By François Dubé
PhD student, College of Economic Studies, University of Ningxia;
Resettlement intern, UNHCR Bangkok
To
accelerate the process of poverty reduction in its poorer regions, China
decided in 2001 to implement a national programme of displacement of
populations living in areas considered environmentally fragile. But these
programmes were hardly a novelty for China, and the record of previous such
attempts has been far from positive.
In 1984, the
Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in northern China – a sparsely settled, mostly
desert region – launched extensive displacement programmes intended to restore
a deteriorating ecosystem and eradicate absolute poverty, with the support of
the central government and the World Bank. Parts of this mountainous province
are the most vulnerable in China in terms of their ecological and environmental
capacity to support people and livelihoods. Over the last thirty years, it is
estimated that the authorities in Ningxia have displaced about 700,000 peasants
living in the extreme south of the region, an area particularly affected by
droughts and water scarcity.
Although
ostensibly designed to increase the well-being of those displaced, these
large-scale displacement policies have instead given rise to serious problems
for the people forced to move. In most cases, these projects include a
component of ‘local economic development’, whereby industrial plants with high
emissions and high energy consumption were established in areas previously
untouched by industrialization, often with consequences that proved more
damaging for the environment than the original situation. It may be that such
projects, however, raise the political profile of sponsors and advance individual
careers, regardless of environmental impact. The question arises as to why the
government policy failed to achieve its desired effects.
Prioritising
modernisation
Our field
research, conducted over the course of 2014 with displaced communities in Ningxia,
revealed how displacement policies can harm families. This is the case of the
Ma family from the Guyuan district of Ningxia, for example, whose access to
education, health care and housing clearly worsened after their displacement to
Yinchuan. We believe that one of the problems lies in the fact that the
population displacement policies are so deeply steeped in the government’s
modernising doctrine as to prevent any alternative being considered in the
fight against poverty and environmental degradation.
There is a
consensus among Chinese policymakers at all levels of government that
development and modernisation (usually expressed reductively using a single
indicator, namely Gross Domestic Product – GDP) are inherently beneficial
processes and to challenge this reflects an anti-productive attitude, or even a
lack of patriotism. For Chinese policymakers, the relocation of entire
communities from ecologically fragile zones to industrial areas is an inherent
part of the modernisation process, and a manifestation of social progress. The
institutions responsible for the design and implementation of these
displacement projects cannot afford to seek the opinions of those being
displaced, despite long-existing international guidelines on this subject.[1] If the people to be displaced were
to prove refractory or even hostile, it would call into question the
developmentalist premise of the Chinese leadership.
Challenges
remain
Recent field
surveys show that many of those who were displaced still face difficulties
adjusting to their displacement: smaller living spaces, substantially increased
living expenses, different planting methods and techniques to assimilate, and
social discrimination. In view of the negative consequences for those
displaced, promoting modernisation by population displacement and forced
migration programmes is perhaps the ultimate illusion. Although the rapid
development of infrastructure is undeniable, too little attention has been paid
to the concerns of the displaced people themselves. In many cases, their
traditional way of life has been disrupted.
The
interaction between rural communities, development policies and the environment
is complex, and it is crucial to ensure the full participation of all
stakeholders throughout the process. Local communities affected by proposed
development programmes need to be given adequate space and opportunity to
express themselves and to choose whether relocation is the best solution to
their problems, regardless of whether the government considers the communities’
lifestyle to be contrary to its idea of a fully modernized society.
It is
essential to develop other less risky and less disruptive solutions for rural
communities suffering from environmental fragility while developing the economy
of the regions concerned. By sharing successful adaptation experiments that do
not involve forced population displacement, researchers may be able to
sensitise political leaders to the existence of alternative models, helping to
build their willingness and ability to adopt flexible and participatory
approaches in solving environmental problems.
References:
[1] See Cernea M (1988) Involuntary
resettlement in development projects: Policy guidelines in World Bank-financed
projects. ISBN: 978-0-8213-1036-6
http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/abs/10.1596/0-8213-1036-4
http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/abs/10.1596/0-8213-1036-4
This article was originally published at Forced Migration Review
under Creative Commons License 3.0