In the collective pursuit for a better future: my reflection on the writing of Building for Oil

I. The Foundations

I would like to first, of course, thank Professor Franklin Obeng-Odoom for organizing this symposium, drawing on the Global South Encounters of 22 December 2023. The four reviewers who invested their time reading my book and offering valuable comments and critiques also deserve special thanks.

Building for Oil⁽¹⁾ is an historical inquiry into the past ambitions of humanity to transcend natural and human-made hardship in pursuit of a better world, and, as Joe Collins put it in his reviw, “a reminder to those who share such ambitions that the road forward is paved in paradox, hope and effort”. The reviewers generously confirmed my attempt to “offer a nuanced perspective on the Daqing model, probing the sustainability of its industrial and urbanization strategies and the associated human and environmental costs” (Yan Zhang, this symposium).

Building for Oil is an ambitious project that touches on a wide range of intriguing topics, including sustainable industrialization and urbanization, energy, urban planning and design, international relations, the social history of labour, industrial culture and gender issues. My initial motivation for the research was straightforward: I wanted to provide a contextual understanding of our living environment, that is, the relationship between us and the environment, and what has formed our way of living. Here, “we” means my socialist sisters and brothers who grew up in the state-owned industrial compounds or mining districts built in the first three decades of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and any contemporaries experiencing a dramatic change of life and values. It was a personal quest for roots and meanings and an academic inquiry about the connections between society and the spaces we inhabit. As the reviewers kindly noted and applauded, I adopted a dual narrative juxtaposing political, economic and social history with personal memoirs. Despite the wide range of topics that the book touches upon, the emphasis is “illustrating the spatial and social consequences on the ground level” (Stephan Hauser, this symposium) and “day-to-day lived experiences in reconstructing history” (Jing Zhang, this symposium).

II. A Holistic Approach to History

I see the holistic approach as both the strength and weakness of the book. As a “microcosm of PRC history” (Jing Zhang, this symposium), the history of Daqing oil city holds three keys. First, as the title implies, it recorded China’s state-building process and the society’s search for modernity. It is also an economic history of the oil industry and the state’s Five-Year Plans from 1952 to 1978. At the same time, it is the history of institutions and professionals related to construction and resource extraction, that is, planners, architects, geologists and engineers. Essentially, it is a history of individuals who invested themselves in the construction of the place and were thereby empowered by virtue of that investment.

In the long process of writing and re-writing, sometimes filled with self-doubt, I am convinced that my strength and comparative advantage in this project was my access to rich materials that are not open to the public, not to mention to the English-speaking world. I was also fortunate in the trust I enjoyed from many first-hand participants in the making of the Daqing model – I understood them more as an insider or as a product of that era. I see my major contribution as the creation of an historical inquiry, depicting a vivid original story with rich historical details. I chose the subjects that I felt comfortable discussing with a certain degree of expertise and those to which I am closely connected. I am a child of oil who grew up in an oil field following the Daqing model; I am a planning historian, an architect and urban planner trained in China and the US; I am a woman, a mother and formerly a wife.

There are many factors closely connected to the birth of the Daqing model that I have not touched upon in the book. The institution of state-owned enterprises and the Great Famine are examples. I would love to have analysed the environmental impacts of oil extraction a bit more. In Building for Oil, I intended to maintain a balance between events happening on national, local and personal levels, with the latter two receiving more attention than the first.

Jing Zhang suggested incorporating a discussion on the reforms of state-owned enterprises, which is part of my new ongoing research on Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, the second generation of the Daqing model in China’s reform era. I have also developed an interest in the environmental and health impact of China’s changing energy production and consumption structures, as suggested by Stephan Hauser.

I agree that the book would have benefited from a greater integration with history and China studies, with the literature on gender and labour, and with economic history. A holistic approach to history challenges any author, demanding a Renaissance (wo)Man and extensive knowledge of the world. This book was my best attempt across more than 10 years, and it has truly represented who I was, where I am from and what I knew at the time.

I like what Joe Collins points out in his review, “Our forays into the past always involve deliberations about what baggage we transport” (this symposium). As an historian of economic thought, Collins perceptively remarks on my intellectual baggage from Chicago School economists, referring to my paradoxical use of the concept of “human capital” in describing the role of labour in the Daqing-style socialist production. Isn’t that what you would think, that labour had become the means of production, but not the end, in the Daqing narrative, when the Iron Man stated that there was not a private bone in his body?

III. Humanity in Sustainability

Building for Oil poses questions on sustainability regarding food, energy and a decent life. China had been the most populous nation on earth for thousands of years, only being overtaken by India in April 2023, according to UN population estimates. Over thousands of years, the increase in the population and its pressure on sustainability have contributed to tragic death tolls from rebellions, wars and natural catastrophes. Daqing was but one small example of the Chinese state and society being tested to their extreme capacities – through militarization of the society, political indoctrination and centralized command.

However, in studying such an extreme situation, I often felt touched by the humanity of the people I interviewed. Hua and Song are the most representative, and they generously shared their journals and love letters with me. Their life stories tell you how brave, resilient and resourceful they are. They remain close friends and respectful elders to me. A party cadre who worked for the Daqing propaganda department told me his tearful romantic story with an iron girl, i.e. a model oil woman worker. Grassroots men and women were tough, respected and stubborn in facing hardships. They made great efforts to obtain oil, food and proper housing and to conquer, to survive. I wrote in the preface that “the stubborn drive to achieve modernization ultimately devalued the meaning of modernity”. On the other hand, because of this Daqing research, I still hold dear humanity’s struggle for sustainability. History teaches us to believe in change.

IV. Beyond Daqing: Oil Cities, Industrial Policy and Sustainable Development

I am grateful to the reviewers for all the great questions and comments raised on my book. Given that the outcome of these extreme policies of industrialization and modernization are so complicated and controversial, I have left more open questions than conclusions. Over the period when I was writing the book between 2005 and 2016, my attitude had changed. I went from being a believer in socialist values to a sceptic. Above all, I wanted to write a book that would be engaging for a broader readership, and that would be provocative. I am pleased that the reviewers think I have achieved these aspirations.