reportage literature
III.2 The narrative: Woodcutter, wake up! – A tale of two mountains, and one problem
On May 6th 1987, a wildfire broke out in the forests of Daxing’anling 大 兴 安 岭
prefecture in Heilongjiang Province, Northeast China. After local emergency respond forces lost control over the situation, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had to be mobilized, but the fire raged on and was eventually defeated only one month later on June 2nd. By then, the blaze had consumed a vast area of over one
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million hectares of land, 70% of which had been forestry. 193 people had been killed, 263 injured, and over 50,000 people had lost their homes.61
An article in People’s Daily from June 6th, four days after the fire had effectively been
brought under control, reported that the State Council had addressed the matter in general assembly. Wan Li 万里, then first-ranking Vice Premier of the PRC, was quoted saying that the fire had “exposed the severe bureaucratism of several leading cadres in the Ministry for Forestry”, and hence had become a question of “improving the Party’s conduct”: Every state or party official had to serve the people wholeheartedly, “and must not abuse their power for own selfish gains once they held power and office.”62 In a subsequent “Decision of the Standing Committee of
the National People’s Congress concerning the Great Wildfire Incident of Daxing’anling” (Quanguo Renmin Daibiao Dahui changwu weiyuanhui guanyu Daxing’anling teda huozai shigu de jueding 全国人民代表大会常务委员会关于大兴安岭特大森 林火灾事故的决议) from June 23rd 1987, the central government reiterated its position:
The council holds the view that the occurrence for the fire catastrophe has to be attributed mainly to disorderly management practices, eroding discipline, violating of legal requirements, illegal business practices and severe bureaucratism by those in charge. The council approves of the decision to remove Yang Zhong, head of the Ministry of Forestry, from his post.
The council stresses that the protection of the valuable forest reserves, as well as the appreciation, protection and creation of forests is the honorable duty of all people and of the state institutions on all levels.。
Ministerial departments on all levels as well as all prefectures and districts concerned with forestry must seriously take this lesson to heart and in a practical manner improve their work and working style. They must strictly enforce the legal regulations of forest protection and fire prevention as stipulated in the "Forest Law of the People's Republic of
61 These numbers are based on an article in the People’s Daily from June 6th 1987, entitled: “State
Council Discusses Consequences of Daxing'anling Wildfires”; accessible online under:
http://dangshi.people.com.cn/GB/146570/198299/199543/199558/12464006.html (2010/12/20)
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China" and the "Fire Prevention Regulations of the People's Republic of China".
The Council of the opinion that this incident should serve as a profound lesson that all national ministries, all regional prefectures and all danweis should take to heart very seriously. [They] must firmly reject and redress the seriously irresponsible bureaucratism that makes them act as overlords and grand-seigneurs, as well as the evil working style that leads to dereliction of duty and break of regulations. They have to adopt every conceivable measure to avoid a similar incident in the future. 63
It is crucial in our context to fully appreciate the use of the term “bureaucratism” which is identified as the main culprit for the catastrophe: The Western understanding of the expression bureaucracy is largely neutral, and merely connotes a complex administrative structure. In contrast, the Chinese term for bureaucracy (guanliao 官僚) and the respectively derived “bureaucratism” (guanliao zhuyi 官僚主义) not only has a decisively pejorative meaning, but it is also a political term pointing to a specific set of institutional dysfunctions.64 The entry on “bureaucratism” in the 1979
edition of the official encyclopedia Cihai (“Ocean of Words”) almost verbatim echoes the language provided in the 1987 Decision: Bureaucratism is characterized by “separation from reality65 and from the masses” (tuoli shiji、tuoli qunzhong 脱离实际、
脱离群众), and “adopting a work and leadership style of acting like overlords and grand-seigneurs” (zuoguan dang laoye de lingdao zuofeng 做官当老爷的领导作风). “To be out of touch with the grassroots units and the masses, to not understand the real conditions on the ground, [...] to not face responsibility.” (bu shenru jiceng yu qunzhong, bu liaojie shiji qingkuang, [...] yushi bu fu zeren 不深入基层和群众, 不了解实际情况,[...] 遇事不 负 责 任.) Thus, the main problem with bureaucratism is that it prevents the information input from outside necessary for effective governance, due to the increasing self-encapsulation of administrative organs.66 As this chapter will show,
63 The Chinese text of the document is accessible at the website of the National People’s Congress
under: http://www.npc.gov.cn/wxzl/wxzl/2000-12/26/content_1950.htm [2011/09/14]
64 See: Burns 1983.
65 The term shiji 实际 in Chinese can mean both reality and practice, and is a political term. A more
accurate translation would be “correct practice based on a true perception of reality”.
66 66 Unlike their Western counterparts, Chinese government institutions are not referred to as
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the dysfunction in China’s governmental framework is a key factor in understanding the framing of Xu Gang’s Woodcutter:
The narrative of Woodcutter, Wake Up! (FMXL) is constructed in form of a travel account that retells the experiences of the author, Xu Gang, during his journeys to various locations in China in between September and October 1987. The wildfire at Daxing’anling having occurred only month before, Xu Gang sets out to investigate the condition at several of China’s famous forest regions.
