Corporations, Governments, and Socioenvironmental Policy in China: China's Water Machine as Assemblage

The standard approach to China's environmental management, fragmented authoritarianism, assumes the existence of state, corporations, farmers, and consumers. New social actors now populate the Chinese landscape, however. One such actor is the network we call the China water machine; others comprise the networks and coalitions that oppose the China water machine's operations. These actors play out their operations and conflicts within socioenvironmental regions like Yunnan. All three (China water machine, oppositional groups, and socioenvironmental regions) are interpreted as assemblages. After contrasting assemblage and the hydrosocial cycle, the article demonstrates how assemblage theory can guide empirical research, by describing the emergence of the China water machine, its membership, and its effects. This machine involves corporations, universities, international institutions, and arms of the government, tasked with identifying and framing what are water management issues, formulating standardized procedures for tackling those issues, and then constructing solutions. These cooperative activities of government and other actors cannot be identified as “Chinese,” as they partly depend on institutions and corporations domiciled outside China; together they render the standard theory incomplete.