science’—whether it be the science of life cycles,
commerce, sex, or everyday life.
Zhang even went as far as to detail numerous
aesthetic duties to be undertaken by specific
government offices. He imagined an entire bureau-
cratic system organised around the aestheticisation
of society and national space. Indeed, science, state
power, and aesthetics are interwoven in Zhang’s
articulation of the aesthetic state—much like in
the contemporary discourses of constructing a
Beautiful China and an Ecological Civilisation.
It is useful, at this point, to differentiate ecolog-
ical articulations of the sublime in China from
the sublime as conceived in Western contexts. In
Western countries—particularly in Europe—the
sublime is often associated with the philosophy
of Immanuel Kant, which connotes qualities of
greatness in an object via modalities of the noble,
the moral, or the splendid (Kant 2003). ‘Part of
the sublime experience for Kant’, literary scholar
Christopher Hitt describes, is the ‘realization that
we mortal creatures … are entirely dependent on
forces greater than we are’ (1999: 607). In this
context, the predominant forces to which humanity
is subject are often construed in relation to the
divine or abstract external forms of ‘nature’.
In Chinese articulations of the sublime, however,
whether at the turn of the twentieth century
or in the present, the state is paramount. The
state inhabits a key role in engineering society
and nature, thereby shaping the sublime experi-
ence in relation to government-sanctioned utility.
Moreover, in contrast with Kantian articulations
of the sublime, turn-of-the-century thinkers like
Zhang Jingsheng and contemporary Chinese poli-
ticians and scientists espouse an ecological sublime
undergirded by mechanistic and utilitarian logics.
According to these logics, if the appropriate appli-
cation of science and technical intervention is
applied and backed by a strong state apparatus,
a desired outcome will result in a predictable,
mechanical fashion. For instance, the state can
turn the sky blue. Or it can literally make it rain.
The geoengineered results elicit awe in the capacity
of the government to transform the natural world,
thereby advancing socio-environmental gover-
nance. Intervening in earth systems to produce
an experience of the ecological sublime, therefore,
operates as an aesthetic modality of power—one
that positions the Chinese State as the mechanistic
producer of beauty and utility in nature.
Intervening in Earth Systems
A resurgence of the aesthetic state in China has
come at a time when societies the world over
are grappling with questions of how to live in
the Anthropocene. How can states help prevent
our most dystopic projections of climate crises?
How can they intervene? Such questions underlie
China’s climate geoengineering programs.
China leads the world in financing, researching,
and developing geoengineering technolo-
gies. Geoengineering, it must be stressed, is not
about mitigating climate change or adapting to a
low-carbon energy future—elements common to
the green transition. Rather, geoengineering entails
counteracting socionatural processes through
deliberate interventions in earth systems.
While until recently on the fringes of science,
geoengineering has exploded into mainstream
global discourse over the past few decades. Scien-
tists the world over have proposed spraying chem-
icals into the stratosphere to deflect sunlight,
seeding clouds to induce rain, and dumping iron
sulphates into the ocean to spur ocean fertilisa-
tion. China’s Ministry of Science and Technology
has forwarded millions of dollars to fund national
geoengineering research programs. While the
efforts of this research largely centre on model-
ling the effects of geoengineering on sea levels,
polar ice, and human health, there are also several
ongoing government-orchestrated projects to alter
the climate through technoscientific interventions.
For instance, in 2018, China’s state-owned
Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation
launched the world’s largest weather-control
system across the Tibetan Plateau. Thousands of
machines strategically placed along the plateau
and ridge of the Himalaya release silver iodide
particles into the sky. These particles induce
weather manipulations across an aerial region of
MADE IN CHINA / 2, 2022 141
PROMETHEUS IN CHINA

