The Formation of ‘Scientific’ Environmental Correctionism in the Early Mao Era: The Agricultural Meteorological Solution to the Cold-Weather Damage to Rubber Trees in the 1950s

There are conicting assessments of the large scale rubber tree plantation project that began in the 1950s under the Mao Zedong(毛澤東, 1893~1976) regime. In the environmental history of China, on the one hand, the ‘northward movement(北移)’ of rubber trees is usually criticised as an “unscientic” “political movement” in the Mao’s era, only resulting in the devastating environmental and social disasters in China. On the other hand, the ocial history of Chinese government has often praised the same ‘northward movement’ as the China’s supreme scientic achievement in successfully planting rubber trees at the world’s highest altitude. This study aims to reexamine such conflicting historical assessments, and to shed a new light on the relationship between science and politics in the early phase of the Mao’s regime, first, by showing both international politico-economic and environmental contexts in which such a decision was made to move rubber trees northward; second, by analyzing the experimental research on “protective forests” by a newly emerging group of agricultural meteorologists, who played a crucial role in the plantation project, and how they supported the decision. Rather than focusing on the totalitarian characteristics of the socialist state behind the rubber tree plantation, this research recovers the agency of a group of scientists experimentally supporting the plantation and their careful considerations of the relationship between strategically urgent needs of the state and natural and environmental constraints. is perspective oers a valuable chance to reect on modern China’s endeavors to harness techno-scientic expertise to control environmental disasters.