The Politics of Nature: “Oriental Despotism”

The Chinese press continuously carries news about droughts – rarely right in the headlines, but further down the pages on an almost daily basis. Some of the news finds its ways into China-Daily-related English-language publications, too, but given that it doesn’t seem to have close connections to China’s political system, or obvious political implicatons (which would probably secure it more prominent coverage in international media, too), it is rarely discussed on the English-language blogosphere.

King Tubby‘s post of Thursday offers some thoughts to fill the gap –

Oriental Despotism, the Sino Engineering Mentality and Environmental Lunacy.

If you find commenting elsewhere dull at the moment as it seems you do – even the blogs with the traditionally longest threads seem to be hibernating -, why not trying there? It’s an “underlying”, but relevant topic, and should be a comparatively fresh one, too.

Advice: if you comment there, make sure that you keep a copy of what you wrote, before you post it – it may get lost as you push the submit-button, and you may have to try again.

Tags: academic, accountability, agriculture, blogging, China, commodities, Communist Party of China, farming, natural disaster, nature