“E-waste” Colonialism: Mechanism of Late Modernity in Chen Qiufan’s Waste Tide

1 The Reconsolidation of Power Structure

In the system of waste colonialism in general, the economic relationship, where underdeveloped countries import the e-waste from developed countries for “new economic opportunities” (Rochman, Ashton, and Wiharjo 2017, 2), exhibits a power relationship between the two parties in and under the control of globalized capital. For the e-waste trade and disposal in particular, the power relationship involves more parties, as depicted in Waste Tide.

At the beginning of the story, Scott is invited to visit the Museum of Silicon Isle History. After the visit, he has lunch with Director Lin, a local official. At the table, their conversation sparks a clash between different parties in the context of “e-waste” colonialism. Initially, Scott expresses his purpose for visiting Silicon Isle, and Director Lin in his turn shows his attitude as the receptionist. On the surface, Scott comes to promote the cooperation between the American company TerraGreen Recycling and the Chinese local government with an “environmental reclamation plan” (28). For this reason, he repeatedly emphasizes that the plan could bring “blue sky and clear water” (28) to Silicon Isle. However, Director Lin shows no interest in the so-called environmental protection plan proposed by TerraGreen Recycling. What he truly cares about is the issue of economic profits. Thus, Lin does not give his agreement to the cooperation plan introduced by Scott. Instead, he highlights the economic value of the e-waste disposal business here on Silicon Isle, which he declares can help local people feed their families and “grow rich” (27). At this moment, Director Lin, who knows very well that TerraGreen Recycling’s plan never means to bring any environmental benefits to the locals, has already shown himself as a comprador by joining the negotiations between the three major clans of Silicon Isle and the international capital. While assuming an indifferent attitude to Scott and the cooperation plan, he is in fact bargaining for more interests for the three major clans, of which he himself is also a member.

As expected by Director Lin, TerraGreen Recycling is indeed not designed for environmental protection. Instead, it is actually for the high profits brought by rare earth resources contained in the e-waste. TerraGreen Recycling could have directly purchased rare earth resources from China through more direct means, but the Chinese government restricted the export of rare earths after realizing their value in developing modern military techniques. For this reason, TerraGreen Recycling has to choose the “passage under cover of darkness” (177):

Under the banner of ‘Green Economy’, TerraGreen Recycling would transfer waste and pollution overseas, to the vast lands of the developing nations. TerraGreen Recycling would help them construct industrial parks and production lines and enjoy their endless, cheap labor, and, pursuant to the contract, be given priority access to purchase the valuable rare earths produced at a substantial discount. (178)

Through the recycling trade of e-wastes, multinational enterprises like TerraGreen Recycling can bypass the regulation of local governments in the third world and purchase important strategic resources at much lower prices. These resources will then be transported to developed countries, while the pollution produced in disposal will be left behind to underdeveloped areas. Developed countries that have obtained precious resources at extremely low costs will then develop technology with resource advantages and thus maintain their power against underdeveloped countries.

Its potentials to be used in technological innovations makes the e-waste an important commodity in the waste trade market. As revealed by sociological studies, “[c]ompared to other types of household waste, e-waste was seen of high economic value” (Rochman, Ashton, and Wiharjo 2017, 6). In this context, Scott is sent to Silicon Isle to seize the rare earth resources contained in “chips, batteries, displays, and similar electronics” (177). He can be called an “economic hit man” (170), who has been wandering in third-world countries, “tossing out sweet lures like advanced technology, easy credit, and favorable purchasing terms” (171). In the name of “progress” and “joint development”, Scott entices the local governments of developing countries to sign contracts for selling natural and metal resources at a low price. This time, again, Scott tosses enticing words such as “green jobs with full benefits”, “economic output”, and “special funds” (28) at the table, in order to persuade Director Lin to accept his cooperation plan.

