N.T.M. · :–DOI ./s---Published online March © Springer International Publishing

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�German Water Infrastructurein China: Colonial Qingdao1898–1914Agnes Kneitz

Deutsche Wasserinfrastruktur in China: Das koloniale Qingdao 1898–1914

Im bunten Flickenteppich der überseeischen Besitzungen, die das Deutsche Reich während seiner kurzenLebenszeit zusammenfügte, sticht das deutsch-chinesische Qingdao heraus, da es im Vergleich zu den Be-sitzungen in Afrika eine andere Funktion erfüllte – vor allem aufgrund seiner modellhaft angelegten Wasserin-frastruktur. Das Reichsmarineamt, dem die Verwaltung der zukünftigen „Hafenkolonie“ – zunächst kaum mehrals ein Fischerdorf – oblag, hatte bei der Implementierung dieses Vorhabens ein bemerkenswertes Maß anFreiheit. Die deutsche Regierung investierte zudem enorme Summen, um China und der Welt seine techno-kulturellen Errungenschaften vorzuführen. Dabei griff man massiv auf die natürlichen Ressourcen des bergigenHinterlandes zurück. Dieser Beitrag fokussiert auf die Wasserinfrastruktur von Qingdao sowie deren Rolle fürdie öffentliche Gesundheit und weitere Erschließung des Großraumes. Dabei werden nicht nur Ambivalenzender Wasserinfrastruktur als „tool of empire“ an Hand von empirischem Material aufgezeigt. Vor allem geht derBeitrag – in Anlehnung an das Konzept des „urbanen Metabolismus“ – ihren ökologischen Auswirkungen nach,speziell der landschaftlichen Transformation der umliegenden Berge sowie ihre Folgen für den Wasserhaushaltder Region. Es wird dabei die These vertreten, dass ökologische Veränderungen eine wesentlich größere Rollebei der Bewertung kolonialer Unternehmungen spielen sollten.

Schlüsselwörter: China, Deutsches Kaiserreich, Infrastruktur, Wasser, Forstwesen

Within the colorful tapestry of colonial possessions the German empire acquired over the short period of its ex-istence, Qingdao stands out because it fulfilled a different role from settlements in Africa—especially becauseof its exemplary planned water infrastructure: its technological model, the resulting (public) hygiene, and theadjunct brewery. The National Naval Office (Reichsmarineamt), which oversaw the administration of the future“harbour colony”—at first little more than a little fishing village—enjoyed a remarkable degree of freedom inimplementing this project. The German government invested heavily in showing off its techno-cultural achieve-ments to China and the world and thereby massively exploited the natural resources of the mountainous inte-rior. This contribution focuses on Qingdao’s water infrastructure and its role in public hygiene and further areadevelopment. This article will not only use new empirical evidence to demonstrate that the water infrastructurewas an ambivalent “tool of empire”. Relying on the concept of “urban metabolism,” this paper primarily tracesthe ecological consequences, particularly the landscape transformation of the mountains surrounding the bayand the implications for the region’s water resources. When evaluating colonial enterprises, changes in localecology should play a significantly greater role.

Keywords: China, German Empire, Infrastructure, Water, Forestry

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Scouting—The Overseas Territory

When the German colonial administration initiated urban developmentin Qingdao ( ) in , China had just adopted a discourse on publichealth and Western medicine for its reform efforts (Rogaski ). Influ-enced by everyday encounters with foreign practices in the internationalconcessions all over China, this would eventually result in a “sanitizedmodernity” similar to what has been described for other parts of Asia(Arnold : ). Among the Western settlements that had been forcedonto the Qing Empire, Qingdao stands out. The city was designed so asto demonstrate the German empire’s technological superiority, ultimatelyturning its infrastructure into an export good for the Chinese market thatthe Western forces aspired to penetrate. It aimed at providing solutions for“bacteriological cities” (Gandy : ), and although the Qing Empirewas at most only semi-colonized, infrastructure thus became an every-day “tool of empire.” Gift-wrapped as a commodity, it was presented withcomplimentary customized technological and sanitary values (Reddy cited after van Laak : ).

Water pipes, canals, and drainage provide a city’s invisible supportivenetwork. In this basic function they also directed historical Qingdao’s ma-terial flows, and connected the town ecologically to its hinterland in a waythat makes it impossible to tell either story without the other (Cronon). Therefore, the article evokes to the concept of “urban metabolism”as a metaphor to address the changes Qingdao inflicted on the locallandscape. This allows to describe social and bio-physical interactionsin and between different systems in all their complexity (Gandy ).I am interested in how differences in regional urban material and energyflows—which become apparent when comparing European and Asian stylecities (Weber : )—may have been affected by transplanting Westerninfrastructures into Asian environments. A classical “tool of empire” bynature (Headrick ), Qingdao’s sophisticated water infrastructure wasdesigned as a purchasable and replicable foundation for human well-be-ing. Its creators aspired to establish a technical role-model amelioratingeveryday life in the crumbling Qing Empire (Scott : ): technologyhad become an intrinsic part of Germany’s “cultural mission”. But silentlyand almost invisibly, this infrastructure also segregated the city along linesof class and race, leading to echeloned standards of public hygiene.

This particular intersection between environmental and social historyis an important path upon which German imperialist expansion needsto be revisited to assess its role within the current framework of globalhistorical approaches (Conrad ). Previous research on Qingdao hasalready investigated related structural issues such as the role of railroad

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�politics for areal development (Schmidt ) or the importance of landtenure as a tool for governance (Matzat ). Other studies have ap-plied a dependency-orientated approach when investigating its role in theKaiserreich’s colonial politics (Albertini ; Naumann-Schultz ). Thecity’s unique status as a “model colony,” however, was not addressed un-til (Leutner ). The centennial sparked a new wave of literatureon Qingdao, including an edited volume by the German Historical Mu-seum in Berlin that addresses Qingdao’s distinct politics against its Chinesehistorical background (Hinz ), as well as several dissertations. Thesehave brought forward the idea of a distinct German-Chinese colonial ar-chitectural style (Lind ) or highlighted the impact of foreign rule onChinese cultural change through the perspective of Qingdao’s institutions(Biener ). Among these, Torsten Warner’s PhD dissertation is of par-ticular importance (Warner ) which investigates Qingdao’s planningand development in relation to other foreign settlements with a focus onreciprocal effects sparked by cultural exchange. This book has becomea standard work in Chinese, initiating more follow-up studies, for exampleon Qingdao’s “hut villages” that remain hot spots of development to thisvery day (Zhan ). Recent studies approach social, cultural and every-day history in Qingdao, including racial problems, cultural differences, orgender issues (Leutner ), but also jurisdiction and civil administra-tion (Mühlhahn ), economic politics and trade (Herold ), or newapproaches to colonial politics (Mühlhahn ), as well as a study aboutQingdao’s hospitals and their development under different governments(Vögele ).

