Greening Dispossession: Environmental Governance and Sociospatial Transformation In Yixing, China

Full text

in Tony Samara, Shenjing He and Guo Chen, eds.
Locating
Right
to
the
City
in
the
Global
South, Routledge, 2012.
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Despite the fact that virtually all urban growth
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4 Greening dispossession
Environmental
governance
and
socio-
spatial
transformation
in
Yixing,
China
Jia-Ching Chen
[In] that picture that lacks
all
spatial coherence, is a precise region whose name
alone constitutes for the West a vast reservoir
of
utopias.
In
our dreamworld,
is
not China precisely this privileged site
of
space? In our traditional imagery, the
Chinese culture
is
the most meticulous, the most rigidly ordered, the one most
deaf to temporal events, most attached to the pure delineation
of
space;
we
think
of
it as a civilization
of
dikes and dams beneath the eternal face
of
the sky; we
see
it,
spread and frozen, over the entire surface
of
a continent surrounded
by
walls. (Foucault 1994: xix)
China
is
changing from the factory
of
the world
to
the clean-tech laboratory
of
the world.
It
has the unique ability to pit low-cost capital with large-scale experi-
ments to find models that work. China has designated and invested
in
pilot cities
for electric vehicles, smart grids, LED lighting, rural biomass and low-carbon
communities. They're able
to
quickly throw spaghetti
on
the wall to see what
clean-tech models stick, and then have the political will
to
scale them quickly
across the country. This allows China to create jobs and learn quickly.
(Peggy Liu, Chairperson
of
the Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy,
quoted
in
Friedman
201
0)
This chapter examines a master-planned eco-city centered on renewable energy
industries
in
the city
of
Yixing, Jiangsu Province, arguing that it illuminates the
quintessential strategy, ideology and social-environmental contradictions
of
what might be called China's "Green Leap Forward". By now, many readers
familiar with the problem
of
global climate change mitigation have heard a
series
of
facts. First, since 2007, China has been the leading national emitter
of
greenhouse gases. Second, China's economic growth
is
spurred by rapid expan-
sion in both production and consumption, and these lead to further increases
in
energy demand, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. Third,
China's cities are growing at an unprecedented rate: the nation's urban popula-
tion surpassed its rural counterpart
in
2011, and
is
projected to exceed I billion
by
2030. Many observers conclude that,
in
terms
of
addressing global climate
change, "everything
is
won or lost
in
China" (Lovins 2008).

p
82 .I.-C. Chen
This problematization
of
Chinese urbanization and development is
at
tended
by
a rapidly expanding field
of
transnational green development expertise, state
and corporate
act
ivi
ty.
In
creasingly, experts and boosters point to
Ch
in
a
's
com-
bined economic power and politi
ca
l system as the largest -and perhaps mo
st
important -venue for the development
of
"a
clean energy future" (Finamore
2011; friedman 2010). As in Foucault's description
of
Orientalist imaginaries,
this future "dreamworld" is predicated on what makes China wholly
other-
its
authoritarian-modernist state power and its faceless masses
of
laboring bodies.
This perception
is
bolstered
by
China's rapid ascendance as the world's leading
producer
of
solar photovoltaics and
wind
turbines, as we
ll
as internati.onally
prominent examples
of
"eco-city" and "eco-industry"
pl
anning and construc-
tion.• Overhyped initiatives serv
in
g as city mark
eti
ng and controversial failures
in
implementation notwithstanding, these efforts
of
"green development" are
beino backed by central government policies including new systems
of
stand-
ards~
piloting programs, l
eg
islation and the official development policies set
forth by the Eleventh and Twelfth Five-Year Plans (cover
in
g
2006-
10
and
2011-15, and commonly referred to as the
"ll-5"
and
"12-5"
Plans).
As
in
previous moments
of
Chinese state-led developmental nationalism, this
Green Leap Forward explicitly targets rural space and society as primary sites
of
transformation. Whereas land grabs have sparked massive rural protests
in
the
past few years and prompted the central government to enact regulations on
arable land preservation, green development projects are able to justify processes
of
rural dispossession as environmenta
ll
y rational and socia
ll
y progressive. Con-
lTastin
g earlier ru.
raJ
development pattems based on rural township and village
enterprises, rapid growth
in
green
in
dustries such as solar photovoltaics has been
planned top-down, with significant state support
in
technology and bus
in
ess
incubation
in
special economic zones (SEZs). These projects entail large-scale
land enclosure and displacement
of
agricultural villages, and thus a refiguring
of
tenure rights and livelihoods as land
is
designated as "urban" and enclosed under
direct state control.
In
order to examine how green development unfolds across national and local
scales
of
intervention, this chapter utilizes an empirical study
of
environmental
and urban planning processes, and ethnography
of
rural transfonnation and con-
testation in Yixing, where
an
SEZ
focused on solar photovoltaics has enclosed
106
sq.
km
of
rural land since 2006, displacing approximately 50,000 residents
from over 200 villages. J argue that as a result
of
this green
disposses.~ion,
vil-
lagers are socially and politically margina
li
zed, and previous pattems
of
urban-
ru
ral
in
equality are entrenched
in
new ,spaces
of
peri-urban segregation.
Furthem1ore, dispossessed villagers have their assets commod
ifi
ed and trans-
·ferred into urban development projects. I
find
thal these projects reveal a politics
of
aes
th
etics and expertise that con
st
ru
ct
lo
cal land as a national environmental
resource, while deeming rural people and livelihoods as environmentally irra-
tional. 1 argue that these dynamics reveal con
fli
cts between the different geo-
graphic scales
of
su
st
ainability
obje-Ctives
, and contradictions between the global
green economy and
lo
cal social and environmental outcomes. This chapter
' Greening dispossession- Yixing 83
analyzes these tensions and their implications for current understandings
of
sus-
tainable development.
After a brief overview
of
Yixing's green development history
in
the context
of
national policy mandates, 1 will focus
on
the planning and implementation
of
a master-planned eco-city project within the Yixing SEZ. This will be followed
by analysis
of
rural land conversion
and
dispossession under green development.
In conclusion, the chapter will explore how these phenomena open a field
of
pol-
itics that presents new opportunities for linking transnational struggles against
neoliberal environmentalization and the false solutions to social-environmental
problems presented by capitalist models
of
"low carbon development" and the
like.
