“The trouble”, its maker, and Yang Gui’s confidence in “taming the troublemaker” with a 1962 bilateral agreement

On August 15, 1962, an agreement was signed by the representatives of the Red Flag Canal users from two counties in China. Since then, it has enabled people from both counties to share canal benefits, and as such ably become a cornerstone for a peaceful canal culture between the two peoples. The agreement and its making process were both initiated by Yang Gui (杨贵), the top leader of one of the two counties who masterminded the Red Flag Canal project. In explaining his motivation, Yang Gui stated, “We are building the Red Flag Canal for posterity; we must do everything we can to save posterity the trouble.” However, just what “the trouble” he perceived was, who the troublemaker he thought would be, and why he was confident that a bilateral agreement could serve the noble goal “to save posterity the trouble”, Yang Gui did not say, neither did he leave any record. In this article, we report our aspiration and endeavor to fill this knowledge gap, and present fresh discoveries and insights we derived from examining this instance through a CPR lens—an eclectic collection of economic constructs of common-pool resources (CPRs). The article is the fourth in a mini-series on the Red Flag Canal, one of the best kept secrets in the history of socio-ecological practice.