None of these studies, however, focuses on environmental history orsystematically discusses human-environmental relations. Taking up thischallenge, my paper incorporates nature as a common denominator ina study on culture and place in the broadest sense (Ferguson ). Wa-ter infrastructure makes an interesting study object through its practicalfunction that distinctly connects humans with their environment by sup-porting their most important and intimate bodily functions. The mostpromising sources to address Qingdao’s infrastructural development arethe government’s annual reports, covering the fiscal years from October to September . These were used to communicate with the polit-ical and economic stakeholders at home. Their composition allows inter-pretations regarding the importance of different topics in the colonialist’sday-to-day operations as well as the overall colonial project. The annualreports are part of the colonial government’s official records that are keptby the German Federal Military Archive in Freiburg. Some of these pa-pers are also held in copy by the Qingdao Municipal Archives, featuringindividual episodes of development, such as the water system’s construc-

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tion management. In contrast to these German resources that also havebeen employed for the previous studies on Qingdao, so far no significantChinese-language accounts of the city’s founding years could be identified.Admittedly, this imbalance of written sources calls for a clarification ofthe paper’s potentials and limits. While it does not allow for first-hand ac-counts of perceptions and attitudes towards Qingdao’s water infrastructureof the local Chinese population, the German corpus offers rich materialto analyze the city-nature relationship. This paper is part of a larger bookproject, which will supplement the accounts of the occupying forces witha survey of foreign language newspapers as well as social and technical doc-uments. What is striking about the documents from the German colonialadministration is an intense focus on—almost an obsession with—hygieneand the promises of water engineering and forest management, they grantfar-reaching insights into the landscape changes induced by the city andits development.

This is the point of departure of this paper: it provides a detailed accountof the measures the German colonizers took in building a new, “hygienic”settlement from scratch, as well as the environmental responses to andeffects of this ambitious attempt of urban development. It furthermoreoutlines the geographical and social conditions that imprinted the scope forengineering and urban planning. Focusing in particular on the social andenvironmental relations/sides of infrastructure development, it then tracesthe implementation of a water infrastructure that was originally designedfor a European context in its specific local colonial form and setting incolonial China. In the last chapter, the paper extends the perspective toQingdao’s hinterland, highlighting non-human, non-technological actorsand their influence on engineering and urban planning.

Infrastructures are a crucial link between nature and human civilization;colonial rule and everyday life; rich and poor; as well as state and economy,and certainly belong to the most powerful institutions in recent human his-tory. As part of colonial development projects, they compellingly signifycontinuous (re)negotiation of space and natural resources by human andnon-human actors alike (Ertsen : ). Once implemented, however,they are taken for granted, and thus prone to oblivion—including histori-cal research (van Laak : f.). In some cases, this may be attributedto their actual existence under ground. Bearing in mind that political his-tory can never be detached from ecological history, this paper investigatesgovernment’s actions to create a modern technological model within anenvironment that has not always been supportive in social, political, andnatural matters. In this case, Qingdao’s from scratch development vividlyillustrates how colonial forestry and water politics were ecologically en-twined and interdependent. Hence, in this paper I am going to sketch the

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�construction of Qingdao’s water infrastructure as related to geographicalpredispositions, introducing its stakeholders and limits. Rather than fore-grounding the system’s physical materiality, it reflects on tensions betweentopography and city design, technology and society, especially public healthand equality. The paper also introduces another set of non-human actorsinto this story on environmental changes by technology: trees, which al-most formed a symbiotic relationship with the infrastructure. Together, this“envirotechnical system” (Pritchard & Zeller ) profoundly impacted onQingdao’s local economy and ecology, changing the area’s overall develop-ment way beyond the Germans’ departure. By bringing together the topicsof infrastructure, colonialism, and environment, the article highlights thevital importance of analyzing changes in local environments, especially thewater regime that followed the transfer of infrastructure from the Europeto the colonial world.

Mapping—The Area’s Geography

Starting in , an expedition led by Ferdinand von Richthofen hadscouted the coasts of the Yellow Sea for the European-American Cham-ber of Trade, which would later allow him to identify Qingdao as a po-tential base and strategic ice-free harbor for the German navy in China(Richthofen : f.). Ironically, Chinese reformers had considered thevery same location in the Jiaozhou ( ) Bay as a possible fortificationagainst Western intervention in (ibid.: f.), yet the dying QingEmpire’s increasing instability, which would fall within the next decade,averted their attention. That very same year, Admiral von Tirpitz pressedforward a naval bill promoting quick decision-making (Herold : f.),thus allowing Germany’s annexation of a small tip of the Shandong ( )peninsula following a Chinese assault on the Divine Word (aka Steyler)Missionaries in the area. The occupation was hastily legalized by a lease.At that time, development plans, including land development, harbor con-struction, outline of water pipes and streets, or afforestation, had alreadybeen finalized; its hydrological capacity and functionality been assessed.

Like all of Southwest China, the Shandong peninsula is influenced bythe East-Asian monsoons. During summer, southerly winds from the seabring warmth and humidity, whereas winter is defined by cold and dry con-tinental ones. Historical temperatures range between zero degrees Celsiusin January and degrees in August, and were considered as mild in com-parison to the Chinese mainland. Humidity, however, varied greatly (be-tween and per cent). Qingdao’s climate was thus often perceived as

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uncomfortable despite almost tropical summers with relatively little wind,and warm temperatures. A mediating factor for weather and climate arethe surrounding mountains, namely the western foothills of Laoshan ( ),that also marked the boundaries for the city’s outline (Eckart : ).The so-called “Pearl Mountains” line up along the coast and divide the areanaturally into smaller sections. They provided the prospective city terri-tory with a natural watershed that would later help to mitigate miasma-based European “environmental anxieties” concerning harmful influencesof alien germs and environments on the Caucasian body (Beattie ).

Germany’s colonial encyclopedia nostalgically depicts Shandong’smountains rising out of the North-China plains like an island. Thin sedi-mentary layers contrasted a coherent mountain range of mostly old sedi-ments like basalt and granite (Wang et al. ). Coarse-grained, porous,and fissured topsoil had bad filtering qualities, subsequently making thehard-based peaks prone to erosion, looking rugged. Only few plants wouldfind enough hold, and during the seasonal rainfalls large amounts of soilflowed through the mountains’ dried-out riverbeds. Within their sedi-ments—often compared to the Southern Alps in Italy—water trickled awayquickly, keeping them dry except for one or two days after heavy weather(Schnee ). But to the annoyance of the engineers, even light rain wouldoccasionally turn creeks into torrential waters that regularly scoured thecolony’s railway paths (Mühlhahn : ). As in other colonial enter-prises, warnings by the native inhabitants to pay attention to the area’snatural history had been generally ignored for the sake of cheaper bridge-building. Yet this ignorance of local knowledge eventually resulted in dou-bled or tripled costs due to repair and reconstruction works.

With few proper rivers in the area, most waters fed subterraneanouslyinto the ocean, and water supply depended on wells. Over the centuries,their tapping had become sophisticated enough to support agriculture, andhorticulture in particular (Stenz : ). Hence, the lush orchards of localpeasants indicated to foreign developers that forestry was a profitable en-terprise. It further seemed to suggest that the bare mountain backs werea result of Chinese mismanagement, which resonated with a degeneratedinfrastructure of an economically idle area devoid of industry that hadfallen prey to tax-hungry authorities (Stenz : ). Based on contempo-rary knowledge of soil properties, trees were subsequently planted in theJiaozhou Bay hills to increase the general moisture level. Moreover the treeshad the welcome side effect of additional economic value in promoting theprotectorate’s self-sufficiency—while actually and primarily responding toGerman aesthetic and nostalgic needs. But they also held a variety ofunintended ecological consequences.