Urban environmentalization in the Chinese countryside: the
Yixing case
in
national context
Contemporary Yixing grew from an ancient water town
on
the western shore
of
Lake Taihu (see Figures 4.1, 4.2). rts picturesque rural villages are still laced
by
small streams, ponds and irrigation canals that feed some
of
China's most pro-
ductive farmland. The urban core, now centered on a shopping and leisure devel-
opment district, fills an area between two lakes and
is
traversed
by
a grid
of
canals that are now used to move industrial freight and the raw materials feeding
the local construction boom. Yixing
is
a county-level city
in
the Wuxi prefecture
of
Jiangsu, consisting
of
an urban center
of
66 sq.
km
within a total administra-
tive area
of
over 2,000 sq.
km
(Figure 4.2).
Long before the founding
of
the Yixing Economic Development Zone ("the
Zone") and its eco-city project, Yixing's claim as
China's
"hometown
of
envi-
ronmental protection" was bolstered by its history
in
the field
of
wastewater and
air pollution control. A first wave
of
green development established manufactur-
ing industries
in
pollution control equipment
in
the early 1990s.
As
one
of
the
Figure 4.1 Location
of
J
iangsu
Province and
Yixing
City (source: the author)

84
.I.
-C.
Chen
Talhu
Lake
Figure 4.2 The Yixing city region,
Two
green development
z.ones
arc shown
in
grey:
YXEDZ;
and the YIPEST, the first national designated zone for environmen-
tal protection (source: the author).
most industrialized rural regions
of
China at the time (Brama!l 2007), the Taihu
basin had hit
its
local
environmental limits for the absorption
of
untreated pollut-
ants. Foreign-educated engineers
in
Yixing seized
upon
manufacturing equip-
ment for mitigating water pollution as
an
economic opportunity.
Local
officials
supported the efforts with township joint ventures, supplying
land
and political
capital.
As
a base industry, pollution control had a strong industrial clustering
effect, requiring the adaptation
of
machine, pipe, filter,
pump
and
other manu-
facturing industries. This
Jed
to the establishment
of
the Yixing Industrial
Park
for
Environmental Science and Technology (YIPEST) as a pillar
of
China's
Climate Protection
Program
under the
UN
Rio
Declaration
in
1992.
By
the time
China signed onto the Kyoto Protocol
in
1998,
Yixing generated
18
percent
of
the national total value added
in
the environmental industry (Zhang 2002). Based
on
the subsequent success
of
the
Zone
in
constructing a national base
for
solar
photovoltaics,
and
the "prominent enhancement"
of
"environmental carrying
capacity" and "people-oriented sustainable development" through
its
eco-city
planning, Yixing was designated a national sustainable development experimen-
tal community
in
2009
by
the
Ministry
of
Science and Technology (Xu 2009),
and
a national ecological city under
the
Ministry
of
Environmental Protection
(Yu
2009).
These processes are examples
of
China's ongoing environmentalization, a
term
environmental sociologist Fred
Butte)
defines
as,
"the concrete processes
by
which green concerns and environmental considerations are brought to bear
in
political and economic decisions
...
fand]
in
institutional practices" (1992).
Yixing's distinctive role
in
this history makes
it
an
excellent case for examining
Greenin?,
dispossession-
Yixing
85
the interaction
of
global markets, national industrial policy and
the
politics
of
local
implementation and transformation.
Central gove
mm
ent support for Yix
in
g's model
of
green development
is
fu
rth
er evident
in
the
reorientation
of
discourse
and
policy
on
national develop-
ment. The Eleventh and
TweHth
Five-Year Plans (cover
in
g 2006-15) designate
eco-industl'ial zones
and
ceo-cities
as
primary strategies for accelerating the
transformation
of
the prevailing
model
of
economic development, and
for
atta
in
-
ing
the
goal
of
an
"environmenta
ll
y, economically and socially harmonious
society" (NPC 2005,
201
1
).
The I 1- 5 Pl
an
set targets for energy intensity (the
amount
of
energy
used
per
unit
of
GDP) and renewable energy generat
ion.
The
12-5 Plan includes n
ew
benchmarks
for
reducing the carbon
int
ensity
of
GDP
and
introduces "low-carbon" (di tan)
and
"green development" (liise fazhan)
as
fundamental concepts in official development disco
ur
se (NPC 20
II).
Moreover1
the plans
in
troduced a
new
vocabulary
of
env
ironmental governance into China's
official development lexicon.
The core approach
to
development
and
environment revolves around
the
Sci-
entific Development Concept,
which
is
a "summation
of
the 'comprehensive,
coordinated, and sustainable development'" as the means
to
achieve a Harmoni-
ous Society (Fewsmith 2004:
1).
This central pillar
of
''Hu Jintao thought"
pur-
ports
to
address the main contradictions
in
China's development path at
the
current historical conjuncture through the implementation
of
the "five balances"
(wu ge tongchou) (Fang 2003). This overarching vision links "sustainable all-
around development"
to
the "comprehens
iv
e" and "people-centered" resolution
of
urban-rural, uneven regional, soc
io
economic,
enviTonmental
and
geopolitical
contradictions. This reorientat
ion
is
observable
in
the rise
of
new
characteriza-
tions
of
socialist construction, partic
ularl
y
in
the terms "harmony" and "harmo-
nious society" (hexie shehw) (Fan 2006), which
make
explicit reference
to
ameliorating the uneven social, econ
om
ic
and
env
ironmental outcomes
of
the
past decades
of
growth. A prominent aspect
of
this
new
ideology
of
development
is
the manner
in
which
it
explicitly targets rural China as a site
of
transformation.
From
its
roots as a peasant revolution through the Great Leap Forward, rural
society
has
continuously
been
a
key
site
of
socialist construction
in
China. It
is
with
the
advent
of
China's
urban
revolution that the rural has once again
emerged as a fundamental problem
of
development
and
social mobilization.
