How China Manages Nature — The Spirit of 愚公移山

I tend to reflect a great deal after seeing something remarkable. I consider myself a reasonably well-travelled person, and Pakistan has been just one of my many destinations. Yet it has continued to linger in my mind — its awesome landscape, the innocence and good looks of its children, the warmth of its people, their remarkable observance of hygiene despite difficult living conditions, their food, and the apparent honesty of their merchants.

But there is something I thought was missing among its people — the spirit of Yú Gōng (愚公).

Why do I say this?

It is in their rural roads!

I like to think of myself as a voluntary champion of Chinese thought. Perhaps I can help many in the West understand something of what drives the Chinese mind.

Let me begin with an idiom: 愚公移山 (Yú Gōng Yí Shān) — literally, "The Foolish Old Man Who Moves the Mountains."

The story comes from the ancient Chinese text Liezi (列子), traditionally associated with the philosopher Lie Yukou (列御寇).

An old man known as Yugong (愚公) lived facing two great mountains, Taihang (太行) and Wangwu (王屋), which obstructed his family's passage. Instead of resigning himself to going around them forever, he decided that he and his descendants would remove the mountains, basket by basket.

A supposedly clever old man, Zhisou (智叟), mocked him. How could an ageing man possibly move two mountains?

Yugong replied that although he would die, his sons would continue, then his grandsons, and generation after generation. The mountains, meanwhile, would not grow any larger. Eventually, therefore, they could be removed.

That is the wisdom of the story. It is not about brute strength, but determination, continuity across generations, and refusing to be intimidated by the scale of a task.

Mao Zedong made the expression especially famous in modern China. In 1945, he used it metaphorically to describe the two great "mountains" weighing upon China — imperialism and feudalism.

The Indus Civilisation, of which present-day Pakistan was a part, is older than China's civilisation in some respects. The ancient Silk Road also passed through the region. Yet much remains to be done to improve its infrastructure.

We Chinese have a saying: 要想富，先修路 — "If you want to become rich, build the roads first."

I do not mean to glorify the Chinese, but the following achievements certainly speak volumes about the spirit of 愚公移山. They represent undertakings too large for one generation, but achievable when successive generations continue the work.

A Less Yellow Yellow River
The Yellow River (黄河) is literally becoming less yellow.

Historically, it acquired its colour from the enormous quantities of fine loess soil washed down from the Loess Plateau, particularly in Shaanxi, Shanxi, Gansu and Inner Mongolia.

At its extreme, the river carried more than two billion tonnes of sediment annually. Recent studies suggest that sediment transport has fallen dramatically, by roughly 90% since the 1980s.

China attacked the problem at its source rather than merely dredging the river.

It undertook extensive revegetation of the Loess Plateau, converting steep agricultural land into grassland and forest through the Grain for Green programme (退耕还林还草). Hillsides were terraced to slow runoff, while tens of thousands of small check dams (淤地坝) were constructed across gullies to trap eroded soil before it could enter the river.

By 2019, some 58,800 check dams had been constructed.

Interestingly, when these dams fill with sediment, they often create flat, fertile land suitable for cultivation. Thus, the programme simultaneously reduces erosion, protects the Yellow River and creates farmland.

Large reservoirs such as Xiaolangdi also help regulate water and sediment flows.

What impresses me is the philosophy behind the undertaking. China recognised that the fundamental problem was not the river itself, but the landscape feeding sediment into it.

Instead of fighting the consequences endlessly, it sought to eliminate the causes.

There are still environmental challenges, and recent studies suggest that the decline in sediment has begun to level off in some stretches. Nevertheless, the transformation of the Loess Plateau remains one of China's remarkable environmental achievements.

It demonstrates what sustained intervention over several decades can accomplish.

The Three Gorges Dam
The Yangtze River was another source of recurring calamities for China.

Historically, devastating floods regularly struck the middle Yangtze, particularly around Jingjiang and Wuhan. The great floods of 1931, 1935 and 1954 caused enormous loss of life and destruction.

Even as recently as 1998, while the Three Gorges Dam was still under construction, catastrophic flooding claimed thousands of lives and caused economic losses estimated at RMB166 billion.

The Three Gorges project fundamentally changed China's ability to manage such floods.

Its reservoir has approximately 22.1 billion cubic metres of dedicated flood-control storage, allowing floodwaters to be held back and released gradually, greatly reducing the danger to downstream cities and farmland.

But flood control is only one of its contributions.

With an installed generating capacity of 22.5 gigawatts, Three Gorges produces roughly 90–100 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually.

It has also transformed navigation along the Yangtze. Before the project, shipping between the eastern seaboard and Chongqing was severely constrained by difficult river conditions. Today, enormous quantities of cargo move through the Three Gorges navigation complex, connecting inland western China to Shanghai and the sea.

The reservoir also releases water during dry periods to support agriculture, industry, drinking-water supplies and navigation.

There is no simple way to calculate its total economic contribution. Electricity revenues alone are substantial, but the value of preventing even one catastrophic flood could exceed many years of electricity earnings.

To me, its greatest achievement is the combination: a river that periodically threatened to devastate central China has become an infrastructure asset providing flood protection, electricity, inland navigation and strategic water storage.

