For some weeks I have been watching videos on YouTube showing terrible images of devastating floods in northern China, in the Beijing region. That the images are terrible, and that the floods are devastating, there can be no doubt. So much so that China’s weather in the summer of 2023 seemed to me to fit the bill nicely for a bit of alarmism from the usual suspects (the BBC and the Guardian) to hype it up and mutter darkly about the “climate crisis”. And yet for a long time I could find no such reporting.

True, quite a bit of hype was devoted to a claimed high temperature record in a remote part of China where temperatures had not been measured with any accuracy (or at all) until recently. It was widely reported (though surprisingly, not with the usual levels of intensity) that temperatures at Sanbao in the Turpan depression reached 52.2C, thus setting a new high temperature record for China. Ironically, this record was set at a location which, in winter, can experience temperatures of -50C. Clearly it’s an incredibly inhospitable location, and therefore it’s no surprise that there are no weather records for Sanbao until very recently. As Paul Homewood said, in his de-bunk of this story:

Quite clearly, any record temperature set in the Turpan is meaningless and cannot be compared to other locations in China. It is merely the product of a micro climate.

There is also a second issue here. Sanbao has no official listing or any historical data, not according to KNMI at least. And the Shanghai Daily reported in 2010 that there were only three weather stations in the Turpan – Turpan City, Toksun and Dongkan, all at a much higher elevation than 150m below sea level.

In short we have no way of knowing whether it has been hotter in Saobao in the past, or whether the thermometer there is even properly sited and maintained.

You might just as well claim a record temperature next to the runway at Heathrow!

However, I digress, since my intention is mostly to write about the floods in China this year. After something of a delay the BBC did get around to reporting this story, and did so by giving the Guardian (never knowingly outdone when it comes to dramatic climate headlines) a run for its money with the heading “China’s summer of climate destruction”. It tells us:

China’s summer this year has seen both extreme heat and devastating floods.

And the flooding this time around has struck areas where such weather has been unheard of, with scientists – blaming climate change – warning that the worst is yet to come.

Rather strangely, in attempting to suggest (without actually using the word) that the floods are unprecedented in the areas in question, the BBC quotes a 38 year old as saying that they have never seen a flood there. In the long history of China, that is no time at all. However, as the article goes on to tell us, even Dr Zhao Li, from Greenpeace East Asia, admits that the increase in flood numbers can be partially explained by China developing better systems to monitor and record flood data.

As for the floods occurring in areas where a 38 year old has never seen them before, there is a man-made explanation, but it isn’t climate change:

Officials in China tried to ease the impact of recent floods by using a system of dams of waterways to change their direction.

The problem is that the water has to go somewhere, and it was Zhuozhou in Hebei Province which took the hit.

These are tough choices but, in the end, it becomes a government decision over who must suffer for the greater good.

Paul Homewood also debunks claims about the floods here, by picking up on that last point, and also pointing out that China’s production of cereal crops continues to show bumper yields, increasing six-fold in the last 60 years. While this may have a lot to do with agricultural improvements since the chaos of Mao’s massively destructive Cultural Revolution, crops don’t seem to be badly affected by climate change in China.

However, there is another point that Paul didn’t make in his piece, and that is that climate extremes (or “climate destruction”, as the BBC would have it) are nothing new in China. Wikipedia devotes a page to natural disasters in China, and it is heavily weighted towards 21^st century floods. Whether it is due to a natural bias in favour of catastrophising 21^st century climate, whether the 21^st century really has been more catastrophic, or (as I suspect) because we have detailed weather records only for the recent past, is a moot point. Nevertheless, even Wikipedia has to mention (though not in any detail) the 1851-1855 Yellow River floods (yes, they lasted for five years) which “resulted in a change of the… river’s course, thereafter emptying into the Bohai Sea rather than into the Yellow Sea. This natural disaster is thought to have been a major cause of the Taiping Rebellion and Nian Rebellion.”

The 1931 floods rightly have a page of their own:

From 1928 to 1930, China was afflicted by a long drought. The subsequent winter of 1930–31 was particularly harsh, creating large deposits of snow and ice in mountainous areas. In early 1931, melting snow and ice flowed downstream and arrived in the middle course of the Yangtze during a period of heavy spring rain. Ordinarily, the region experienced three periods of high water during the spring, summer and fall, respectively; however, in early 1931, there was a single continuous deluge. By June, those living in low areas had already been forced to abandon their homes. The summer was also characterized by extreme cyclonic activity. In July of that year alone, nine cyclones hit the region, which was significantly above the average of two per year. Four weather stations along the Yangtze River reported rain totalling over 600mm (24in) for the month. The water flowing through the Yangtze reached its highest level since record-keeping began in the mid-nineteenth century. That autumn, further heavy rain added to the problem and some rivers did not return to their normal courses until November.

