In the satellite map, the middle of China (Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Ningxia province, approximately one tenth of China) appears brownish and infertile. That is the great loess plateau (the yellow land), a land of glory and a place of misery.

Modern people may not believe that the barren loess plateau was once the economical and political center of China. The land used to be China’s food storehouse and had supported millions of people. Now the land is hardly inhabitable (but tens of millions of people are still living there) and water is scarce. Poor peasants have to cross their fingers every year hoping almighty Heaven Emperor to pour some drops of water on their land. It is a desperate situation.

In the book “Collapse,” Jared Diamond did not analyze China in as detail as what he did for Greenland or Easter Island. Nevertheless, the once prosperous but now hopeless great loess plateau is a perfect (and maybe better) example for a collapsing society. Yes, China has overall survived but not all China survives. The west-north part of China practically failed. Furthermore, the China before twentieth century has already fallen far behind the western world. In a sense, China has partially collapsed.

In the “Collapse,” Jared presented a five-factor framework to explain the demise of a society: deforestation and soil erosion, water mismanagement, climate change, the human response to the environment, and friendship with neighborhood. The downfall of the western China, or China overall, fits this framework very well.

Severe deforestation and soil erosion in the loess plateau began thousands of years ago. The place had born many brave kings and soldiers in ancient time. The Chang’an city (now Xi’an, the capital of Shanxi province) in Tang Dynasty was the largest city in the whole world. The Yellow River passed by the city supplying clean water. However, the name of the river says it all. In the upstream of the Yellow River, due to severe soil erosion, the precious soil was carried away by the river, thus the name “Yellow River.” Even in the Tang Dynasty, much of the great loess plateau had already degraded to infertile land. After a few years, the east coast replaced the great loess plateau as the national center.

In the great loess plateau, the only reliable water is the Yellow River and its handful branches. Unfortunately, Chinese domesticated a water sucking plant–the rice–as their major food source. In modern point of view, the rice has poor nutritional value with too much starch and too little protein. It lacks many essential vitamins because people don’t eat the part having some vitamins. Nonetheless, cultivating rice requires flooding the field, which is the least efficient way of using water. The water evaporates and also leaks into the sandy and barren land. But the rice needs a continuous water supply. Essentially, a tremendous amount of water is wasted in the up and middle stream of the Yellow River while the downstream cries for water. Almost every year the downstream dried up and the dry period is becoming longer and longer. Economically speaking, the people living in the loess plateau should abandon the rice cultivation completely.

In addition, because of the deforestation, the weather in the great loess plateau became dry and hot. Wind also moved sand away from cropland. The land became less and less arable.

Although it was not written in any books, Jared once wrote an article claiming that human beings made the biggest mistake by adopting agriculture. The nutrition values of wheat and rice are far inferior to those of animals. However, the less hunger but a stable life caused a steady growth of population, which is exactly what has happened in China. Chinese became and remain the largest population since the inception of China. Consequently, the arable land became scarce and Chinese peasants were bonded with their land. If the land couldn’t give back as much as once was, people just worked harder and harder.

One common misconception is that indigenous people live in harmony with their environment. On the contrary, most environmental damages are done by these people either intentionally or unintentionally. The obsolete agricultural techniques are detrimental to the environment. For example, one common practice in mountain area is to burn down the forest to claim land for planting. But the thin mountain soil is easily flushed away by rain. Thus, the reclaimed land is cultivatable for only a few years. This way of deforestation is so devastating along the NuJiang River, YunNan province that below 1500m of altitude only rocks are left. As Jared Diamond demonstrated in the tale of the Easter Island, because people need to survive and because they don’t know the grand environmental impact of their behavior, people will keep on burning and chopping down the forest till the last tree. They are not dumb but they do lack of knowledge.

In another book “Gun, Germs, and Steel,” Jared pointed out that the central government, the vast land, and various landscapes in China lead to China’s downfall and also to its survival. In terms of environmental damages, these factors play even more important roles. The sheer scale of land gave people a disillusion that they can always found other fields to work on, and the detrimental effects of environmental damages were slower to show and to be perceived. In general, people lack the knowledge of environment protection.

Furthermore, because of the central government, heedless policies were issued without any considerations of environmental issues. The most recent massive damage occurred during Mao’s period when trees had been chopped down and burned to produce backyard steels. Many mountains are now treeless.

If the great loess plateau is the result of abusive cultivation and irreparable environmental damages, the downsliding of the ancient China may also be facilitated by endless barbarian invasions. The confliction between Han countries and Hun, Moguls, Manchu, and other nomadic tribes persisted over the whole Chinese history except for, of course, when China was ruled by nomadic tribes. The most prosperous periods in the Chinese history were the time when China had the strongest military force. More often, however, China was either subdued by northern tribes or paid a large sum of ransom to live shamefully. The barbarian invasions not only killed millions of people but also significantly weakened the Chinese economy. Under the most recent Manchu sovereign (the Qin dynasty), the economic development was stagnant and the industrialization was not on the agenda till too late.

Anyway, China survives because it is big, because it has successfully absorbed all invading tribes (Mongolians, Manchu, and other natives are all Chinese now), and because it always has a central government. The land of the great loess plateau was largely abandoned, or more precisely, forgotten. People living there are nonexistence in China’s news media except for admiring the great barrenness. But the environmental lessons have not been learned by most Chinese despite that environmental issue is a burning topic these days.

Many people have no idea how to protect environment. Understandably, environmentalists tend to be more conservative, for the consequences of changing nature always have some elements of uncertainty. However, real environmentalists never fear of modifying environment to benefit human beings and to improve the Mother Nature. We need a cautious rather than all-or-none attitude. The survival of human beings should not comprise the damage to the nature, but the change of environment does not always damage the nature. That is critical.

Is there a future for China? Yes, there certainly is. Despite the heavy pollution everywhere and growing population, the Chinese government has implemented many environmental policies to protect soil erosion or to restore forests. Family planning policy is debatable but somewhat successful. A government agency has been established solely for the environmental protection purpose. There is a long way to go but China is sure on her way.