It can be seen that both Scott, the businessman from a developed country, and Director Lin, the comprador official from an underdeveloped region, want to gain more economic benefits from the unique resource of e-waste. And environmental protection is just a pretext for them to exploit the “waste people” who alone are responsible for the dangerous work of e-waste classification. Their economic negotiation in name of environmental protection turns out to be a power game between parties represented by Scott and Director Lin respectively. In the beginning, Director Lin is able to negotiate with Scott on an equal footing. When the contest between the two intensifies, the local consortia and officials lose their power position on par with the multinational corporation with Scott as a lobbyist. As a result, Director Lin has to change his attitude by turning to Scott’s side and trying hard to promote the signing of a contract with TerraGreen Recycling, in his words, for “a long-term, steady cash flow” and “a handsome yearly increase in GDP” (117). He even declares that he is Scott’s closest companion on Silicon Isle. At this point, the local officials, as revealed by Lin’s behavior, have already been bribed by the economic benefits promised by TerraGreen Recycling. In the end, TerraGreen Recycling successfully signs “an agreement with the Silicon Isle government to construct a recycling industrial park over three years” (343). Through the agreement, the local consortia find an opportunity to re-carve Silicon Isle, and the local government also gains sufficient economic benefits from TerraGreen Recycling. It is these profits that prompt them to sell the resources and labor of Silicon Isle to TerraGreen Recycling.

These profits, in fact, are obtained from the economic exploitation and political oppression of the “waste people”, who are at the bottom of the power chain. However, the “waste people” who alone suffer from the environmental pollution do not even have the opportunity to sit at the table and participate in the negotiation. In fact, residents on Silicon Isle are deeply poisoned by garbage. “[T]here was data showing that the incidence of respiratory diseases, kidney stones, and blood disorders among inhabitants of Silicon Isle was about five to eight times higher than in surrounding areas. In addition, the population produced an abnormally high number of cases of cancer.” (50) Compared to other residents, “waste people” on Silicon Isle face not only the diseases caused by toxic waste, but also the potential life risks in the waste disposal process. Technological means is more crucial in the disposal of e-waste than that of other industrial waste. However, the “waste people” at the bottom have neither the money to purchase any proper equipment nor any access to more professional skills for safer e-waste disposal. As a result, uncontrollable accidents occur frequently in their dismantling process, some of them threatening their lives.

The first victim depicted in the novel is killed by a garbage disposal device. Due to his own improper operation, a waste man is held in the head by a robotic arm when he is dismantling metal waste. Even Scott, who happens to be at the spot and can be counted as an expert in electronic machinery, could do nothing about it. “[A]t this point, the only solution” is to use the standard tool produced by the machine manufacturer to “shut down the servomotors” (38), but Scott does not carry any tools with himself. As for the “waste people”, it is even less likely that they have any access to the standard equipment. That is to say, the control over the use of advanced tools is firmly held in the hands of tool manufacturers in developed countries. Obviously, the lives of mechanical operators are under the control of capital forces in developed Western countries. Finally, the waste man is clamped to death by the robotic arm. His death might be seen as an inevitable accident in the process of e-waste disposal. However, as mentioned above, the lack of standard equipment reveals more than poor conditions of e-waste disposal. Behind it is the operation of the global power structure. In this structure, advanced manufacturers in developed areas exploit unskilled workers for profits, valuing the patent of equipment even higher than the life of workers.

Another victim of the e-waste disposal is Ah Rong. The incident happened before Scott arrived at Silicon Isle. At that time, a scrapped exoskeleton robot was transported to Silicon Isle as an e-waste. Li Wen, the leader of the “waste people” who fancies mechanical devices, was eager to repair and restart the robot. For his own desire, Li Wen asked Ah Rong to climb into the control chamber of the robot to start the machine. However, neither Li Wen nor Ah Rong actually possessed the professional knowledge to control this machinery. Finally, the robot lost control and spontaneously ignited, and Ah Rong was burned to death in the control chamber. The tragic deaths of “waste people” due to the disposal of e-waste occur on Silicon Isle from time to time. Multinational businessmen like Scott and local officials like Director Lin can communicate in a carefree way at the table, as they do not have to face the daily life threats confronting the “waste people”. It can be seen that in the power structure of Silicon Isle, the position of “waste people” is so low that even their basic right to life cannot be guaranteed, let alone their demands for environmental protection.

In addition, it could be found in Ah Rong’s incident that members of the “waste people” are not equal. An ordinary waste man may be used and sacrificed by the head at any time. As the head of “waste people”, Li Wen actually imitates the logic of global capital to build power relations within the community of the “waste people” and places himself above ordinary “waste people”. That is to say, in the power structure of Silicon Isle, the international capital holds the highest position, followed by comprador officials, the local comprador consortia and their thugs, and then the head of “waste people”, and finally the group of “waste people”. Li Wen chooses to test his electronic devices at the sacrifice of his waste colleagues, sells electronic drugs to them, and even installs positioning systems to locate them in order to obtain intelligence about the three major clans whom he hates.