Three Gorges represents the philosophy of managing an entire river basin rather than treating the river as an isolated engineering problem.

Dujiangyan (都江堰) — Ancient Chinese Wisdom

If Three Gorges represents the enormous scale of modern Chinese engineering, Dujiangyan represents something perhaps even more remarkable — the wisdom of ancient Chinese hydraulic engineers.

Built around 256 BC under the Qin official Li Bing (李冰) and his son, Dujiangyan is a 2,280-year-old river-control and irrigation system that continues to function today.

It was designed to tame the Min River (岷江), which rushes down from the mountains into the relatively flat Chengdu Plain, frequently causing floods while other areas suffered from inadequate irrigation.

Li Bing's solution consisted of three ingenious components:

• Yuzui (鱼嘴), or Fish Mouth, which divides the river into two channels, directing water towards irrigation systems while allowing excess flows to continue downstream.
• Feishayan (飞沙堰), or Flying Sand Weir, which releases excess water and sediment back into the main river.
• Baopingkou (宝瓶口), or Bottle-Neck Channel, which regulates the quantity of water entering the Chengdu Plain.

The genius of Dujiangyan lies in its use of natural topography, river velocity and hydrology rather than simply overpowering the river with a massive barrier.

The system transformed the Chengdu Plain into one of China's most productive agricultural regions, earning Sichuan the name 天府之国 — "Land of Abundance."

The agricultural surplus also strengthened the Qin state, helping it eventually unify China in 221 BC.

What is extraordinary is that Dujiangyan never became merely an archaeological monument. More than two thousand years later, it continues to irrigate vast areas of farmland.

There is a wonderful ancient maxim associated with its maintenance:

深淘滩，低作堰 — "Dredge the riverbed deeply; keep the weir low."

In other words, do not simply keep raising barriers. Maintain the channels properly and allow nature to do much of the work.

That is more than two thousand years of systems engineering wisdom.

Three Gorges demonstrates how an enormous structure can control a river. Dujiangyan demonstrates how understanding a river allows us to work with nature rather than against it.

To me, that distinction is profound.

The Great Green Wall
Another remarkable undertaking is China's Three-North Shelterbelt Programme (三北防护林工程), popularly known as the Great Green Wall.

Started in 1978 and scheduled to continue until 2050, it stretches across northern China, covering a planned programme area exceeding four million square kilometres.

Its objective is to combat desertification, protect agricultural land and settlements, and reduce the devastating sandstorms that periodically affect northern China.

The programme is often described as planting trees across deserts. But that oversimplifies the undertaking.

China discovered through experience that planting trees indiscriminately in arid regions could be counterproductive. Unsuitable species often died, while others consumed scarce groundwater.

The strategy consequently evolved into something much more sophisticated:

Where rainfall permits, plant trees. Where it does not, use shrubs and grasses. Where even those cannot survive, stabilise the sand mechanically and preserve the existing desert ecosystem.

The programme combines vegetation restoration, grazing restrictions, agricultural shelterbelts and mechanical sand barriers.

One particularly impressive achievement came in November 2024, when China announced the completion of a continuous 3,046-kilometre sand-blocking belt around the Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang.

The objective is not to turn the desert into a forest. It is to stabilise its margins, protect the surrounding oases and prevent shifting dunes from swallowing roads, railways, farmland and settlements.

China's statistics indicate substantial improvements in vegetation cover and reductions in desertified land, although drought, climate variability and ecological constraints remain serious challenges.

The Yellow River rehabilitation and the Great Green Wall are, in fact, complementary undertakings.

One prevents soil from being carried away by water; the other prevents it from being carried away by wind.

Both illustrate a common philosophy: rather than endlessly fighting nature's consequences, understand its processes and intervene at their sources.

Conclusion

The Three Gorges project was one of the most criticised undertakings in modern China, particularly by foreign observers, although there were also strong objections domestically.

The criticisms were not without substance.

More than a million people had to be resettled. Towns, villages, farmland and historical sites disappeared beneath the reservoir. Environmentalists expressed concerns about sedimentation, landslides, water pollution, fisheries and ecological disruption.

Engineers questioned the risks associated with a structure of unprecedented scale, while economists debated whether smaller dams might deliver similar benefits with fewer social and environmental consequences.

These were serious issues, and the costs should not be dismissed.

Yet the project has unquestionably delivered the principal benefits its advocates promised: enormous quantities of electricity, dramatically improved Yangtze navigation and, most importantly, substantially strengthened flood protection for the middle Yangtze.

China knew the social and environmental costs, but it also recognised the enormous strategic benefits the project could bring.

And isn't the bottom line obvious for all to see?

Looking across these undertakings, I see something distinctive in the Chinese philosophical mindset: the willingness to conceive and pursue projects not merely for a five-year political cycle, but across several generations.

The story of 愚公移山 is therefore not merely an ancient fable. It is a living philosophy.

It teaches that seemingly impossible tasks become possible through persistence, patience, accumulated knowledge and the willingness of successive generations to carry on what their predecessors began.

The Yellow River, Three Gorges, Dujiangyan and the Great Green Wall are examples of that philosophy in practice.

And why am I not particularly worried about ASML and the likes that seem to be holding back China to some extent today?

Because I know China will overcome!

End