However,
in
the
conjuncture
of
late
socialism -characterized
by
the
entrench-
ment
of
the market economy and the retrenchment
of
socialist entitlements
-the
rural
question appears as
the
negative space
from
which China's urban success
bas risen. Rural society is
freq
uently characteri
zed
as
"backward" (luohou),
and
urban
C
hi
rta
as inherently "modem" (xiandai) (see Zhang 2006). For examp
le
,
the
influ
ential modernization theorist
He
Chuanqi draws heavily
upon
Walt
Ros-
tow's The Stages
ofEconomic
Growth
in
his
hierarchical conception
of
a
lin
ear
progression
of
Ch
in
ese development through stages
of
"primitive", "agrarian",
"industrial"
and
"knowledge"-based societies (He 2007a, 2005). 'nle process
of
modernization
is
v
ie
wed
as
inh
erently "progressive," and
rural
transformation -

86
J-C. Chen
including processes
of
rural dispossession
and
the
destruction
of
livelihoods and
tenure rights -
is
assumed to produce greater equity through increased economic
growth.
Yixing's master-planned
New
City, centered on environmental industries,
represents the quintessential strategy
of
contemporary green development and
modernization. The model exemplifies the 12-5 Plan
's
call
for for
the construc-
tion
of
"irmovation-oriented cities
...
to
enhance sustainable development"
as
the platfonn for regional development, with particular reference to the roll
of
J
iangsu
Province
(NPC
20 II).
By
effecting a simultaneous transformation
of
rural space, culture and economy, s
uch
a strategy promotes a "canal" approach
to bypassing intermediary rungs
of
development
to
attain ecological moderniza-
tion
(He
2007a, 2007b). According
to
the China Center
for
Modernization
Research at the Chinese Academy
of
Sciences, such strategies exemplify an inte-
grated approach to creating "ecological balance"
in
a positive-sum relationship
with
dev
el
opment
(He
2007b).
Thi
s pathway of"integrated ecological moderni-
zation" is theoretically comprised
of
coordinated advances
in
"green urbaniza-
tion"
and
"green industrialization" (He 2007b:
87,
215).
2
Master-planning ecological value in the Yixing economic
development zone
As
pursuit
of
environmentalization strategies become
ex
plicitly linked
to
urbani
-
zat
ion
, the discursive and technical practices
of
planning
and
de
sign
attempt
s
imultan
eo
usly
to
address the various aspects
of
greening society. In
it
s
pur
suit
of
such urban-ecological greening
st
rate
gi
es,
Yixing
bas
deployed the disci-
plines
of
enviro
nmental
, industrial and economic development planning
for
th
e
design
and
construction
of
a master-
plann
ed eco-city project within the Zone,
with
the ambition
of
constructing a
"h
igh-t
ec
h, low-carbon model community"
(YXEDZ
Committee 20 I 0). Dubbed the "Scie
ntifi
c
Innov
ation
New
City" (ke
chuang x in cheng),
the
proj
ec
t occupies a
22s
q.
km
swath
of
village
land
and
wetlands
in
the eastern district
of
the Zone (
Fi
g
ure
4.3).3 Though
formal
annexa-
tion
did not take place until2009, conceptual planning
began
in
2008. The initial
phase
of
the project occupies I
0.3
s
q.
km,
with
a planned 450,000 s
q.
m
of
newly
co
nstru
cted residential floor area accompanying 480,
000
sq. m
of
new
business
and
commercial space. By 2020, the
New
City will serve
as
Yixing's
urban
center,
with
a planned population
of
\
50
,
000.
New
urban
residents
will
occupy
housing distinctly separate
from
the relocat
ion
settlements provided
for
the
50,000 villagers
and
migrant workers displaced
by
the development.
Early
in
the conceptual
and
mast
er-planning process,
the
lead d
ir
ector
of
the
zone
was
dissatisfied
with
the work
of
the
local
Yixing
In
st
itute
of
Planning
(C
hen
201
0).
The Zone subsequently sought out collaboration
with
NI
TA
, a
Dutch
planning ·
finn
,
and
Shi
Kuang,
a
desi
gner
famou
s
fo
r
hi
s
ma
ster
plan
of
the China-Singapore Suzhou
Indu
strial Park
and
in
his role
as
chief architect
at
CC
DT
,
th
e
firm
behind the Beijing Olympics Water C
ub
e.
Havin
g described
th
e
origi
nal
pl
ans
as
"
very
ug
ly
", the
managem
ent
comm
itt
ee
of
the
Yixing Zone
Greening dispossession -Yixing 87
Figure
4.3
An
aerial view
rendering
of
the New
City
project as a "green tapestry",
emphasizing an aestheticizcd urban-ecological landscape (source: Scientific
New City Urban
Desi
gn 2008, Yixing Economic Development
Zone
Administration).
placed a
high
degree
of
importance
on
aesthetic markers that distinguished the
new
plan
from
the industrial districts that preceded the
Zone.
A "comprehensive
urban
layout" (zonghe chengshi buju),
with
a heavy emphasis on
urban
design
including greenbelts, landscaping,
an
incorporation
of
water landscape features
and consideration
of
views
became
as
important
as
the allocation
of
lots
for
industrial construction (Chen 20 I 0) (Figure 4.4). The early prioritization
of
what
was
explicitly conceived
of
as
urban-spatial over industrial development
dem-
onstrates
the
degree
to
which
urbanization
has
superseded industrialization
as
a
policy priority (see Hsing 2010).
This subsumption
of
industrialization into green urban modernization is a
matter
of
policy
in
Yixing. The head
of
th
e Zone's investment bureau told
me
,
People think our purpose
is
to
build
new
energy industries. ln
fact,
it
is
not.
New
energy
is
simply a rapidly rising sector at this time.
It
has
a good
future
potential, but we don't know for how long. The only
way
to ensure sustain-
able development
is
to
build a modem innovation city. (Chen 2010)

88
J.
-C.
Chen
As a mode
of
development, this "greening
of
urbanization" seeks
to
weld the
functions, culture and environment
of
the city to the internalized market and
material metabolisms
of
an eco-industrial economy.
That greening is embedded within this ideological conception
of
urbanization
is exhibited in statements by the management committee describing its master-
pian goals
to
develop the Zone by drawing upon the natural and historical herit-
age
of
Yixing-
to cultivate a place-specific urbanism and culture using " 'born
and growing from nature'
as
the planning ideal
...
to construct a green tapestry
with the mountains and waters, a beautiful and elegant new city" (YXEDZ Com-
mittee 2010). Dense with environmental imagery and allusions
to
national cul-
tural values and local heritage, statements like these construct a discursive
aggregate
of
nature and development. The statement conftates an idealized
nature "out there" with an aesthetic image. In the master-planning process, these
aesthetic representations became decisive, recasting the urban as a harmonious
balance with nature and in juxtaposition with the industriaL Jacques Ranciere
(2004) conceptualizes aesthetics
as
"the distribution
of
the sensible", meaning a
sort
of
common sense that shapes what can be perceived and understood as
correct in a social system
of
valuation and ethics. In the common sense
of
green
development, this nature was seamlessly woven into the eco-city project as a
new form
of
urbanism through
its
representation in plans and discourse. and its
mobilization in the planners' aesthetics
of
expertise.