His first trip takes Xu Gang to Wuyishan 武夷山, a mountainous region in Fujian province. The author’s intent is to acquire a first-hand impression of the environmental situation on the ground after having followed the Daxing’anling news coverage with increasing frustration. Wuyishan is famous in China for representing an aesthetic ideal often emulated in Chinese traditional landscape painting (shanshui hua 山水画): Green trees cling to bizarre rock formations, and with the passing of the centuries the mountain slopes have become covered with a net of tangled roots which protect it from erosion through wind and water. But, as Xu Gang informs the reader, “the discrepancy between the imagined and the real [Wuyishan] is too great” (FMXL: 4): The forests have almost completely fallen prey to extensive logging: King’s Peak (dawang feng 大王峰), the crown of the mountain range which used to boast “old trees that reach up to heaven” (gumu can tian 古木参天; FMXL: 6) and impenetrable brush that provided a haven for bird life, has been nearly stripped of any forest cover:
“Until 1974, all but 300 trees had been cut down, which might be a small number, but it was still enough to somewhat cover King’s Peak and not make it seem too naked. But now, at this late hour, the axes have cut away another 298 of them, and all that remains are but two trees.”
[…] In 1984, farmers from to Ji’an county (belonging to Wuyishan) kept felling and felling trees until Jade Maiden’s Peak (Yunü feng) – yes, that very same Jade Maiden’s Peak that appears on the television screens every evening as the symbol of Fujian province – until even this maiden’s skirt had been pulled down! […] I would kindly like to warn the reader: If
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this continues for any longer, will not the whole of Wuyi Mountains then become ‘the mountains without clothes’?”67 (FMXL: 6)
What are the reasons for this calamity? On the one hand, the local villagers themselves are to blame. Once trapped in bitter poverty, Deng Xiaoping’s “To be rich is glorious!” resonates; the Zeitgeist of the economic reform era has unleashed the local population’s entrepreneurial spirit. The fastest and most convenient way the villagers know to make money is just to cut a tree and sell the timber. “Want to make a buck? – Cut trees!” (yao fu? kan shu! 要富? 砍树!). The reason why this behavior goes unchecked is not a lack of rules, since a legislative framework actually exists on the national level in form of the “Forestry Law” (senlin fa 森林法). Rather, the problem is that the law is not enforced by the local cadres in charge: “The people living in the mountains have all but one rule: ‘Heaven is high, and the Emperor is far.” (FMXL: 8)
The second problem is the corrupt and immoral behavior of the local cadres themselves whose duty it would be to carry out the central government’s orders: “They [the villagers] only fear the cadres actually in charge on the village and on the county level; the real power is in the hands of these lower officials, who will always grant protection to the people of their own native villages. What good is a law in this situation?” (FMXL: 8) But the cadres not only do nothing to prevent illegal logging, often they themselves are the first ones to actively lead the way in this illegal activity: As Xu Gang wanders around the endangered forests, he meets a villager who just comes back from cutting trees up in the mountains:
Xu Gang: “Are there no forest rangers in your village?”
Villager: “Those are the first ones to cut trees! Whether it’s the forest officers, or party cadres, they’re all the cousin of some village head, or the nephew of some party secretary: They pocket 40 Yuan a month for ‘forest protection’, and continue logging as before. Why should we common folk not also cut some trees ourselves then?”
67 The last remark is an untranslatable pun, based on the homophonous pronunciation of the name
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XG: “But what about the higher-ranking cadres?”
V: “Oh, they all do it. But for them, it doesn’t matter, because they can have [the timber] delivered right to their doorstep, isn’t that even better?” (FMXL: 16)
Increasingly distressed, the author leaves the scenery at Wuyishan and heads on. However, the writer finds the local ecosystem at his second destination, Tianmushan 天目山, largely intact, the region's subtropical primeval forest unspoilt. The striking contrast piques the author's curiosity, as he starts to investigate the causes: It is not as if, as Xu Gang remarks, “the local peasants at Tianmushan do not own axes, and do not know how to cut trees.” (FMXL: 25) Indeed, the conditions given at Tianmushan would suggest that its forests would have fallen prey to logging much more easily: “[Nearby] Hangzhou city's cafés, dancing halls, night clubs and discos attract many young people. And Tianmushan - other than Wuyishan - is far more accessible to traffic. Tianmushan's natural resources promise much more wealth than Wuyishan's.” (ibid) Yet here, nature is intact. What can be the cause for the different outcome of two areas of essentially the same political conditions: “Both are under the same blue sky, both are governed by the Communist Party, in both places CCP cadres are in charge, to both the same laws apply, and both fall under the national protection reserve [regulations].” (ibid)
Xu Gang quickly discovers the answer: The strict enforcement of national law by the authorities in charge: Loggers, poachers and thieves are swiftly caught regardless of their status and severely punished. Regulations and quotas on what and how many trees can be cut annually are strictly enforced, and after the great fire catastrophe at Daxing’anling, the local authorities have taken effective fire prevention measures, even though this meant a decline in revenue for the district. Xu Gang salutes the cadres for their foresight and moral integrity: “Suppose that today's wealth is gained by robbing it from our sons and grandsons, by destroying our culture and civilization… Well then this wealth is a sin, and there is nothing dirtier! An illustrative example is this: In some places, the cadres grow fat, and the people get rich, but the green waters and clear mountains wither!” (FMXL: 25)
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