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�The spatially open design of Qingdao’s defense lines, caused by a moun-tainous geography (Zhan : ), is one aspect in which it varied signif-icantly from other colonial and Chinese cities, and one that supports cat-egorizing it as a frontier city. The volition to shape it as a completely newmodel city was quite exceptional, though such an enterprise was admittedlyseldom feasible or sensible in other locations (Osterhammel : ).And as a matter of fact, Kiaochow Bay would become an enormous finan-cial stress factor for the German treasury, provoking heated parliamen-tary debates during its short existence. With , million Reichsmark in expenses were so high that the sheer amount explains the significantdifference in development compared to other German colonies (Warner: ); local taxes only contributed , Reichsmark. But the Ger-man Emperor had decided that his country’s future lay waterborne, andhis glorified navy as the governing body seems to have mitigated Qingdao’sperception as a deterrent example. Within an average annual budget of itsearly settlement years, about , million Reichsmark went into devel-oping infrastructure. The water supply system and related undergroundengineering consumed the lion’s share of this, including costs for humanresources. After , with the opening of a large-scale centralized water-works, costs gradually decreased as its maintenance costs only amountedto , Reichsmark.

Designing—The Project Landscape

The “colonial city” as such was a typical contemporary form usually rep-resented in South East Asia in the shape of a port. Different blends ofEuropean and non-European styles in urban structure and constructionfollowed imperial expansion, with a trade harbor at the settlement’s heart.Thus it is easy to follow the architectural traces of Europe around theglobe (Osterhammel : ). In this respect Qingdao did not differmuch from other outposts, but given its unique possibility to invent it-self, it could take liberties in building style that almost developed intoa “German-Chinese-Overseas-Style,” as the close inspection of its histori-cal buildings suggests (Lind ). As in other foreign settlements, thesestylistically mixed forms were often strategically used to express culturalopenness (Warner : ).

Within the framework of Europe’s self-proclaimed civilizing mission inAsia, Germany envisaged the Qingdao “model colony” as a life-size ob-ject of study for reform-willing locals. The infrastructural developmentplan connected the city with its overseas harbor to coal mines and po-

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tential trading partners in the hinterland; projected to eventually feed intoChina’s inland trade routes. For that purpose, an infrastructural networkwas established that consisted of water and sewage treatment, gas andelectricity supply, agriculture, forestry, and mining, as well as roads andrailroads to aggregate resources in the bay area. The latter second-hand-edly placed massive pressure on the surrounding environment in a way thatis typical for quickly urbanized cities (Cronon ). Given their strate-gic economic importance, developing the Shandong Mining and ShandongRailway Associations (which were financed by corporate shareholders) hadpriority. Industrial growth, however, was limited to small and mid-sizecompanies with often bi-national capital basis, as no large private enter-prises/entrepreneurs invested in Qingdao.

The colony’s economic progress and general development are mirroredin the increasing fragmentation of the government’s annual reports. Thedocuments’ basic structure remains unchanged but supplements individualchapters on education and science (including meteorological observation),water supply, farming, and forestry. Here the administrators’ educationalbackground shines through, who valued forestry as an integral part of thecameral sciences (Beattie : ). The memorandum, for example,reports on water supply and afforestation together, emphasizing the rela-tionship between forest cover and hydrologic balance. Scientific knowl-edge often informed infrastructural planning (Bennett & Hodge ). AsJames Beattie has laid out for South Asia, German-style forestry as a stateadministered applied science often translated directly into colonial politics(Beattie : ). A firm belief in water engineering, scientific forestry,and landscape management had become second nature to the Germansby the end of the nineteenth century, both in the Kaiserreich as well asoverseas (Blackbourn : ).

In “an age dominated by agricultural values,” so Donald Worster, “turn-ing land to productive use was an unquestioned cultural imperative”(: ). After having mastered the Rhine, turning the unfamiliar, bareChinese landscape into a forested green jewel epitomizes a peak of engi-neering optimism without comparison to any other German territory. Thismight be related to the naval officers’ enthusiasm in developing their port.But similar to the arid West of the United States of America where “coor-dinated triumph over scarcity through technology” (ibid.) lay at the coreof progress, German engineering had turned technology into culture, andperceived water works as “culture works” in its self-assigned imperialistmission (Blackbourn : ). By the end of the century, infrastructurehad evolved into a political parameter that was measured in assets suchas transportation costs. Macroeconomic theory had reduced its intrinsicvalue to only one of many location factors (van Laak : ).

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�Immediately after seizing the bay, Qingdao’s construction as a militarypost began on the site of an old fishing village. Similar to Rio de Janeiro orCape Town, both “early modern innovation in previously non urban set-tings,” it can be classified as “frontier city” (Osterhammel : ). In histravel accounts, Ferdinand von Richthofen evoked similar images (Leutner: ). The city’s development as a whole designated non-white, non-European residents to participate only as subordinates, or even instru-ments of conquest. Here, water infrastructure became an invisible dualsystem and contributed to the so-called “rule of difference” in governancethat George Steinmetz finds applied in Qingdao despite its semi-colonizedstate (Steinmetz : ). And with it, sanitary practices derived fromcontemporary European discourse (Allen-Emmerson et al. ) never randry as a source of cultural clashes. Almost every foreign visitor mentionedsuch (i.e. Penck ; Tirpitz ), which eventually contributed to spark-ing a Chinese discourse on public hygiene (Rogaski : ). For Qingdao,these discussions became fundamental to its overall development plan, yetresulting in spatial segregation (Mühlhahn : ).

Like for any other place chosen as a strategic node, water infrastructurewas vital for Qingdao: its annual report refers to the water system asthe city’s most important feature, especially concerning the colonial body’spublic health. Health and public hygiene had proven to be sore spots in allforeign settlements in China. Now Germany saw its opportunity to rise andshine. In engineering affine circles, technology had become identical withculture (Blackbourn ). The wife to an envoy in Beijing predicted thatsoon the Chinese would prefer the comfort deriving from modern West-ern technology in an European-style city to that of their own (Leutner: ). In general, the military was trained and experienced in design-ing infrastructure for strategic reasons: as tools for imperial governance.German colonialists thus held the belief that Qingdao’s water system wouldturn out more sophisticated and durable than one constructed by civil engi-neers. Due to the German navy’s strict hierarchical and centrally managedinternal organization, an on-base execution was moreover expected to bemore structured and efficient.

Since the s, in the aftermath of the traumatic experiences such asthe Opium Wars or the Taiping Rebellion, the Prussian military had sup-ported China in advancing its military to Western standards. Its resultingreputation possibly added value and credibility to Qingdao as an enter-prise and model project. By deploying the navy the German Kaiserreichthus acted as an entrepreneur, financing the entire infrastructure as fu-ture investment (van Laak : ). Although railroads were part of thisenterprise, Qingdao’s case differed significantly from the “railway imperial-ism” that relied heavily on natural resource extraction (Robinson : ).

