Why was Tao Lujia so willing and swift to greenlight the Red Flag Canal Project in 1960? The instance and his motivations.

In an extraordinarily willing and swift fashion, the top leader of Shanxi Province in China, Tao Lujia [, (1917-2011)], gave permission to the Red Flag Canal project in 1960. Why was he so willing and swift to greenlight a project that would divert water from his home province to benefit the people in a neighbor province? We explored this question through a bipartite investigation. First, we dug into the empirical literature, the literature based on experience and/or observation, in search of his motivations for the action. Second, for a more systematic, deeper understanding, we examined the instance via a lens of compassion practice, an eclectic collection of theoretical constructs on compassion practice through which one can examine an individual's behavior and performance for new insights. This article reports the first part of our research. Its sequel Why was Tao Lujia so willing and swift to greenlight the Red Flag Canal Project in 1960? New insights via a lens of compassion practice reports the second part and is also published in this journal. Both articles are part of the SEPR mini-series on the Red Flag Canal, one of the best kept secrets in the world history of socio-ecological practice. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020.

The 1960 greenlight for the Red Flag Canal project: a critical step forward

On February 6, 1960, Yang Gui [杨贵, (1928–2018)], the Party Secretary of Linxian County (林县) in Henan Province, China,1 wrote in his diary:

Today our water diversion project received the greenlight from the Shanxi provincial government. This is a rare window of opportunity, and we should get right on with the project. Otherwise, our Linxian people would have to endure the hardships of water shortage forever. [cited by Wang and Sang (1995, p. 32); English translation by the authors of this article2]

For Yang Gui and the half a million people in Linxian County, receiving this greenlight was a critical step forward in their indomitable pursuit of the do-or-die water diversion project—building the Red Flag Canal to convey the lifesaving water from the Zhuozhang River (浊漳河) to home [See Xiang (2020) for the genesis of this project].

How so?

As shown in Fig. 1, the eastbound Zhuozhang River flows through Pingshun County (平顺县) in Shanxi Province and continues along the border between Shexian County (涉县) in Hebei Province and Linxian County. But it is only in Pingshun where the riverbed is higher in elevation than the basin where Linxian is located. Since the water diversion canal, the Red Flag Canal, Yang Gui and the Linxian people planned to build is necessarily a gravity flow system—it conveys water and irrigates by means of gravity flow without pumping, the head of the canal must be built in Pingshun. The Linxian people therefore need the permission from the Shanxi provincial government to divert water from Pingshun and to use Pingshun’s land for constructing the canal’s first 19-kilometer segment, including a dam at the diversion point on the river (in the dashed line box in Fig. 1). Now, they got the momentous permission. It was indeed a huge step forward for their project (Hao et al. 2011, p. 127).

Fig. 1

The Red Flag Canal and its first 19-kilometer segment in Pingshun (in the dashed line box)

Acted expeditiously Yang Gui and his colleagues of the county’s leadership team. They hosted a countywide project kickoff conference 4 days after on February 10; and led the Linxian people to officially get on with the project the next day on February 11, 1960 (Wang and Sang 1995, p. 33). Eight months later, after having had completed the canal’s Pingshun segment (see the dashed line Box in Fig. 1), the Linxian project team moved on to the second phase of the project back in their home county (Ibid., pp. 56–58).

A quick turnaround for a weighty permission

Of the major antecedent events leading up to the crucial Shanxi permission, Chinese historians Wang Hongmin (王宏民) and Sang Jilu (桑继禄) document the following chronology in their 1995 book A history of the Red Flag Canal (Wang and Sang 1995, pp. 26–31; English translation by the authors of this article).

January 24, 1960 (Sunday)

Yang Gui wrote to Shi Xiangsheng (史向生), the Party Secretary of Henan Province, asking for a support letter;

January 27 (Chinese’s New Year’s Eve)

Shi Xiangsheng and Dai Suli (戴苏理), the Party Executive Secretary of Henan Province, wrote jointly a support letter to their counterparts in Shanxi Province—the Party Secretary Tao Lujia (陶鲁笳) and the Party Executive Secretary Wang Qian (王谦);

January 28 (Chinese New Year)

The 3-day national celebration from January 28 to January 303;

February 1 (the second workday after the national holiday)

Tao Lujia and Wang Qian convened a special meeting with Liu Kaiji (刘开基), the lieutenant governor of Henan Province. After hearing a presentation by two representatives from Linxian County, they decided to issue the permit;

February 3 (the second day after the greenlight decision)

Wang Qian and Liu Kaiji replied to Shi Xiangsheng and Dai Suli on behalf of Tao Lujia and the Henan provincial government, acknowledging their decision;4 upon receipt of the letter, Shi Xiangsheng and Dai Suli forwarded it to Yang Gui;

February 6 (the fifth day after the greenlight decision)

Yang Gui received the forwarded letter, recorded this historical moment in his diary (see the preceding section).

Admittedly, a 2-week turnaround for such a weighty permission is extraordinarily quick, considering that the process involved a myriad of bureaucracies in two provinces and that communications in the 1960’s China were primarily through snail mails and in-person meetings as the use of telephone was limited and long distance calls prohibitively expensive. Evidently, the leaders of the two provinces, Shi Xiangsheng and Tao Lujia, willingly made it happen by cutting through an otherwise long stretch of government red tape and shunning potentially protractive negotiations.