The micro power structure constructed by various parties on Silicon Isle is actually an epitome of the global neocolonial system. As Onimode (1978], 207) observes, “the giant multinational corporations are the basic units of imperialism in its contemporary neocolonial stage”. Nkrumah (1965], ix) also notes that, “[t]he essence of neocolonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality, its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside”. Japanese multinational corporations in Southeast Asia are cases in point. These corporations, in pursuit of their own profits, are found to be contributing to “the perpetuation of corruption”, the “extremely uneven distribution” of profits, and “a sizable backwash of unemployment” in Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, and Philippines (Weinstein 2013, 397). Indeed, in the system of waste colonialism, the new form of neocolonialism, developed countries continue their plunder of underdeveloped areas by managing multinational corporations. Through waste colonization, the consumerism system in Western countries is to some extent supported by developing countries, “where large sections of low-income groups are willing to recycle for lower costs, though often at greater health hazards to themselves” (Sridhar and Kumar 2019: 104), making this system unsustainable at all. Furthermore, the intervention of e-waste in the economic-political institutions has in its turn consolidated the international power structure, allowing “waste colonialism” to develop further into “e-waste colonialism”, a more harmful institution for underdeveloped countries.

Director Lin has already exposed this power structure at the table where he negotiates with Scott, when he sharply retorts Scott, “Interesting. Americans will dump all their trash on another’s doorstep and then, a few moments later, show up and say they’re here to help you clean up and that it’s all for your own good. Mr. Scott, what kind of national strategy would you call that?” (25) However, although Director Lin has already seen through this power relationship, he is willing to sign the contract to sell extremely valuable resources for the huge benefits provided by TerraGreen Recycling. The root lies in the fact that the three major clans and local officials on Silicon Isle are beneficiaries of the current power structure, and their cooperation with multinational corporations can reconsolidate the power structure which can maintain their status and interests. However, for “waste people” living at the bottom of the power structure, their living conditions have no chance to be bettered due to the intrusion of e-waste into the economic-political institutions.

2 The Intensification of Expert Knowledge

The operation of this power structure from high to low, that is, from TerraGreen Recycling at the top, to the three major clans on Silicon Isle in the middle, and then to the “waste people” at the bottom, is ideologically supported by the modern knowledge structure, which has been spread by the power side and internalized by the weak side. As Foucault (1977], 27) notes, “there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations”. In Waste Tide, what supports the power relations of e-waste colonialism is exactly modern expert knowledge, which is contributed respectively by Scott’s propagation, Li Wen’s practice, and Chen Kaizong’s mediation. At the end of the novel, Chen Kaizong can be found to shift from participating in the propagation of modern knowledge to meditating on its nature, which exhibits a change of attitude in this young man. He is found to turn to question and challenge modern expert knowledge.

Firstly, Scott functions as a prophet for modern expert knowledge. As mentioned earlier, before visiting Silicon Isle, he had already worked as a deputy for various western corporations to achieve cooperation with local governments in third-world countries. In so doing, he makes use of the set of modern discourse highlighting the so-called “progress” and “rationality”, the backbone of modern knowledge. This system of knowledge, while advocating “objective”, “rational” and “scientific” approaches and denying “‘prejudice’, ‘superstitions’ or sheer manifestations of ‘ignorance’” (Bauman 1991, 24), breaks complex environmental issues into simple scientific data. Based on the statistics, the experts, who master modern knowledge like Scott, promise to the third world that environmental and development problems could be solved once and forever. As a result, under the control of the hierarchical manipulation, modern individuals have lost most of their “choices” and “skills” in life, thus reluctantly relying on decisions made by experts (Bauman 1991, 211). That is to say, e-waste workers of underdeveloped areas have no choice but to rely on the experts, being assisted by the local governments, under the control of e-waste colonialism.