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It seems that compared to Africa, technology itself was seen as a moresustainable export good and marketing tool, stimulating the interest ofthe Qing government’s reform-oriented groups in German expertise. Inthe wake of the revolutionary events of /, many wealthy Chinesepeople relocated to Qingdao diffusing cultural binaries, but even more im-portantly: they experienced the city’s infrastructural amenities first-hand,thus impacting positively on appropriating related knowledge and exper-tise. When the provisional president of the new Republic of China, SunYat-sen, visited the city to learn about its institutions, he apparently said:“Qingdao pleased me extraordinarily. It is the model system of a city forfuture China” (Naumann-Schultz : ). This statement resonates withSteinmetz’s observation that colonial rule was gradually transformed into“some sort of colonial partnership” (Steinmetz : ).

Fitting—The Aesthetic Casting Mold

Yet before this vision became reality, “the German Blue Jackets [coll. forthe Marines] had busily plumbed and sketched along the coast of thedirty Yellow Sea, and indeed identified some beautiful suntraps” (Stenz: ). Resonating with popular imagination of colonial environments,their vision of Qingdao seems to have been envisioned as an overseasversion of the newly built marine port of Wilhelmshaven. This NorthernGerman city was the German emperor’s new North Sea harbor that grewconcurrently with the navy itself, designed as a model for water works,landscape engineering, and ship building (Blackbourn : ). Bothcities shared technical and architectural leaders, such as Georg Gromsch(–), a civil servant who had led planning and construction workin Germany before his overseas deployment (Warner : ). Qing-dao’s leading architect and survey engineer, Georg Franzius (–)also sought inspiration from Hong Kong—its “beautiful design with forestand ponds, promenades and a racing court” that he planned to imitate(ibid.: ). For an overseas military hub, the health of soldiers was evenmore important. With a flawlessly designed, centralized water system—thenavy’s idea—poor sanitation would become an issue of the past, while atthe same time addressing the challenge of tropical, often epidemic diseases(Eckart : ).

Besides the German predilection for mastering landscapes (actually aninterest they shared with the Chinese), and their hope to outshine previousforeign settlements in China, the meticulous planning of Qingdao’s watersupply to guarantee public health was strongly connected to experiences

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�during its first year of settlement in . Diphtheria, a typhoid epidemic,and other bowel infections were haunting the fledgling colony, drivingup mortality rates, despite the official propaganda of a climate beneficialfor European bodies. During the same year, an unexpectedly dry summeralso firstly showcased the environmental limitations of Shandong province,endangering the city’s drinking water supply and public hygiene. In early, the Qingdao government reported that all diseases occurring at thispoint were problematic to every colonial settlement in its early stage ofdevelopment. By finalizing the infrastructure, however, these issues wereto be overcome, and the “epidemiological costs” that were an inherent partof colonial discourse could be kept low (Beattie : ). Yet it soundslike whistling in the dark when the report points out how flourishingHong Kong had to fight even more severe hygienic conditions in its earlydays than Qingdao at that point.

(Dis)connecting—The Colonial Bodies

The increasing number of bowel infections during summer time could belinked to Shandong’s hot and humid monsoon climate, as documented inthe medical report, where the overall mortality rate was three timesas high than the previous year. The severity and large scale of these out-breaks were considered the result of “unfavourable sanitary conditions”.Impoverished people from all over the province, who had pushed into thecity for work, and ended up in dirty and overcrowded housing, were iden-tified as the reason for the epidemic spreads (Zhan : f.). Becauseof their spare use of water, “pre-modern” sanitary and medical practices,most foreigners considered the locals to be unclean and unhealthy. Theirstoic acceptance of epidemic lethality may have enforced prejudices. Evenmany Chinese people regarded migrant workers as a health and socialproblem. According to the memoranda, “soil contamination and thus re-lated insufficient water supply” caused diseases, especially when combinedwith “inadequate living conditions”. Such solidified prejudices silently sup-ported relating governmental sanctions, such as demolishing all previouslyexisting traditional housing on a wet contagious ground soil.

Theoretically, most potential health hazards were eradicated by early. Qingdao’s new outline then divided the settlement into an Euro-pean town (Qingdao proper), a Chinese town (Dabaodao), and a village forChinese workers (Zhan : ). The center of the European town wasplaced south at the tip of the peninsula, the so-called “outer roads” (Außen-rheede), and with the big harbor to the north on the “inner roads” (Innen-

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Fig. 1 Land Register Map of Qingdao Proper (http://www.tsingtau.org/kataster-karten-tsingtau-1914/katasterkarte-tsingtau-zentrum)

rheede) (Fig. ). The Chinese town of Dabaodao lay halfway in between,where its affluents would neither contaminate the European town, nor theharbor bay as the natural watershed protected both. The pathogenicallymost dangerous workers’ villages were projected northeast and southwestof the city center (Warner : ). Even though racial and ethnic sepa-ration was a standard practice in most colonial settlements, it was harderto realize in a city that had grown naturally before foreign occupation(Osterhammel ), and for Qingdao’s construction, the few previouslyexisting buildings were torn down. MacFarlane’s analysis of infrastructureand sanitation in colonial Bombay, for example, tells a similar story ofremoving Indian living quarters that were considered as dangerous andrebuilding segregated housing to mitigate infectious spreads (MacFarlane: ).

This means a social and cultural division between Europeans and Chi-nese was established and extended to the latter’s different sociFal groups.Although colonizers were rarely among themselves, with native servantsand members in the colonial enforcement, Qingdao’s rigid separation ofliving quarters for the sake of public hygiene must be interpreted in the dis-course of “subordination and superordination” (Osterhammel : ).It was a visible materialization of a “rule of difference,” enforced by a seg-regated legal system (Steinmetz : ). The colonial administration

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�commissioned construction in the European town to German firms estab-lished in Shanghai, and to individual landlords in Dabaodao. But it tookresponsibility for accommodating the Chinese workforce in “the village”that was crucial for the success of the whole enterprise, trying to pro-vide new living quarters that would meet traditional style housing halfway(Warner : ). Additional building regulations addressed problemsconnected to overcrowding as perceived elsewhere in China. These werenot only concerned with the organized removal of excrements but alsoprescribed a minimum room volume per person (Matzat ).

Such a strict segregation between European and Chinese quarters di-vided by the harbor, and the surrounding workers villages involved theformation of slums right from the beginning (Zhan : ) For planningthe water and sanitation infrastructure, however, this spatial and socialsegregation had advantages. For a centralized system, the city’s geographicpartition yet meant to segment into three almost independent circuits.These needed to be compatible but could have different technological stan-dards. Thus, water flows could be directed for affluents not to merge, andmost importantly to not influence each other’s quality. The water systemitself featured three separate parts for each section: rainwater, wastewater,and sewage canals. Depending on the area and local soil condition, thesecould run open or underground. Once the construction pits were closed,the underground waterways remained invisible reminders of differencesbetween the two primary groups of the population, even when individualstransgressed these boundaries.