In
his genealogy
of
planning,
Soderstr<5m
(1996) argues that the visual forms
of
representation central to expert practices
of
zoning and master-planning are
tools to abstract social space and construct the urban as an object
of
political
intervention. In the New City planning process, this abstraction began from
initial surveys
of
villages and their environmental conditions. In order to con-
struct their model
of
green urbanism, the planners shaped much
of
the concep-
tual process around environmentalized physical features observed dw·ing cursory
site visit
s.
From the designer
's
viewpoint, the site was interpreted according to
observations
of
physical "present conditions" (xiankuang)' (Figure 4.4). Space
was reified from social contexts and analyzed
as
single-factor elements: for
example,
as
a particular "land use" or type
of
surface. In representing areas
without existi
ng
construction as "open spaces" and "green spaces", the planners
constructed the countryside as a tabula rasa, belying the great extent
to
which
the land itself has been built out
of
the marshes over hundreds
of
years. Instead,
these wetlands are now referenced
as
"ecological resources" in need
of
protec-
tion, and as a nature discernible from human causes that can
yet
be integrated
with
th
e new sustainable development aspirations
of
eco-city construction. Plan-
ners claim that this "ecological framework" (shengtai goujia) has been incorpo-
rated into the eco-city design
in
order
to
maintain the overall envirorunental
integrity
of
the site (Figures 4
.6,
4.4): for example,
by
ser
vi
ng
as
a network
of
contiguous habitats (Figure 4.8). However,
in
the urban design, the k
ey
physical
features
of
this framework have been paradoxically transformed into a space
of
recreation and commercial activity (Figure 4.8). Within globally circulating con-
cepts
of
new urbanism, this type
of
urban greening is also broadly associated
Figure
4.4
The emphasis on comprehensive urban design, e.g. in this diagram
of"public
cultural services distribution", overlays the "cruciform ecological structure"
(shown
in
Pigure 4.6) with waterside greenwa
ys
linking business service
centers and shopping distrcits, and de-emphasizes the industrial location
(source: Scientific
New
City Urban Design 2008,
Yix.i
ng Econ
om
ic D
eve
lop-
men
t Zone Administration).

....
90 J.-C. Chen
-
Figure
4.5
The map
of
"land use present conditions" (left) diagrams rural uses as spa-
tially discrete fonns
of
land cover. Aquaculture is shown
in
dark grey, totally
distinct from "natural water systems", irrigation and navigable canals, which
are categorized together in white. The "surface water conditions analysis"
map and illustrations (right and bottom) emphasize an artificial categozy
of
"natural landscape conditions" and ignore actual hydrology. Water features to
be filled for construction land are shown in dark grey (source: Scientific Inno-
vation New City Control Plan 2008, Yixing Economic Development Zone
Administration).
with the concept
of
"quality
of
life," and ecological progress
is
increasingly
interpreted through physical, aesthetic signifiers such
as-
parks, clean public
space and newly constructed housing (see Hoffman 2011; Zhang 2006).
During the master-planning process, the "ecological value"
of
the entire site
was defined and assessed according
to
an environmentalized aesthetic that justi-
fied rural dispossession. Despite references to ecological service functions, the
planning agencies did not employ wildlife biologists, hydrologists, soil scientists
or
other ecologists. Instead, the designers analyzed the site by abstracting the
landscape into a series
of
aerially mapped layers, separated as surface water or
land use, and also describing "ecological service corridors" (Figures 4.5, 4.8).
With the purported goal
of
identifying
and
preserving ecological services
and
value, the analysis proceeded based largely
on
a purely visual interpretation
of
land cover that conflated observable surface features with discrete land uses, and
made a bright·line distinction between "natural landscape condition"
(ziranjin·
gguan xianzhuang) and "land use conditions" (tudi shiyong xianzhuang) (Figure
4.5). The resulting analysis placed primary "ecological service value" (shengtai
fuwujiazhi)
on
three bodies
of
water and connecting canals, and assessed the site
accordingly
in
a gridded spectrum
of
preservation values
and
suitability for con-
struction (Figure 4.7).
Greening dispossession- Yixing
91
Figure 4.6 "Regional ecological and spatial structure" diagram, emphasizing the area's
"crucifonn ecological framework" (source: Scientific New City Urban Design
2008, Yixing Economic Development Zone Administration).
Such practices
and
discourses
of
environmentalization work to separate eco-
logical functions from human activity. This has the consequence
of
obscuring
the ways in which rural people actually make their livelihoods,
and
the complex
social-environmental interactions between ostensibly distinct land uses.
Although the small lakes and ponds, fringed by orchards
and
riparian plants, do

92 J.
-C.
Chen
f<
'igure 4. 7 The
"eco
logical value appraisal map" categorizes ecological values
in
order
to determine preservation zones and suitability for construction.
"ll
igher"
values, shown in darker shades
of
grey,
emphasi<'.e
"natural" bodies
of
surface
water (source: Scientific Innovation New City Control Plan 2008, Yixing
Economic Development Zone Administration).
serve as habitat to birds and other animals, the wetlands now enclosed within the
Zone have been continuously manipulated and managed for centuries. The edges
of
water features have been transformed through aquaculture, and reclamation
for settlement and agriculture. Aquaculture stocks interact with fish and other
organisms
in
adjacent waterways and ponds, which are also stocked for subsist-
ence fishing. The fact
of
a long history
of
social-environmental interaction
undermines any conception
of
an
a priori natural environmental condition for
preservation or restoration, and foregrounds the political-economic and aes-
thetic-cultural choices behind the construction
of
the New City project. This
aesthetic construction
of
a dichotomy between human and ecological space
is
especially striking in a resultant hydrology plan, which highlights surface water
features that wi
ll
be
fi
lied
in
to provide construction land (Figure 4.5).
