Clark Alejandrino: The Science of Storms: Modern Meteorology in Guangdong's Typhoon Space from the 1850s to the 1950s
In 2010, the Guangdong Provincial Meteorological Bureau published a history of the weather stations in China’s richest and most populous province that proudly traced the beginnings of its meteorological network only to the 1950s when the Communist took over China. In this paper, I demonstrate how the Communist, rather than progenitors, were heirs to and fulfillers of a plan that had its origins in the 1850s. Along the way, I show how the century-long quest to establish a viable meteorological network along coastal China was linked first to Western colonial interests, then Chinese nationalist concerns about defending what I call their “meteorological sovereignty,” and the developmentalist dreams of the Republican and Communist states.
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