Differences also manifested in building material: underground sewageclay pipes had a diameter of centimeter, smaller cement pipes one of to centimeter, similar to the bricks lining open canals. Three cate-gories of substances can be distinguished: wood, imported from Asia forconstruction aids until the Qingdao forests had grown sufficiently; bricks,burnt near the construction sites; and metal ware exclusively importedfrom Germany, which accounted for a huge cost factor. Lloyd shipping’sregular passages secured cargo multiple times per year, a requirement therelatively small navy could not have satisfied itself. The construction orderwas sequenced from freshwater to rainwater to wastewater pipes. After be-coming operational, the individual stretches were connected. ProvidingEuropean living quarters with clean drinking water was the first objective.With relatively little precipitation for most of the year, run-off was merelyan inconvenience, but excrements were collected in buckets by Chinesecontractors and thus remained a potential health risk. Finalizing the coresystem in Qingdao proper in resulted in the jubilant official noticethat no further case of typhoid fever had occurred since. When the fresh

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Fig. 2 “Roads and electrical lines at the Edge of Qingdao” (German Federal MilitaryArchive, Freiburg i.Br.: BArch MSG 2 17197 A071)

water pipes finally reached Chinese workers’ quarters five years later, theyarrived with public washing places that were allegedly used “happily”.

Although core systems were established as soon as , none of thethree circuits was ever finished entirely, as the pipes represented urbangrowth involving foundation work. All other infrastructure could be co-constructed (with minimal delay) to ensure the most convenient livingstandard for colonial forces, civil residents, and their visitors. Electricity,electrical and petroleum streetlights had been already operational in ,and successively expanded along with the road system (Fig. ). Once Qing-dao’s Beach Hotel and High Altitude Camp opened in , the city’ssuccessful outreach was measured in the number of summer guests. Itwas not until Japan occupied the equally nicely designed, but little forti-fied Russian-Chinese town of Dalian that construction in Qingdao finallyslowed down. The water infrastructure then lay silently underground, butnot prone to be forgotten as the vein-system still needed first-aid amends.

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�Digging—The Cultural Gap

From a modern perspective, the city’s technological differentiation seemsmotivated by at least some degree of eco-racism. Ethnic groups were ex-posed to environmental risks and hazards in unequal ways, based on theirsocial and racial status (Melosi ). To a great extent, Qingdao’s out-line simply responded to the bay’s topography and geology. Streets andpipes were co-constructed, and the annual reports repeatedly mention howthe hard granite and basalt base interfered with implementing the high-est technological standard of subterranean pipes all over. This favoredan economic decision for the most hygienic yet cost effective solution:in Dabaodao’s drainage canals were led above ground, but undergroundin Qingdao proper. To address these “intercultural sanitary-issues” whilekeeping rising costs at bay, the engineers conceptualized two independentsystems that only ran together in the gulf; the settlement(s) for Chineseworkers were not connected to it. It is undeniable that Shandong’s in-frastructural tabula rasa resulted in a two-class drainage system. And it isundeniable that this decision was influenced by sanitary standards beingdifferently perceived by foreigners and locals. De facto, it resulted in a formof environmental inequality that distributed environmental risks unevenlyamong the city’s social groups. Especially in the unplanned slums, prob-lems of public hygiene were eminent but seldom systematically addressed(Zhan ). Bad public health as a result of soil conditions and geographywas a universal, democratic problem of foreign settlements in China, oftena result of unsuitable land that had been allocated by the Chinese localgovernments to foreigners on purpose (Warner : ). Eco-racism asgeographical, environmental inequity thus actually worked both ways.

A deep fear of soil contamination and related epidemics persisted asa plea for Qingdao’s spatial segregation, that according to medical historianWolfgang Eckart even culminated in a “segregation hysteria” (Abgrenzungs-hysterie, : ). The main thorns in the government’s side were insuf-ficient Chinese hygienic practices, especially wild defecation, despite somenewly constructed public toilets. National differences are occasionallymentioned in the government reports on sanitation, and it seems it judgedworkers in general, herewith merely extending the domestic attitude to-wards lower classes to a new group of subordinates: The people accusedof bad hygienic behavior were mostly impoverished landless workers or“kulis,” who executed all the construction work (that was administered bythe navy, but facilitated by civil servant engineers and contracted by localinternational companies). In pre-revolutionary China public collection ofexcrements secured fertilizer for agriculture, a practice only slowly aban-doned with the introduction of water closets and artificial fertilizer (Cao

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: ). In Qingdao, this shift took place shortly after (Eckart: ), indeed facilitated by its infrastructural framework. It is possi-ble that poor (landless) Chinese natives in Qingdao did not appreciate thevalue of their remains, did not consider that foreigners would appreciatethem, or simply did not care about polluting someone else’s property. Thesame problem had been reported in Beijing and other Chinese cities. Ina sustainable practice excrement-carrying waters were additionally used toprevent streets from dusting (Rogaski ); a sight that certainly fosteredboth racial prejudices as well as environmental anxieties.

One way or another, the local soil properties made contaminationa problem. Were pathogens washed into the ground water, they couldtrickle into unprotected wells. Before Qingdao’s central water supply wasfinalized, these were the only sources of potable water, but none of themwere protected against inflow, posing a health hazard following heavyrainfalls. But medical orders to use only boiled water so as to prevent thespread of bowel infections were being ignored. Eventually, contaminationof public spaces became a punishable offence, and regulations enforced bythe help of native facilitators. A drinking water-supply, declared unobjec-tionable and beneficial to people’s health in a memorandum of , wasnot only to be provided by a centralized pipe system, and was supposed bethe colonial government’s primary concern alongside wastewater canalsand strict regulations for excrement collection. Once finished, drink-ing water pipes could be tapped from public fountains all over Qingdaoproper and later Dabaodao. Water quality was tested every four weeks atthe bacteriological station, and its results filled pages in the memoranda,accounting for its importance to the government.

While establishing the city’s drinking water supply turned out rela-tively easy, dealing with sewage proved much more complex. This wasprimarily related to the role proper sewage systems played for maintainingpublic health, and the fact that navy doctors were convinced that large-scale earthworks contributed to the spread of diseases, especially typhusabdominalis. During Qingdao’s first phase of development from to, large quantities of potentially sewage-contaminated soil were movedaround town, and the soldiers and workers, who came in direct contactwith pathogens, spread them around. Based on the perceived intimateconnection between soil and water, pathogens and health, the hospital’swater supply was thus designed as another semi-independent circuit withinthe city: an electro-powered pressure drain pipe from the closest well, witha discharge connection to the European town’s water system. Here, thehighest technological standard was not only a means of displaying techno-cultural superiority, but of proving the best medical care possible for de-ployed soldiers (Eckart : ).

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�Gasping—At Unintended Consequences

Since their emergence over the last years, physical metaphors havemost commonly been used to underline the importance of infrastructurefor settlements and civilizations (van Laak : ), as pipes and canalsare the “veins” of a city. In the case of Qingdao, three continuously ex-panding circuits connected to the hinterland continuously pumped freshwater in and used water out of the system. But the initial shift from wellsto pipes—from local to supra-local system—had made Qingdao’s ecologyand water supply vulnerable. The well-meant intention to improve publichygiene soon turned into boon and bane for the city. The decade follow-ing occupation noted a decline in lethal bowel infections and epidemicoutbreaks, but all kinds of dysenteries remained part of everyday life asWolfgang Eckart has described in his medical history (Eckart : f.).In particular, medical reports and observations from the meteorologicalobservatory indicate correlations between summer rainfall with high tem-peratures and the vulnerability of the colonial body. During early and latesummer, infections tended to increase. And although bowel bacteria ofnewcomers often needed time to adapt (ibid.), an immediate link exited tothe sanitary infrastructure. is the first year reported with no typhoidfever in Qingdao; still notes the absence of infections, but they re-mained endemic in Shandong province. For this, the benefits of the city’srigid separation of living quarters served as an explanation. Still, afflu-ents washed into the bay unfiltered along with pathogens for all kinds ofdiseases, exposing the limits of even “optimally” segregated water systems.Unfortunately, Qingdao’s geography only allowed for limited possibilitiesof sewage treatment. Along the lower stretches of rivers and pipes closeto the bay, for example, distances between suitable plains and connectingtubes were too long to realize irrigation fields. In turn, this lack of watertreatment caused problems for the freshwater supply.