How come?

A no-brainer for Shi Xiangsheng

For Shi Xiangsheng, supporting such a grassroots project that would benefit the people in his own province is a no-brainer.5 Besides providing foreseeable long-term benefits, he saw the canal, if completed quickly, could also help alleviate the ongoing hardships the Linxian people had been suffering from a severe draught since June 1959.6 No wonder he gave immediate support spontaneously the very first time he learnt the Red Flag Canal project idea from Yang Gui in September 1959 (Hao et al. 2011, p. 123). That was just 3 months after Yang Gui came up with the bold idea of building an irrigation canal to bring the lifesaving water in the Zhuozhang River to home (Xiang 2020, pp. 108–109).

But why was Tao Lujia so willing and swift to support a project that would divert water from his home province to benefit the people in a neighbor province?

What did Tao Lujia have to say about his motivations?

Almost 40 year after the instance, Tao Lujia and Yang Gui met on August 10, 1999 (Fig. 2). Reflecting on his motivations for the 1960 greenlight decision, Tao Lujia shared with Yang Gui how his personal life-work experience in Linxian and sympathetic affection for the people impelled him to act forthright on the permission request and beyond (Hao et al. 2011, pp. 127–128). The following two passages from his reflections are instructive and noteworthy as they offer hints of why he was so willing and swift to support the project in 1960 (ibid., pp. 127–128; English translation, parentheses, italics, and subsection titles all by the authors of this article).

Fig. 2

Tao Lujia (left) and Yang Gui met on August 10, 1999

(source: Hao et al. 2011, p. 126; use with permission)

A window of opportunity for fulfilling a long-held desire to help

I (Tao Lujia) lived in Linxian for two years while working at the headquarters of the Fifth Prefecture Party committee. That was (in the mid-1940s) at the end of the 14-year war of resistance against Japanese aggression and the beginning of the civil war. I therefore knew firsthand the hardships of water shortage the Linxian people had been suffering. … (After having had greenlighted the Red Flag Canal project on February 1, 1960), I also told members of the Party committees of both Pingshun County and the Southeast Shanxi Prefecture that we must support Linxian people’s do-or-die endeavor unconditionally.7

Reading between the lines, it appears that he regarded supporting the Red Flag Canal project to be a way of fulfilling a personal desire he had held since the mid-1940s. More specifically, (1) he had a long-held desire to help assuage the suffering of the Linxian people from the hardships of water shortage; (2) the desire stemmed from his firsthand experience suffering the hardships together with the Linxian people during wartime in the mid-1940s; (3) he had been longing for opportunities to fulfill his desire; (4) when the opportunity finally emerged in 1960, he seized it to the best of his ability and did everything possible in his power to help—as the top leader of Shanxi Province, not only did he swiftly give the much-needed greenlight to the Red Flag Canal project, but also voluntarily went the extra mile, after the greenlight decision, to make sure his subordinates do their best to help.

Fulfilling the desire to help: a source of happiness and gratitude

I (Tao Lujia) admire so much the great service and lasting good you Yang Gui brought to the Linxian people through the Red Flag Canal project. In retrospect, I originally thought what you planned to build was just a small canal that would bring back home the Zhuozhang River water for drinking (and for alleviating the hardships caused by the 1959 draught). It really astonished me later that the “small canal” turned out to be such a great man-made river, so much so that even Premier Zhou Enlai praised it a miracle in the modern-day China!8

Reading between these lines, one can feel a strong sense of double happiness and gratitude resulting from the fulfillment of the desire to help.9 He was happy for the Linxian people as their suffering from the hardships of water shortage had been effectively mitigated through the Red Flag Canal project; he was happy for himself as his long-held desire to help was finally fulfilled through his 1960 greenlight decision which contributed to the Red Flag Canal project in a big way (see Sect. 1 of this article). And with that, he was grateful to Yang Gui both for the outstanding leadership in the life-changing, miracle-making project and for providing the opportunity he (Tao Lujia) had been longing for to help. In a nutshell, he was delightful that his 1960 greenlight decision turned out to be both prosocial and self-rewarding—not only did it help bring about great socio-ecological benefits, but also boosted his own mental well-being.10

Further questions for more systematic, deeper understanding

The two passages quoted above are informative about Tao Lujia’s motivations for the 1960 greenlight decision. They are provocative as well—begging further questions that prompt new lines of inquiry for more systematic, deeper understanding.

Three such questions point directly to an undisclosed mental-behavioral process (i.e., thinking–acting process) Tao Lujia would have gone through that impelled him to proceed willingly and swiftly toward the greenlight decision.

What personal mental-behavioral process would Tao Lujia have gone through from the mid-1940s to 1960 that enabled him, a person with many high-level leadership responsibilities, to first develop a specific desire of helping the people in a particular locale, then to keep it alive and strong for a long period of time, and eventually to fulfill it when time was ripe in 1960?

What kind of leadership role did Tao Lujia choose to play that helped impel him to go through such a lasting mental-behavioral process and allowed him to benefit from serving others?

How come he exercised this kind of leadership so well?

Answers to these questions are certainly not readily visible to the naked eye; but, as shown in our second article (Chen and Xiang 2020) published in this journal, they can be found with the assistance of a cognitive instrument—a lens of compassion practice.

Let us proceed.