DRAGON TEARS
A CRITICAL ANALYSIS ON THE POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF PLANETARY SURVIVAL
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF ARTS
in
THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES
Asia Pacific Policy Studies
THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
(Vancouver)
© Bérangère Maïa Natasha Parizeau, June 2017
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF ARTS
in
THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES
Asia Pacific Policy Studies
THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
(Vancouver)
© Bérangère Maïa Natasha Parizeau, June 2017
ABSTRACT
This thesis is concerned with the social systems, institutional patterns, and political dynamics, which constitute and contextualize the policy challenges relevant to China’s environmental collapse and health crisis. This essay demonstrates that China’s environmental pollution crisis engenders the contamination of the biosphere, human and ecological risks, aggravating climate change, and the current geopolitical trends towards planetary extinction. This scholarly dissertation denounces the failure of neoliberalism, the cultural void of hyper-consumption, or what Dr. Ignacio Valero has coined ‘consumer fetishism.’ Through the investigative lens of China’s political structure, the country’s legislative apparatus, and policy environment, this macro/micro policy analysis examines the mechanisms by which western imperialism permeates the Communist Party of China’s fragmented authoritarian iron grip and Party/State economic corporatism. China’s environmental collapse and health crisis are synthesized by means of three case studies: 1) The first case is the hyper-eutrophication of Lake Dianchi in Yunnan Province, Southwestern China. Water pollution threatens China’s economic sustainability; 2) The second case is Liukuaizhuang village in Tianjin Municipality, in Northeast China, which epitomizes the cancer village phenomenon mushrooming nationwide. Cancer is China’s leading cause of death; 3) The third case study is the Dachang Gold Project, a property and access to the richest untapped gold mine in Asia, located on ancestral land in the wetland conservation subareas of the Three Rivers Headwaters (San Jiang Yuan) Nature Reserve (SNNR) in Yushu Tibet Autonomous Prefecture (TAP) in Qinghai province on the Tibetan plateau, for which 300,000 Tibetan nomadic pastoralists have been resettled. This inquisitive researching process includes the production of a documentary on the topic of China’s environmental collapse in light of global causations, human and ecological implications. “Dragon Tears” is a feature animated documentary I am directing, currently in production, which intends to communicate creatively to a large audience critical information on China’s ecological collapse and health crisis, criticizing western consumer culture in the context of human extinction. The objective of this heuristic body of work is to radicalize the political discourse and fluidly energize public debates on the topics of ecological justice, climate change, and human evolution.
This thesis is concerned with the social systems, institutional patterns, and political dynamics, which constitute and contextualize the policy challenges relevant to China’s environmental collapse and health crisis. This essay demonstrates that China’s environmental pollution crisis engenders the contamination of the biosphere, human and ecological risks, aggravating climate change, and the current geopolitical trends towards planetary extinction. This scholarly dissertation denounces the failure of neoliberalism, the cultural void of hyper-consumption, or what Dr. Ignacio Valero has coined ‘consumer fetishism.’ Through the investigative lens of China’s political structure, the country’s legislative apparatus, and policy environment, this macro/micro policy analysis examines the mechanisms by which western imperialism permeates the Communist Party of China’s fragmented authoritarian iron grip and Party/State economic corporatism. China’s environmental collapse and health crisis are synthesized by means of three case studies: 1) The first case is the hyper-eutrophication of Lake Dianchi in Yunnan Province, Southwestern China. Water pollution threatens China’s economic sustainability; 2) The second case is Liukuaizhuang village in Tianjin Municipality, in Northeast China, which epitomizes the cancer village phenomenon mushrooming nationwide. Cancer is China’s leading cause of death; 3) The third case study is the Dachang Gold Project, a property and access to the richest untapped gold mine in Asia, located on ancestral land in the wetland conservation subareas of the Three Rivers Headwaters (San Jiang Yuan) Nature Reserve (SNNR) in Yushu Tibet Autonomous Prefecture (TAP) in Qinghai province on the Tibetan plateau, for which 300,000 Tibetan nomadic pastoralists have been resettled. This inquisitive researching process includes the production of a documentary on the topic of China’s environmental collapse in light of global causations, human and ecological implications. “Dragon Tears” is a feature animated documentary I am directing, currently in production, which intends to communicate creatively to a large audience critical information on China’s ecological collapse and health crisis, criticizing western consumer culture in the context of human extinction. The objective of this heuristic body of work is to radicalize the political discourse and fluidly energize public debates on the topics of ecological justice, climate change, and human evolution.
My thesis can be accessed at the University of British Columbia's library in the Theses and Dissertations Collection.