Before the construction of a centralized large-scale water supply system,the local Chinese settlements had relied on wells. Their supply, however,reacted rather sensitively to stresses on the hydrological regime. The year already experienced a drought that was apparently caused by climaticfluctuation, but intensified by an increased water use through construc-tion works and inflowing population. Initially, brickyards located close to(Chinese) living quarters were thought causal to drying up some wellscompletely. New wells needed digging and provisions made for futuredry periods. By removing the old Chinese town and the resultant move ofthe brickyards, notably eased this tension (Zhan ) despite marginalrainfalls over the next years. Unfortunately, the sources do not allow anestimate of whether the problem of drying wells was merely relocated to

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the new workers’ villages, resulting in environmental discrimination, orwhether the problem disappeared naturally with a rising ground water ta-ble. The government considered a dammed pond, a dam, or even anaqueduct from the Laoshan Mountains as supplementary to the futurecentral water supply. While the former two options were to form an entitywith other measures to collect ground and rainwater, its high costs desig-nated it as an emergency option. Besides, estimates from stated thatone of the more basic structures would provide service and drinking waterfor Qingdao in sufficient quantity and quality.

The fresh water demand of a population growing by several thousandsrather than hundreds of Chinese and Europeans rapidly overstrained thebrand-new infrastructure connected to the old wells. In , a new drink-ing water plant from the Licun River was projected together with a newpumping station. The official headcount notes , civilian Euro-peans (and Americans under the same category), Japanese and In-dians in addition to , Chinese. Together, they consumed an annualtotal of , cubicmeter water ( per cent more than in ) througha pipe network of ,meter (about per cent longer than in ), fa-cilitated by both stable and provisional pressure tubes (about per cent).By , Qingdao’s fresh water supply needed backing from dams and em-bankments further up Laoshan, as the growth of population did not slowdown. By this time, its water infrastructure had become a sophisticatednetwork of river and waterside wells that could be regulated in synchronywith each other in response to dry periods, heavy rainfall or flooding.Drinking water supply for the Chinese population, especially the workers,remained insufficient; and their sewage pipes were not connected until. Before Chinese houses were connected to the central water pipes,inhabitants had to supply themselves from “water stations”, that is, a freshwater distribution system similar to that of old Chinese cities. An exampleof environmental injustice or even racism based on the unequal access toclean environmental resources. In response to acknowledged weak spotsin sewage treatment, protective constructions were implemented aroundcoastal wells, whose water quality was tested more often during the rainyseason when overflowing was more frequent.

Since the beginning of its urbanization, Qingdao had undergone severalstages to enlarge its infrastructural capacities. Starting from a few hundredEuropeans and Chinese, the age-old attractions of urban settlements, likework opportunities or better living conditions, had increased its populationto approximately , Europeans and , Chinese inhabitants withinthe first decade. In response to such a demand, both land developmentand infrastructural planning had been amended several times within thefirst five years, and the government paid attention to extending its sophis-

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�ticated pipe system accordingly. These measures, however, only addressedissues in Qingdao proper and Dabaodao, but excluded the workers’ townsand villages where about , of the , Chinese inhabitants livedin (Zhan : ); and they were still insufficient to solve all water-related problems. Alongside the residential areas where brick productionremained a bottomless pit for water consumption, Qingdao’s industry hadbecome demanding, and public water works were already unable to meetthat demand in . With the finalization of infrastructure supportingthe core of the colony and connecting it to the hinterland, it had trans-formed the city into a busy marketplace by (Mühlhahn : ).

had also seen the opening of a brewery and a mineral water fac-tory. Germania Brew would strain the water supply by pumping massiveamounts of its natural resource base from farther, fresher wells into town.IltisMineralWater also pumped directly from the area’s southern wells thatwere fed underground from mountain springs and trickle water (Warner: ). In the initial development plan, the navy’s engineers and ar-chitects had designated locations for commercial plants to areas whereheavy water consumption would not interfere with the supply for the pop-ulation. And in addition they projected at least semi-independent circuitsconnected to the main water-supply system. Given the unexpected growth,however, a total amount of , cubicmeter was pumped into the cityin , signifying an increase of . per cent compared to the year before;involuntarily sabotaging the meticulous planning.

Draining—The Natural Resources

To meet environmental challenges, deriving from transforming parts ofChina into a Germanized cultural landscape, a development task of utmostimportance and difficulty was afforestation (Rollins ). Initially, forestryseemed a corrective to alleged Chinese mismanagement as reflected in“deforested” hillsides: The mountain ranges around the city were sooncalled “Qingdaoer Schweiz”—in romantic tradition embracing the colonialterritory as an extended part of Heimat. But it was forests and not barrenpeaks that the German hearts were longing for. Techno-enthusiasts fromEurope were disappointed to find such dried-out lands in a culture thathad been widely admired for its hydro-engineering (Wittfogel ). Forestworks, the s memorandum points out, were commanded to preventsoil erosion and thus prevent the future harbor and roadsteads from siltingup; and to protect the agricultural character of Qingdao’s surroundinglandscape; but first and foremost to improve the city’s water supply.

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Fig. 3 “View on Forest Park and Fields Around Qingdao” (German Federal MilitaryArchive, Freiburg i.Br.: BArch MSG 2 17197 A107)

The necessary large-scale constructions were justified by their gradualeconomic and fiscal importance, and the colonial forestry department re-ceived additional personnel as early as . A raised groundwater tablewould turn larger areas (especially alongside the riverbeds) into arablelands, and thus provide support for the impoverished parts of the Chi-nese population, turning them into potential customers for German andother foreign goods. A substantial tree-cover would further liberate thecolony from expensive timber imports into an arid region and “the situa-tion of timber trade in the Silent Ocean” that was dominated by Japan.The area chosen to become the green heart of the colony started outwith squaremeter along the east and south side of the hills lining upalong the coast. This location was supposed to maximize water catchment(during the annual rainy season) and enhance the bay’s aesthetic appeal(especially upon entering it). And although the Han-Chinese expansionhad caused blanket deforestation for economic and cultural reasons al-most everywhere (Elvin : ), the treeless mountaintops in Shandonghad to be attributed to other geological and geographical reasons (QingdaoSoil ).

From the perspective of German engineers and foresters, the wholeregion seemed in need of ecological and hydrological improvement. Noplant life could be detected right along the mountain springs, a drawbackthat was rectified beginning as soon as by covering the bare soil and

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�sand with “horizontal tiles of grass”. These were supported by two-yearold pine trees further down the bare slopes in the following year, whoseroots were further expected to break the hard and rocky sediments intofertile ones. Rubble obstructions throughout the mountains had alreadybeen constructed before the summer rainfall of the first year of occupa-tion, to catch silt and rainwater. Instead of freely flowing down the valleysand empty riverbeds, more water was forced to trickle away on the spot,thus leveraging the “moisture line” and contributing to soil generation. Atthe same time its filtering qualities were enhanced; in combination with socalled “plant holes” along the slopes, the forest engineers estimated a foun-dation for new top soil to develop within five years. But increasing wa-ter supply through afforestation had inadvertent consequences, supportingWolfgang Reinhard’s argument that colonial development and politics weredriven more by happenstance than by actual planning (Reinhard : ).