The floods inundated approximately 180,000 square kilometres (69,000sqmi) – an area equivalent in size to England and half of Scotland, or the states of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut combined. The high-water mark recorded on 19 August at Hankou in Wuhan showed water levels 16m (53ft) above the average, an average of 1.7m (5.6ft) above the Shanghai Bund. In Chinese, this event is commonly known as 江淮水灾, which roughly translates to “Yangtze-Huai Flood Disaster.” This name, however, fails to capture the massive scale of flooding. Waterways throughout much of the country were inundated, particularly the Yellow River and Grand Canal. The eight most seriously affected provinces were Anhui, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Henan and Shandong. Beyond the core flood zone, areas as far south as Guangdong, as far north as Manchuria, and as far west as Sichuan were also inundated.

It is estimated that 53 million people may have been affected by the floods, and depending on whose estimates one believes, the dead may have numbered anywhere between 400,000 and four million. Widespread destruction was caused to cities, crops were destroyed on a vast scale, and disease was rife.

Just four years later, there was again terrible flooding on the Yangtse. Wikipedia tells us that deforestation exacerbated the floods (shades of Pakistan’s recent floods, methinks. And as the Wikipedia article makes clear, flooding on the Yangtse River has been a perennial issue:

The first major flood of the Yangtze River recorded in modern history occurred in 1911. Historical reports have indicated that the major flood covered 1,126 square kilometres and led to major devastation in Shanghai. It was reported that more than 200,000 died and hundreds of thousands were left homeless and destitute. Additionally, the flood also ruined important crops in surrounding farmland and destroyed food supplies in the cities and towns in the region.

So much for “modern” history. Fortunately, we have records of weather-related disasters in China before the twentieth century, and sadly there is no shortage of them. I have on my book shelves a biography of the Chinese Dowager Empress Cixi by Jung Chang, and it mentions a few of these incidents that occurred throughout Cixi’s life. I assume that only those that are central to the book’s narrative receive a mention. They are also not indexed, so I list the three references that I spotted from a quick perusal of the book.

On page 124 we learn:

…between 1876 and 1878, nearly half the Chinese provinces and up to 200 million people were hit by floods, drought and swarms of locusts – the biggest succession of natural calamities in more than 200 years and one of the worst in recorded Chinese history. Millions died of famine and disease, especially typhus.

Page 140:

Customs revenue helped save millions of lives. In …1888, when the country was struck by floods, earthquakes and other natural disasters, it could afford to spend ten million taels of silver to buy rice to feed the population.

Page 265:

In spring 1900, while Shandong was relieved by rainfall, the region surrounding Beijing was struck by a devastating drought. A contemporary missionary wrote: ‘For the first time since the great famine in 1878 no winter wheat to speak of had been planted…Under the most favourable circumstances the spring rains are almost invariably insufficient, but that year they were almost wholly lacking. The ground was baked so hard that no crops could be put in…’.

It can be clearly seen that China has a very long history of weather-related disasters. The above sketch does no more than scratch the surface. Perhaps, then, it is no great surprise that the Chinese authorities seem to be utterly unconcerned (regardless of the platitudes they mouth to western politicians) about greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. China has seen it all before, and what is occurring today is certainly not as bad as much that has happened in the past. Which brings us to a recent Guardian article with the heading “China continues coal spree despite climate goals” and the sub-heading “World’s biggest carbon emitter approving equivalent of two new coal plants a week, analysis shows”.

Given that China is responsible on an ongoing basis for around 30% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions each year, it is probably the only country in the world which might, by achieving net zero emissions, conceivably make a difference to any effects on the climate supposedly caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Yet clearly its leaders have no intention of doing any such thing, and its recent “ summer of climate destruction” isn’t a relevant factor so far as they are concerned. It does rather make one wonder why politicians in developed countries, especially the UK (responsible annually for around 3% of the volume of China’s emissions) are so desperate to achieve net zero, regardless of the cost. The Chinese have no doubt not forgotten the humiliations heaped upon them by European nations in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Their leaders must think it a wondrous thing that those same nations are now so willing to destroy their economies in the name of net zero, while apparently believing China’s hollow promises to do the same. Revenge is a dish best served cold, even if it does occasionally reach 52.2C in remote parts of China.