Ecological Security and the Need to Reconceptualize Sovereignty

Between the fifth and third centuries B.C. a series of walls were built in northern China by several warring kingdoms. The goal: to establish and protect their separate sovereignties and to sensure their security against nomadic invaders. Despite these walls, in 221 B.C. the armies of Qin Shi Huang were able to conquer the other six ducal states, making Qin the first emperor of a united China. To consolidate his power and assert imperial sovereignty, Qin ordered that those portions of the walls that divided the kingdoms of China be demolished, and those that ran along the northern frontier be connected and extended in a new ‘Great Wall’ which would run more than 6,000 kilometers. More than 300,000 men were commandeered for the ten year project and forced to work under great hardship. Many died in the process. Qin’s ultimate purpose was immortality through a dynastic reign that would continue in perpetuity. He must have thought this form of continuity worth the human sacrifice and related risk of rebellion it entailed. But the new dynasty was short-lived, replaced in 206 B.C., only 15 years after it began, by the Han dynasty. Today, few outside China know the name of the man who ordered the Great Wall. Even Chinese historians remembered Qin as much for his tyranny-the burning of books, the massacre of intellectuals, the forced movement of masses of people-as for this “achievement.” Over the centuries the wall fell into disrepair aGd ruin, a victim of the forces of nature. A number of rulers ordered it to be repaired or reconstructed or extended. But inevitably it would be reclaimed yet again by Nature which recognizes no human sovereignties. Today, although portions of the Great Wall remain and are maintained as a legacy of human achievement (it is one of the few man-made wonders that can be seen by astronauts from outer space), it has no real significance other than symbolic for the security and sovereignty of China. In fact, what stands out most is that, whatever protection the Great Wall once provided against invading forces, today it walls out nothing. I t is more a testimony to the