In Qingdao, many of these consequences derived from a multi-levelstrain imposed by the city’s infrastructure. Besides pulling considerableamounts of water in support of the human population, the non-humanpopulation consumed as well. Apparently, the first years of settlementwere so dry that reports felt the need to inform its stakeholders that theyoung forest plantations had survived without watering during the rainyseason of . Before that, even trees in outdoor cultivations had appar-ently required watering. With the forest cover arrived yet another, albeitnot unwelcome guest: an extensive grass cover that also needed water.But although young trees and fresh grass already added some green colorto the bay area, this was still unsatisfactory for a model city. Thus half-grown acacias and poplars were imported from China and Japan to linethe boulevards. As roads and pipes began sprawling through the area,they were accompanied by trees: willows and alders at the riverbanks andaround the contributory pipes, and later the railway lines as well. Thusthe water veins were turned into green veins, but this required extensivewatering to root. Their monetary value made them green jewels consistingof forced inlays into the landscape. Although the greening of pipes wassupposed to enhance hydrological capacity around these veins, the choiceof particularly water-hungry species illustrates the limited ecological andclimatological understanding at the time.

Though Qingdao’s climate differed significantly from the tropics, itslandscape was modeled after that region Hong Kong. As Qingdao’s devel-opment planner emphasized, that city was lush and green, full of gardenswith exotic plants. In its “civilized” state it disclosed nature’s wealth inan almost jungle-like fashion, resonating perfectly with the contemporaryimagination of colonial environments (Zantop ). Although Germanforesters certainly realized the climatic limitations of a mainly arid region

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like Shandong, they firmly believed in the power of water engineering.To identify the most suitable plants to realize their green vision, a “forestpark” modeled after the British botanical gardens followed suit. Promotedas a comparably more economical and natural way of “German” landscapeconservation (Lind : ) and in conjunction with its use as recreationalspace for walking and horseback riding, it can be described as a colonialform of the (also British-inspired) landscape garden that influenced Ger-man approaches to engineered nature (Rollins : ). Experimentalcultivations grafted domestic and foreign species, exposed others artifi-cially to unfamiliar (climatic) conditions, and grew seedlings for local useand export (ibid.: ). Much like the British example, this park was alsoto support the imperial economy in the Carlowitzian sense of sustainableforestry by identifying species that would not only please foreign aestheticsbut also be of economic benefit. Therefore, trees would be used to greenthe city and its infrastructural network; support the local ecology; providewood for construction, railroads, and mining companies; and serve as anarticle of exportation for the Qing Empire.

Based on the fame and prominence of German (scientific) forestry, andgiven the almost simultaneous implementation of pipes and trees in Qing-dao, it is safe to assume that greenery soon turned into a natural featureof modern water infrastructure. The general acceptance of German infras-tructural technology can be interpreted as a form of cultural appropriation(Ferguson & Gupta : ) that encompassed landscape alteration as botha design element as well as a natural tech-enhancement. For the Germans,on the other hand, the accompanying trees and forest park were a means tofeel at home (Groeneveld : ). A reflexive appropriation of Westernwater technology only became possible under the relative political stabi-lization in China after the revolutionary events in . From this pointonwards, the administration realized that colonial rights were to be givenback successively and that neighboring Japan was about to extend its influ-ence to the continent. Infrastructure as an export commodity still providedpossibilities for future economic and cultural exchange between Germanyand China, but with limited funds on the former’s side. In similar foresight,not only medical but also educational and vocational institutions had beenestablished in Qingdao. These included professional schools and colleges,whose curricula were designed to train workers in the construction andmaintenance of German style infrastructure as well as forestry. With theongoing reform/modernization process during the late Qing dynasty, thoseworkers and engineers were in high demand throughout the country.

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�Reporting—The Outcome

Although not extended to the city as a whole, the struggle for public hy-giene and establishing a sophisticated (and still intact) water infrastructurecertainly counts as one of the larger and positive achievements duringGermany’s engagement in China. Yet it also created a severe ecologicalimbalance. After one decade of extensive development, water security inQingdao could be broken down to two areas: quality versus supply. Tech-nology had brought germs more or less under control, but water short-ages during the summer months had become a regular feature, despiteincreasing precipitation during the annual rainy seasons. The latter wasmanifested, for example, in flooding the underdeveloped Chinese parts ofthe settlement, calling for an extension of the rainwater canalization in, funded with financial resources originally earmarked for the Euro-pean part of town and the railway. The initially mentioned water shortagein the summer was due to the settlement’s natural growth and the concur-ring sophistication of its water-consuming industry, but also related to thetractive forces of intensified agriculture and young vegetation.

From the perspective of environmental history, the story of colonialwater infrastructure in Qingdao is one of increasingly complex ecologicalrelations within the Jiaozhou Bay area. Major factors were pipes and trees,both used without considering their impact on the local ecology (a conceptalready under development) and the fragile local hydrology. In its mate-rial outline, the colonial water infrastructure first and foremost reflectedthe city’s spatial division, mirroring the quality and scale of undergroundworks and street/pipe-side planting. Bolstered by practices of personaland public hygiene, this geographical separation contributed to intercul-tural problems and scientific racism towards the Chinese inhabitants of theprotectorate’s territory. It corresponded to the prevailing negative attitudetowards members of the working class in general and the Chinese workingclass in particular at that time, and raised questions of environmental andecological justice that are worth further investigation. In line with the Eu-ropean domestic discourse, water infrastructure became moreover crucialin establishing public hygiene. In practice, however, this policy merely ap-plied to Qingdao proper and the parts inhabited by Europeans and Chinesemerchants. In reality effects on public hygiene remained limited due to thecity’s systematic social and cultural segregation created by its invisible, un-derground two-tier system. The colonial town’s hierarchical standard ofinfrastructure predicts today’s definition of poverty that is closely tied tothe accessibility of infrastructure (van Laak : ). Population numbersquickly outgrew infrastructural development, thus mirroring the problemsof slum dwelling in all major European cities of the time.

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Nonetheless Qingdao, thirdly, showcases its role model qualities forchallenging issues such as urbanization and, related, public hygiene inChina that were part of reform ideas addressing poverty reduction andmodern living standards. Wealthy Chinese, who moved to Qingdao af-ter , enjoyed its amenities and were willing to advocate German in-frastructural standards elsewhere. A young generation of graduates fromQingdao’s schools, technically trained in German water, forestry, and ed-ucation systems enjoyed an excellent reputation for their knowledge andexpertise, served as ambassadors for this cause. Fourthly, representing anexported metaphorical “tool of knowledge” (Biener : –), infras-tructural technology thus contributed to an increasing appreciation oftechnological amenities and European sanitary values within the frame-work of a comprehensive educational infrastructure.