more than 1 million square kilometres. The state
suggests that these weather-altering measures
will increase precipitation by as much as 10 billion
cubic metres per year, thereby contributing to
ameliorating drought in parched regions of China’s
west (Chen 2018; Watts 2020).
China, which is among the most water-poor
nations in the world, must quench the thirst of
the globe’s largest population. Moreover, as the
world’s largest consumer of water, China is a net
virtual water importer (Hou et al. 2018). ‘Virtual
water’ refers to water hidden in the goods and
services traded between places. But virtual water
imports are not enough. Seeding the sky to induce
rain is an intervention in earth systems that the
state supports to address chronic water shortages.
Another intervention, introduced in 2016, is the
Sky River (天河) Project—an initiative discussed
in detail by Emily Yeh in her contribution to the
present issue of the Made in China Journal. This
project aims to utilise existing geoengineering
infrastructure to redirect up to 5 billion cubic
metres of water vapour towards water-starved
regions of the Yellow River Basin (Zheng 2016).
Climate geoengineering is not only well under
way but also has become institutionalised within
Chinese state approaches to socio-environmental
governance. In addition to the interventions in
aerial systems discussed above, ecological expres-
sions of state power in terrestrial contexts are
widespread. Land zoning initiatives, such as
ecological redlining, have become national policy
and are routinely portrayed as central to building
an Ecological Civilisation and a Beautiful China.
Central government mandates to zone 20 per cent
of land for ecological protection have introduced
conservation planning techniques that extend the
territorial reach of municipal states over rural
hinterlands and transform the livelihoods of resi-
dents (Rodenbiker 2020). Ecological states—state
formations expressed and constituted in relation
to ecology—are now widespread across mainland
China (Rodenbiker forthcoming).
While the central government portrays a homo-
geneous environmental policy framework, various
local state and private actors compete to benefit
from environmental engineering projects. Across
China’s north and west, for instance, the state, in
cooperation with private corporations, has under-
taken extensive interventions to transform desert
landscapes. These include seeding the desert with
drought-resistant plants to help control the sand-
storms that plague Beijing (Zee 2022). Colloqui-
ally referred to as the ‘Great Green Wall’ (绿色
长城), the Three-North Shelter Forest Program
(三北防护) is a series of plant-based shelter strips
designed to control the sands of the Gobi Desert.
In the early 2010s, China’s artificial plant
coverage exceeded 500,000 square kilometres,
making it the largest human-engineered desert
forest landscape on Earth. Efforts to build the
Great Green Wall, however, have largely produced
monocrop landscapes across once diverse desert
ecologies. Yet, despite drastic transformation of
local ecologies, such projects find widespread
support within Chinese society—in part, because
of the strong ideological associations surrounding
campaigns to beautify China and build an Ecolog-
ical Civilisation (Schmitt 2018). Those who have
visited the Great Green Wall, such as acclaimed
photographer Ian Teh, have described the spec-
tacle of billions of trees planted in the desert as
impressive and awe-inspiring (Mallonee 2017).
Teh’s photographs depict landscapes that engender
a sublime experience of earth system interven-
tion. Such large-scale approaches to transforming
nature, however, are not limited to China’s main-
land; increasingly, they are finding traction globally.
Global Environmental
Futures
In 2021, China hosted part one of the Fifteenth
United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP
15), which was themed ‘Ecological Civilization:
Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth’.
The conference placed Ecological Civilisation front
and centre on an international arena. The targets
proposed in the current version of the COP 15
Post-2020 Biodiversity Framework are of global
consequence. At the time of writing, the framework
calls for 50 per cent of the Earth’s surface to be set
aside for spatial planning for functional land/sea
use and 30 per cent set aside for conservation.
Fifteenth United Nations Biodiversity Conference
(COP 15).
MADE IN CHINA / 2, 2022
PROMETHEUS IN CHINA
142

cooperation with private corporations, has under-
taken extensive interventions to transform desert
landscapes. These include seeding the desert with
drought-resistant plants to help control the sand-
storms that plague Beijing (Zee 2022). Colloqui-
ally referred to as the ‘Great Green Wall’ (绿色
长城), the Three-North Shelter Forest Program
(三北防护) is a series of plant-based shelter strips
designed to control the sands of the Gobi Desert.
In the early 2010s, China’s artificial plant
coverage exceeded 500,000 square kilometres,
making it the largest human-engineered desert
forest landscape on Earth. Efforts to build the
Great Green Wall, however, have largely produced
monocrop landscapes across once diverse desert
ecologies. Yet, despite drastic transformation of
local ecologies, such projects find widespread
support within Chinese society—in part, because
of the strong ideological associations surrounding
campaigns to beautify China and build an Ecolog-
ical Civilisation (Schmitt 2018). Those who have
visited the Great Green Wall, such as acclaimed
photographer Ian Teh, have described the spec-
tacle of billions of trees planted in the desert as
impressive and awe-inspiring (Mallonee 2017).
Teh’s photographs depict landscapes that engender
a sublime experience of earth system interven-
tion. Such large-scale approaches to transforming
nature, however, are not limited to China’s main-
land; increasingly, they are finding traction globally.
Global Environmental
Futures
In 2021, China hosted part one of the Fifteenth
United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP
15), which was themed ‘Ecological Civilization:
Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth’.
The conference placed Ecological Civilisation front
and centre on an international arena. The targets
proposed in the current version of the COP 15
Post-2020 Biodiversity Framework are of global
consequence. At the time of writing, the framework
calls for 50 per cent of the Earth’s surface to be set
aside for spatial planning for functional land/sea
use and 30 per cent set aside for conservation.
Fifteenth United Nations Biodiversity Conference
(COP 15).
Such large-scale technical interventions would
substantially affect not only global ecologies but
also people living in areas zoned for conservation.
How might global efforts to build ‘ecological civili-
sations’ transform ecologies and societies the world
over? What roles will ecology and aesthetics play?
Considering the ecological sublime in Western
contexts, Hitt writes:
In an age in which humankind imagines
that it can ensure its own survival through
technological means—that it will ultimately
win the war with nature—the sublime is more
relevant than ever before … In addition to
altering fundamentally our relationships with
the natural world, technology has assumed
an integral role in the ideology of the sublime.
(Hitt 1999: 618–19)
In recent years, the Chinese State has grafted
techniques of earth system intervention on to an
ecological sublime. But China is not alone. Laura
Martin (2022: 230), writing on the rise of ecological
engineering and offsite mitigation, observes that:
‘To many, it seems entirely possible to genetically
engineer coral and fund tree planting in Costa
Rica, but virtually impossible to reduce carbon
emissions in the United States.’
Techno-optimism is widespread indeed. Yet,
what is often overlooked is how the aesthetic
modes through which earth system interventions
are framed and understood reinforce the ideology
that science will stave off the worst of environ-
mental disaster and societal collapse. In an age
of digitally curated representations, the optics
of geo-aesthetic engineering shape how publics
perceive earth system interventions and the states
that orchestrate them. Ecological states, after all,
depend on it.■
MADE IN CHINA / 2, 2022 143
PROMETHEUS IN CHINA

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This text is taken from Made in China Journal: Volume 7, Issue 2, 2022, edited by Ivan
Franceschini, Nicholas Loubere and Andrea Enrico Pia, published 2022 by ANU Press,
The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
doi.org/10.22459/MIC.07.02.2022.15