Greening dispossession -
Yi.xing
93
Figure 4.8 The "ecological spatial structure and conditions" diagram shows ecological
"cor
es", "connection axes" and "corridors" as functions centered
on
three
bodies
of
water. These appraisals were driven by design ideas rather than
actual biological and ecological study
of
the region (source: Scientific innova-
tion New City Control Plan 2008, Yixing Economic Development Zone
Administration).
This aesthetic produces ideological connections between the
social-
environmental transformations
of
urbanization, industrialization, dispossession
and village demolition. The resulting "green tapestry"
of
the Scientific Innova-
tion New City belies the paradox
of
mobilizing local cultural and environmen-
tal heritage as a motive justification for the project even as rural social space
is
being refigured in the name
of
the "new" and
"modem."
These discursive and
technical practices demonstrate how, as agricultural land is constructed as a
green development resource,
it
is
divorced from rural society, effectively
making rural people obstacles to the urban-ecological vision
of
sustainable
development.

.....
94
J.
-C.
Chen
Constructing national land resources, greening agricultural
land loss
The Yixing case demonstrates the trade-offs and conflicts between the different
constructed scales
of
green development. Underpinned by political-economic
agendas and techno-scientific expertise, participation in markets for renewable
energy and carbon reduction credits construct climate change as a global "trans-
boundary" issue. This conceptualization makes carbon emissions globally fungi-
ble as both market commodities and mitigation quanta. The Chinese national
development agenda constructs greening as a strategy for meeting goals
of
eco-
nomic growth while restructuring the industrial-environmental metabolism
of
production. In Yixing, central economic and environmental policy mandates
intersect with local state-led strategies for capital accumulation and expansion
of
territorial authority. Yixing's model
of
green development presents eco-cities
powered by environmental industries as
an
ideal form
of
intervention, linking
across scales with a comprehensive solution
of
rural transformation.
Within the common sense
of
green development, China's declining fannland
area
is
paradoxically a justification for rural dispossession. The Scientific Inno-
vation New City project enclosed over thirty-six villages previously inhabited by
an estimated 20,000 residents, each with 670-1,000 sq. m
of
farmland (Chen
2010).4 In order to convert rural land to other non-agricultural uses, local gov-
ernments must first transfer collectively owned village land to direct government
control as state-owned urban land.s Local authorities must also clear land use
cltanges through the Ministry
of
Land
and
Resources (MLR). In 2006, the central
government set a
1.8
billion mu (120 million hectares) "redtine" national
minimum thresltold for arable land protection. For the purposes
of
regulating
land supply, the Land Administration Law (1998) classifies all land as agricul-
tural land, construction land
or
unused land. Conversion
of
rural land must
conform to a series
of
requirements. including local land use master plans and
the local administration
of
the national land-supply regulations. To maintain a
zero net loss
of
agricultural land in the face
of
rapid urban and industrial devel·
opment, the MLR coordinates provincial-level quotas
of
land conversion and
massive "land reclamation" projects to add arable land to the national balance
sheets. These regulations are intended to protect agricultural land. which was
enclosed at
an
alanning rate during the 1990s and early 2000s for speculative
development by local authorities (Hsing 20 l 0; Lin 2009).
However, in projects
of
green development, industrial
and
rural transforma-
tions have intersected
to
justify further land conversion. This confluence can be
seen clearly
in
the urbanizing countryside, where the elimination
of
unregulated
township and village enterprises and the enclosure, consolidation
and
privatiza-
tion
of
agricultural land are furthered by
an
environmental rationality (Zhang
2003; Shi
and
Zhang 2006). Policies such as the National Climate Change
Program (NDRC 2007) and Ministry
of
Land and Resources statements
on
land
consolidation represent small-scale agriculture
and
small landholding as envi-
ronmentally irrational (MLR 2006). In what functions as a de facto quota trading
• Greening dispossession- Yixing 95
system for rural land as a national environmental "resource," local authorities
are able to create net gains in land area available for development by reducing
the footprint
of
various rural uses (such as residential construction), constructing
arable land on land reserves
and
through reclamation from hydrologic features
such as wetlands. This rationalization
of
land resources
is
underpinned by a
number
of
environmental justifications, including food security, ecological
buffers, habitat and overall efficiency.
This approach to constructing and managing rural land in aggregated metrics
of
national land resources explicitly places village land uses at odds with funda-
mental goals
of
urban ecological modernization. For example,
in
2006 the MLR
encouraged the consolidation and transfer
of
small land holdings to private own-
ership, to bener manage the net quantity
of
agricultural land nationally (MLR
2006). This policy
is
part
of
the general process
of
reform that enables the
"rationalization"
of
tenure within and around urban areas,
and
facilitates the pri-
vatization
of
agricultural land "in the service
of
economic development" (MLR
2006).
6 This anti-rural bias replicates the historical contradictions between rural
and urban fonns
of
development in China, and recasts them in terms
of
an envi-
ronmental rationality that equates rural urbanization with ecological soundness
(May 2008). Furthermore,
it
reflects a widespread assumption that "compact"
urban forms are inherently more ecologically sustainable than geographically
extensive settlements,
an
assumption predicated
on
a false representation
of
the
relationships between the city and its hinterlands (see Williams 1975; cf.
Neuman 2005).
As
a result
of
these policies, farmland
is
further marginalized
geographically, contributing to a reification
of
urban-rural relationships in a
hierarchy
of
green modernization.
In
order to justify the conversion
of
collectively held croplands, orchards and
horticultural land, woods, grasslands, waterways
and
village construction land,
planners must conform village enclosures to larger environmental management
goals and policies. In Yixing, the enclosure
of
rural land is further justified under
the policy
of"retuming
farmland to forest" (tuigeng huanlin). In one 2009 "grain
to green" project over 530 hectares
of
village agricultural land, the holdings
of
over 2,500 households were converted as part
of
a 1 ,333-hectare greenbelt
between the Zone and Lake Taihu (Liu 2010b).1 According to government statis-
tics, such "ecological withdrawal
of
agriculture" and afforestation projects,
including some for certified carbon credits, account for the majority
of
agricul-
turalland losses nationally (Tian 2007; UNFCCC 2012b). In the Yixing project,
the reallocation
of
land resources
and
populations
is
linked to policies
to
restruc-
ture agriculture as "pollution free, organic
...
modem ecological agriculture",
with goals to increase efficiency and genemte climate mitigation outcomes (Min
2008).