Yet the requirements of a water infrastructure system and its mainte-nance posed after all an enormous pressure on the region’s natural en-vironment. A negative feedback loop within the hydrological system ofGreater Qingdao followed the high demands of water by the city and itshinterland. Techno-cultural and environmental factors increased needs:a growing population as well as an industry with increasing standards ofpublic hygiene on the one hand and intensified agriculture with an exten-sive young vegetation cover on the other. Resulting water shortages anddemand for infrastructural extension had been notable since . A lack-ing (outspoken) awareness of hydrological engineering by means of pipesand trees was consequential to both zeitgeist and the ambivalent Westernidea of ecological sacrifices to modernization. Efforts in afforestation werehence rather increased than reconsidered, and—in affirmation of WolfgangReinhard’s observation that happenstance eventually drives colonial poli-tics—the same applied for the city’s three-partite water system. Qingdaoas a city built from scratch offers a point of departure for a comprehensivestudy of colonial forestry and water politics that are intertwined by theirecological relation.

Within this process that co-created an ecologically novel hydroscape(as a subcategory of landscape that is characterized by its water flows),Qingdao’s outgrowing colonial water infrastructure bears similarities tothe “developmental epidemics” it was supposed to prevent. The confinedsystems of middle and upper-class Qingdao were secured against epidemicsat the socio-ecological cost of the working class and induced long-termecological transformations that still affect the greater Jiaozhou Bay areato this day. But its theoretical nature as provision for a convenient andhealthy daily life speaks a different language. Within the framework ofa techno-cultural mission in the Far East, infrastructure obtained the roleof a “tool of knowledge” that created knowledge spaces to establish a future

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�inter-cultural dialogue. A lot of environmental casualties lined the path oftechnological innovation and education in both countries. Thus, Qingdao,model city, is also exemplary for the gap between planning at the drawingboard and the geographical reality of large-scale water projects as wellas for the dangers of transplanting potentially invasive species into alienenvironments.

“Drink more water!” is a common recommendation among Chinese peo-ple for solving any problem. High water intake is supposed to guaranteemoisture, while washing out harmful contaminants, also on a metaphoricallevel. Water keeps people healthy, and thus today public water dispenserscan be found in abundance in public spaces. They are the technologicalequivalent to water vendors walking the streets of imperial China, accessi-ble to everyone free of charge. There is also an awareness of “climate” and“environment” affecting human health, and well-being that is closely linkedto the possibility of simply being in the wrong “place” if drinking water doesnot serve as remedy. Qingdao drank, and drank, and drank. At first sight,this has made it healthy—but under the scrutiny of a macro-perspective, itsecological health was poor. On a different level, the case of Qingdao’s waterinfrastructure tells a hybrid story of technology’s unwanted side-effects inhistory (Hård & Jamison : ) and allows a glimpse at the long-termeffects of ecological stresses caused by nineteenth-century imperialism—inthis case the traces of water abstraction within sediments and groundwatertable. Especially during the first half of the twentieth century, Qingdao wasshaken by a quick succession of regimes imposed by the Japanese forcesand the intermediary Chinese governments, between and the formalestablishment of the People’s Republic of China in . All of them madeuse of the infrastructural amenities established by the Germans, but nei-ther of them wanted or had the financial capacities to maintain and expandthem. Nonetheless, the colonial water infrastructure displayed an aston-ishing resilience. It only failed once many decades post-installation, andaccording to urban legend, when repair workers descended into the canalsystem, they found spare parts strategically placed by thoughtful Germanengineers. Today, the sprawling conurbation has long swallowed the for-mer mining sites and border areas into its boundaries. Within the old city-center, however, the former European town, the German water infrastruc-ture is still in place and functional. And the surrounding lush green hillsrising behind bright beaches have turned Qingdao into a prime holidaylocation.

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Endnotes

The term goes back to Chinese research in the s and s arguing for a diver-sification of approaches to colonialism, building on a publication by Lenin, whoargues for a two-step model in establishing colonial rule (Mühlhahn : ; includ-ing annotations and ).

Urban metabolism has been taken up by environmental history following WilliamCronon’s work on Chicago. It shows a distinct focus on contexts of industrialization,see for example: Joel Tarr . The Metabolism of the Industrial City: The Case ofPittsburgh. Journal of Urban History (): –; Christopher Kennedy et al. .The Changing Metabolism of Cities. Journal of Industrial Ecology (): –. Thisincludes the analysis of hard scientific data to describe the exchange between the cityand its hinterland, as done, for example, by Sabine Barles . L’invention des de ́chetsurbains. France: –, Seyssel: Champ Vallon; Sabine Barles . A MetabolicApproach to the City: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Paris. In: Dieter Schott et al.(eds.). Resources of the City: Contributions to an Environmental History of ModernEurope, Aldershot: Ashgate: –. Within German research the concept has beentaken up by Rolf Peter Sieferle et al. . Das Ende der Fläche. Zum gesellschaftlichenStoffwechsel der Industrialisierung. Wien/Köln: Böhlau. For Asia, see for instanceStephen Boyden et al. .The Ecology of a City and its People: The Case of Hong Kong.Canberra: Australian National University Press.

German Federal Military Archive, Freiburg i.Br.: BArch RM : . BArch RM : – and BArch N/: . BArch RM : . BArch RM : l. Qingdao Municipal Archive (QMA) B///. QMA B///. BArch RM : r. BArch RM : l. BArch RM : l. BArch RM : . BArch N . BArch RM : . BArch RM : r. BArch RM : r. BArch RM : l. BArch RM : l. BArch RM : r. Zhang explains the composition and geographical arrangement of two emerging hut

villages that accommodated the Chinese workers, who were driven by common pushand pull factors of urbanization: –. These villages were soon to turn into slumsand extended into the hinterland of Qingdao, integrating many small villages and set-tlements. After ten years the population would amount to more than , people. Asthese slums were in the same state of infrastructural development, a partition in threeis sufficient for this paper.

QMA B///. QMA B///. BArch RM .

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� BArch RM : l. BArch RM : r. BArch RM : r. BArch RM : r. BArch RM : l.; BArch RM : r and QMA B///. BArch RM : . BArch RM : r. BArch RM : l. BArch RM : r. RM : l–r. BArch RM : –. BArch RM : l. BArch RM : l and BArch RM : . BArch RM : l. BArch RM : . BArch RM : l. RM : l. BArch RM : l. BArch RM : . BArch RM : r. BArch RM : l. BArch RM : . BArch RM : l. BArch RM : . An environmental historical study of the long-term ecological impacts of the Qingdao

brewery is currently being researched by Shen Hou from Renmin University under thetentative title “The Tonic of Nature: An Environmental History of Tsingtao Beer.”

RM : r and RM : . In fact, most of China had been deforested during the Han expansion, as Mark Elvin

vividly describes in his Retreat of the Elephants (). Yet it is unclear how far backGerman foresters dated these events.

BArch RM : r. BArch RM : r. BArch RM : r-l; to this day Qingdao remains the main Chinese port for

timber imports from the EU and other places. BArch RM : . BArch RM : . BArch RM : r. BArch RM : l; BArch RM : and BArch RM : . BArch RM . BArch RM : . BArch N : ; RM : . BArch RM . BArch fRM : .

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Agnes KneitzDepartment of HistoryRenmin University of China Zhongguancun Ave, BeijingChinaa.kneitz@ruc.edu.cn

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