Under the 11-5
and
12-5 Plans, policies addressing urban-rural uneven
development have emerged under the banner
of
"constructing the new socialist
countryside" (iianshe shehuizhuyi xin nongcun}. New socialist countryside poli-
cies purportedly address the rural-urban income gap by modernizing agricultural
practices and improving infrastructure. These policies come in response to

96
J.
-C. Chen
steadily increasing social unrest among rl!ral residents and migrant workers, and
are in part responding
to
the critiques put forward by the Chinese New Left, par-
ticularly those associated with Wen Tiejun and the New Rural Reconstruction
Movement (Day 2008). In 2006, Yixing developed its current policy
of
urban-
rural integrated development under this general mandate to restructure
agricul~
ture as a means
of
social and economic development,
and
adopted slogans like
"without industry, no wealth; without agriculture, no stability" and "industry
nourishes agriculture, the city supports the countryside" (Liu 2010a).
In
practice, however, the modernization
ofYixing
agriculture and the support
of
rural areas have unfolded in differentiated spaces and without clearly benefit-
ing many rural residents.
In
the areas
of
the immediate periphery outside the
urban core, agricultural land has been eliminated with the justification that pro-
viding a new industrial base in the Zone will raise rural incomes while simulta-
neously improving communication
and
transportation infrastructure for farther
outlying areas, which are planned to
be
new sites
of
high-efficiency industrial
agriculture run by private enterprises. Such justifications are made highly visible,
in explicit terms
of
social-spatial transformation across pervasive public media
such as billboards and poster campaigns, and
in
official statements
of
project
aims and progress
in
television, Internet and print media. Following village evic-
tions billboards are erected over the demolition sites with images and slogans
promoting the comprehensively transformational projects. After the 2008
demo~
lition
of
Siqian village for the New City project, a billboard rose over the rubble
touting,
"new
talent, new industry, new city" on one side, and "Yixing Solar
Valley: construct a new energy industry base on the west banks
ofTaihu"
on
the
other.
l talked with Siqian residents before and after the demolition. Aside from
only vaguely understanding the Zone's expansion, villagers did not know what
specific projects
had
required their eviction. Regarding the billboard, 1 asked
about the message
of
transformation and the vitlagers' ongoing role
in
it. Wry
comments were made:
"Apart
from the words on the signs, this isn't
our
talent,
industry
or
city
....
We've only been taught what the slogans mean."
The
sense
of
exclusion grew from early on in the eviction notification process. Although
their fields were not being bulldozed and they were not receiving compensation
for the land itself, they were required to vacate the village before the fall harvest.
Evicted residents returned on bicycles, some from
an
hour away. They trod new
paths through the decorative landscaping flinging the mbble
of
their village to
tend crops and harvest vegetables for their families.
Hsing (20 I 0) describes this cascading effect
of
land development as evidence
of
urbanization becoming the "spatial fix" for Chinese capital accumulation.
In
its
imbrication with processes
of
green development,
it
is
clear that such patterns
of
uneven development also produce new contradictions specific to attempts to
govern rural land and its embedded social-environmental relations at a national
scale. Put another way,
China's
"urban revolution"
is
fundamentally a transfor-
mation
of
its social-environmental relations across all scales
of
governance and
differentiation. In this context, the ideology
of
green urbanization can be seen as
Greening dispossession -Yixing 97
clearly presenting challenges to equitable and
just
rights to the city and
countryside.
Social justice
and
the eco-city
Together, Yixing's various green development zones have required the enclo-
sure
of
over 300sq. km
of
rural
land-
over twice the area
of
Manhattan-
and
the forceful eviction
of
approximately 100,000 villagers. These enclosures,
wrought partly
in
the name
of
rural development, have resulted in greater social
inequality. The failures
of
such efforts at rural development are stark. One
National Statistics Bureau survey found that nearly
half
of
dispossessed villagers
are impoverished by eviction and relocation processes (Hsing 2010: 209,
n.
18).
As villagers are dispossessed
of
their land and livelihoods, transformations to
social-environmental relations, cultural values and the places people live present
new terrains
of
politics and social division.
The proliferation
of
the eco-city model
of
green development demonstrates a
dialectical reshaping
of
state-society relationships that can be understood in two
ways. First, as Butte! ( 1992) argues, environmentalization proceeds in relation-
ship to stmctural transitions. In the US case, the move to neoliberal social and
economic policies with the decline
of
Fordism shaped the politics and ethical
claims
of
scientized sustainable development discourse, which was ''cmcial
in
leading to the substitution
of
environmental
fot·
social justice discourse" (Buttel
1992:
16).
This analysis
is
consonant with China's current emphasis on scientific
sustainable development
in
the context
of
the gutting
of
rural collective property
rights and social welfare entitlements. In the context
of
this neoliberal environ-
mentalization,
tJte
restructuring
of
property extends beyond the establishment
of
leasehold
and
other private fonns
of
holding and rent seeking. Land resources
and enclosure itself are also greened
in
integrated schema linking carbon credit
afforestation projects to greenbelt tourism parks, and new ecological industries
and spaces to the embodiment
of
new talents and urban civilities. These prac-
tices demonstrate an emphasis on enviromnental rationalities that systematically
produce and address mral land and people as objects
and
subjects
of
governmen-
tal action (see Scott 1998).
rn
Yixing's eco-urbanization, relocation communities are spatially and
socially segregated from the rapidly expanding urban core and new city develop-
ments for which residents were displaced. As villages are divided for phased
demolition, village committees are dissolved and their authority
is
subsumed
under larger administrative village structures and
tJ1e
privately owned demolition
company. Social cohesion
is
lost as residents scatter to find rental housing and
transitional livelihoods. During this transitional period, villagers are not
techni~
cally classified as urban residents and must maintain their rural household status
until the separate compensation process for their land
is
worked out with local
authorities. Depending on the rate
of
investment, financing and construction, this
process may take years. The land enclosure boom and "development zone fever"
of
the 1990s left over 85 percent
of
seized land undeveloped (Ren 2003). With

98
J.
-C.
Chen
the loss
of
access to land and livelihood, villagers are forced into a new, more
proximate but more explicitly marginalized relationship with the city. In extreme
cases, dispossessed villagers are referred to as a new "underclass" with
"t
hree
nothings
''
-no land, no work and no social benefits.
A class
of"four
nothings" is also emerging as some villagers lo
se
permanent
housing. Because the compensation system requires dispossessed families to pay
for the difference between the
"ma
rket prices"
of
their demolished homes and
their relocation housing, many families
are
frequently impoverished in the
process. Poor families
are
frequently unable
to
pay the fees,
and
they lo
se
the
"compensation" for their demolished homes in the process, as the money is tied
to
a compuls
ory
mortgage system for the relocation housing. Some families are
left with no option other than
to
attempt
to
sell the property through a broker.
However, as
no
market exists for the resettlement housing apart from renting to
recently displaced fan1ilies, this is generally unsuccessful. Many families
are
forced to purchase a
home
further outside
of
the city. Others may move in with
relatives as circumstances allow.
Furthermore, because they are forced into temporary housing for one to two
years as they await the completion
of
relocation housing, all households must
spend their savings and small cash incomes on rent. In my survey
of
one village,
government subsidies covered an average
of
76 percent
of
rent, leaving nothing
for increased expenses
of
water, transportation and cooking fuel. Most villagers
also face the very fundamental issue
of
finding suitable and affordable transi-
tional housing that allows access to their fields or marginal land for subsistence
livelihoods. The compensation package projects an eighteen-month transition to
permanent housing and provides a monthly stipend
of
CNY500. However, since
the current package was first implemented in 2007, rents have increased in some
areas and many residents found that they could
not
house tbeir full extended
families for less than an average
of
CNY650. This shortfall meant that older-
generation family members
had
to take
up
some kind
of
wage labor, and fre-
quently also had to deplete their savings for rent and other new living expenses,
which total an average
of
around
CNYSOO
during summer months. These transi-
tions
to
an urban cash economy contribute directly
to
the impoverishment
of
many villagers.
The
vast majority
of
displaced villagers cannot find work in the n
ew
high-
tech industries in the region. Largely as a result
of
village demolition and dis-
placement, unemployment has increased by 9.3 percent
over
the past five-year
planning period (YXEDZ Committee 2010). For those who
no
longer have
access to their fields, increased food expenses can easily
eat
into savings as well.
Farmers impoverished by displacement seek small plots
of
land on the margins
of
developments and factories to help make up for their losses. However, there
is
not enough space. The question
of
tenure is precarious as evicted villagers some-
times lea
se
out land without any clear assurances from local officials about dem-
olition and constmction plans and schedules. The degree to which socioeconomic
outcomes are differentiated and uneven
is
startling. Key factors are previously
held assets and timing. Villagers who are better
off
in
terms
of
village property
Greening dispossession- Yixing 99
and cash income tend to fare better as they are more able to purchase relocation
housing.
In
some cases, well-off villagers are able to become relatively wealthy
as they sell or rent out extra units
of
relocation housing. A negations
of
corrup-
tion and disputes over uneven compensation are frequent.
In the political economy
of
displacement and land conversion for urbaniza-
tion, these changes amount to a transfer
of
previously uncommodified rural
assets into processes
of
development. Though the net amounts may
be
very
small, they are significant in important ways. The cash amount
of
the subsidy
shortfall
is
equal,
on
average, to
over
CNY2,700 (over eighteen months). This is
a significant amount for a rural household.
For
retirees
who
depend mainly on
subsistence farming, cash income may be as little as CNY60-IOO per month.
However, simply multiplying this amount across displaced households does not
give an appropriate picture
of
its net economic significance. In addition
to
dis-
counting (the future value
of
money, interest and inflation as well as opportunity
costs), this shortfall also produces a "multiplier effect" in the local economy by
increasing the supply
of
cheap and flexible labor. That said, this process is not
centered
on
proletarianization, as in classic analyses
of
primitive accumulation
(see Glassman 2006).
It
is
important to understand that this labor
is
both fully incorporated into the
local economy at the same time that it
is
irregular
in
character. Employers hire
workers from job to job, and do not cover payroll taxes and other fees. Wage rates
are reflective
of
the rural rather than the urban economy. The ability
of
the urban
and industrial development process
to
utilize such labor flows underwrites the cost
of
the overall transformation and externalizes these costs by placing
soc
ioeco-
nomic burdens on individual households. These dynamics outline a circuit
of
accumulation through the extra-economic means
of
state violence (Glassman
2006; cf. Harvey 2003a). The extent to which the environmental state relies upon
enclosure as a
"s
patial fix" to construct new territories for the production and
absorption
of
capital surpluses reflects the primacy
of
land and urbanization as a
source
of
revenue and state authority (Hsing
20
l 0). Here, I argue that these pat-
terns
of
dispossession for urban-spatial accumulation strategies cannot fully
explain the forms
of
"circulation"
of
rural land examined above. Rather, such
forms
of
accumulation (and sometimes their failure) demonstrate that local social-
spatial transformation takes place as a part
of
broader processes
of
transformation
mediated at national and global
sca
les.
In
the case
of
Yixing, rural land enclosure
has played a functionally multivalent and multiscalar role
in
producing local land
rents, meeting national renewable energy targets, balancing national land resource
quotas and serving the sustainable development objectives represented by Euro-
American markets for solar energy and certified emissions reductions.
Linking nail households, rural reconstruction and the right
to the city
The question
of
the right to the city emerges within the context
of
mral transfor-
mation and changing notions
of
what constitutes correct and "harmonious"

100
J.
-C.
Chen
social-environmental relations.
If
we take for granted that cities have historically
been founded for different locational advantages, grow through the slow
accu~
mulation
of
various types
of
surplus and subsequently birth new forms
of
social~
ity, then these examples
of
master-planned green developments circumvent the
processes
of
accretion and change for the amplification
of
a single agenda.
[n
the
case
of
green development, this
is
an
agenda that has broad international suppoti
and a mandate underscored
by
the politics
of
crisis (cf. Swyngedouw 2007). At
its largest horizons, green development
qua
ecologically sustainable develop-
ment purports to remake the environmental bases
of
production and, therefore,
of
accumulation. The usual sites
and
forms
of
creative
dest~ction
also trace
changing circuits
of
ecological capital, entrenching old inequalities in new sites
of
segregation. Village fields are plowed for solar farms and forests
of
carbon
credits. Given this context, one might better say that the struggle for the right
to
the city (and the countryside) re-emerges from the dialectical contradictions
of
such an attempt to totalize a new urban-ecological sociality.
The top-down nature
of
master-planned urban and economic growth threatens
massive disenfranchisement, producing class divides and socio-spatial segrega-
tion. Neoliberal environmentalization
of
land and social space continue the
radical asymmetry
of
state-society relationships
of
the past decade. This model
of
socioeconomic development refigures social entitlements as a focus
on
what I
refer as "internal developmentalism", as a form
of
disciplinary value
in
the pro-
duction
of
human capital (see Anagnost 1997; Greenhalgh and Winckler 2005).
With its emphasis on rural transformation, the urban-ecological approach to
green development modeled
in
Yixing maps a clear contradiction between the
purported goals
of
neoliberal environmentalization and the displacement
of
long-
sustained patterns
of
rural livelihood and environmental interaction.
Villagers in Yixing have primarily engaged in isolated and everyday fonns
of
resistance
to
these processes. Forms
of
resistance included "nail households"
(dingzi hu), whose active refusal
of
eviction processes have been successful in
some cases in winning concessions,
but
have also been met with violence.
Everyday forms
of
resistance include the illegal appropriation
of
small plots and
returns
to
enclosed fields for subsistence. Although levels
of
organized mobiliza-
tion have been low in Yixing, these forms
of
contestation reveal
an
expanding
domain
of
politics directly addressing social-environmental change
in
China. In
the context
of
transnational farmers' movements, this politics may potentially
provide ground for the intersection
of
international and national environmental
and social equity mobilization agendas. Especially as China's land grabs extend
beyond its own borders to locales
in
Southeast Asia, AtTica and Latin America,
these agendas will increasingly produce a political economy
of
dispossession for
food and energy resources.
As
local processes
of
dispossession are environmentalized at national and
global scales with the legitimating force
of
globalized sustainable development
science,
it
becomes increasingly necessary for local resistance to transcend local
and cellularized forms. Likewise, mobilization that targets the Chinese state at
various levels must move beyond the conception
of
rights constrained
by
Greening dispossession- Yixing
10
I
property entHiements and "proper" procedures
of
compensation and relocation.
Here, Chinese villagers have little
in
the way
of
hope to alter the logic
of
dispos-
session (see Hsing 2010:
201
-7), nor recourse to democratic fonns
of
planning
participation and review. This field
of
politics calls for urban-ruraJ solidarities
that identify the uneven sustainability outcomes
of
green development.
The grassroots construction
of
alternatives has historically shown to be fruit-
ful in China.
ln
particular, the politics
of
maintaining village livelihoods can take
lessons from struggles to reinvigorate rural identities
and
forms
of
organization
under the New Rural Reconstruction Movement. Wen Tiejun, the most influen-
tial advocate
of
the NRRM, radically shifted the policy debate
on
rural develop-
ment in the late 1990s. He reoriented the agrarian question from a focus on the
relations
of
production and political economy to the well being
of
farmers in the
context
of
rural society and agriculture (the "three agrarian problems",
san
nong
wenti). Policy debates could no longer
be
framed in terms
of
agricultural eco-
nomics, technological solutions
or
urbanization (Day 2008). Major points
of
contribution relevant to these contemporary struggles are the foregrounding
of
a
material analysis
of
the non-commodified nature
of
land as a "subsistence
resource" as opposed to a "production resource", and the requirement for equita-
ble distribution that
it
implies (ibid.). Furthennore, the reconstruction collective
forms
of
organization and property holding build solidarity and power to resist
land seizures.
As social and environmental activists seek to reshape cities as healthier and
more equitable places
in
th
e United States and elsewhere, we must recognize
how our efforts are implicated
in
neolibera\ environmentalization and false solu-
tions to climate change.
In
this case, the massive social-environmental costs
of
green development for the production renewable energy and carbon reduction
commodities cannot
be
ignored. If, as Harvey suggests (2003b, 2008), the city is
the historic place where
th
e world can be "re-imagined and re-made", then that
imagination must encompass an understanding
of
how neoliberal environmental-
ization is linking these new urban isms and reshaping
us
all in the process.
Notes
I The
most
famous
nmong
these
include
two
failed
projects: Dongtan ceo-city
and
Huangbaiyu ceo-vi
lla
ge.
Both
projects conti
nu
e
to
generate positive attention for their
celebrity designers, Peter I lead
and
William
McD
onough, respectively. For a recent
st
udy
of
H
uan
gba
iyu
,
see
May
(20
II)
.
2 Although the
work
of
li
e
Chunnq
i (2007b) follows
the
analysis
of
Western
theorists
in
describing ecological modernization
as
un
"
ine
xorable g
lobal
tide" (bu ke nizlman de
shijie chaoliu) and "
hi
storical necessity" (lishi biran),
hi
s policy prescriptions recall
contemporary
in
vocations
of
Mao
Zedong
t11ought
in
his
approach
to
the
"historicul
co
ntradi
ctions" and "opportunities·• that reveal a distinctive
pathway
for
Chinese
developmenL
3 The project name
play
s
on
the
usc
of
the
character
for
··new" (xin)
in
joining "creation
and innovation" (c/mangxin)
to
"
new
city" (xin cheng). The emphasis
on
newness
and
its
paradoxical contlation
with
environmental protection
will
be
elaborated
below.
4
Due
to
adminis
lmtivc
chan
ges
to
village-level jurisdictions
made
to facilitate different

I
02
J.
~C.
C
hen
phases
of
enclosure, demolition and relocation, the exact number
of
natural villages
(ziran
crm)
counted under the six administrative villages (xingzheng c
u11)
within the
New City project area varied between 2006 and 2010.
5 According to the PRC Constitution, all urban land is state owned
and
rural land is col-
lective
ly
owned.
6 Despite strong reactions against the illegal conversion
of
agricultural
and
"u
rban
village"
land
to
other purposes
by
state
and
capital
forc
es (Hsing
20
I
0).
the
MLR
ha
s
failed
to
maintain
it
s policy
of
"
no
net loss''
of
arable land (vs cttltivated land
),
not-
withstanding "land reclamation" and the transfer
of
topsoils
from
converted cultivated
la
nd
to
reclamation sites.
7
The
Lake Ecological Zone project, supported
by
Premier
Wen
Jiabao, will ring the lake
with 200
to
I ,000 meters
of
"recover
ed
" forests, grasslands, wetlands
and
lake with a
stated policy goal
of
constructing model ceo-tourism industry (Wuxi Bureau
of
Science
and
Technology 2009).
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Part
II
Governance and
cosmopolitanism
Escaping
the
South