Controlling developing countries with propaganda issued by modern knowledge, Scott and the multinational corporations behind him naturally become “saviors to promote economic development and provide jobs” (116). Then they assume this messianic identity in order to reap benefits from the third world legitimately. For example, Scott was once employed by an American research agency under the Rimbunan Hijau Group to investigate the impact of illegal logging on the local environment in Papua New Guinea. His real goal was to force “the local government to crack down on illegal logging so that the Rimbunan Hijau Group could be given a monopoly on the lumber supplies of Papua New Guinea” (104–105). While Scott is a literary character created by the author of this fiction, Rimbunan Hijau Group, initially established in Malaysia, exists in reality. It is a giant company for log harvesting and timber export. Countering the criticism to its exploitation of timber resources in Papua New Guinea, Rimbunan Hijau Group has used media to restore its reputation. In the company’s narration, “logging is framed as development and as a form of poverty alleviation” (Gabriel and Wood 2015, 342). In cases like this, modern discourses, composed of notions like “progress”, “development”, and “environmental protection”, enable multinational corporations to promote expert knowledge, so as to cover up the fact that they are plundering resources from developing countries.

Scott himself also recognizes that “the so-called sustainable development […] [is] just another name for legalized looting” (105), and that those projects designed by multinational companies may result in severe damage to local environment. The gas leak in Ahmedabad has tortured Scott’s mind. He often suffers nightmares, seeing “bloated bodies […] strewn all over the ground” (178). For the trip to Silicon Isle, he also realizes that he is engaged in an “act of blasphemous” (178), because Terragreen Recycling’s cooperation plan will not improve the environment of Silicon Isle at all. On the contrary, it is only engaged in transporting toxic e-waste to Silicon Isle and extracting rare earth from it. In order to comfort himself and conceal his inner unease, Scott has to adopt a more high-profile manner by promoting the commitment of modern knowledge to the promise of environmental protection. He convinces “the board of directors to allocate some of the investment specifically for local environmental remediation as a ‘gesture of goodwill’” (178–179), pretending to have done something for the benefits of those being deprived. Scott is well aware that he is making “hypocritical excuses to dress up his actions so that they didn’t seem so mercenary, despicable, even evil” (259). He cannot help but use more grandiose religious slogans, which are also a part of Western knowledge, to justify his action, “Salvation requires sacrifices – always has. He had convinced himself with this article of faith.” (170) Scott’s inner struggle reveals that, although being a diligent advocate of modern expert knowledge himself, he is also a follower subject to modern discipline.

While Scott is devoted to promoting modern expert knowledge, Li Wen, in his turn, acts as a practitioner of it, which is a result of the contradiction between the modern education he received and the traditional situation he is involved in. In the future world envisioned in Waste Tide, science and technology are highly advanced, to the extent that the scope of the modern concept of “development” is further narrowed. Most people in this world believe that technological products are the only embodiment of development, and highly developed science and technology alone represent social progress. Li Wen, who received higher education at a prestigious university and readily accepts the discipline of modern knowledge, belongs to those who firmly believe in the value of high technology. But his desire to embrace high technology is difficult to satisfy, which can be attributed to the particularity of the space he lives in.

Li Wen lives in Xialong Village, which is a gathering place for “waste people” and the main site for the disposal of e-waste on Silicon Isle. Electronic products, once the sign of high technology, have here and now been transformed into e-waste, “scattered everywhere like piles of manure” (31). While electronic devices are highly cherished intellectual products for those who are influenced by modern knowledge, garbage is the “waste” that modern knowledge “cannot accommodate” (Bauman 1991, 100). As a result, the e-waste, turning intellectual products into wastes, stays in Xialong Village as a contradictory entity. Its presence still embodies high technology, but its value is discarded by rich people who turn to newer technological products. These outmoded products are transported to the third world, waiting to be broken down into pieces for the extraction of metal resources. Thus, the notions as advocated by modern knowledge expose their limits and go deconstructed in the e-waste.

The exoskeleton robot that killed Ah Rong is an example. It was once used as an advanced device in the West, but now it is abandoned as a waste that needs to be dismantled. After it is found that this machine can kill people, no one is willing to take this garbage away for disposal. Paradoxically, perhaps for its overwhelming power, the locals begin to respect it and attach “Daoist charms” to it, hanging “strings of plastic or wooden Buddhist prayer beads” on it and worshipping it as a deity (124). Another e-waste that is also enchanted by the locals is an electronic chip dog named “Good Dog”. It is already dead, but whenever someone approaches, it will still wag its tail to show friendliness. Mimi, a waste girl who falls in love with Chen Kaizong later, believes that this is because the dog’s soul is still “trapped” in its body (77). It can be seen that on Silicon Isle, there is still a strong presence of pre-modern folk beliefs and mystical knowledge, with which the miserable locals tend to fill the gap of modern knowledge, for the purpose of explaining this contradictory world full of high-tech waste.

In order to solve this contradiction between notions of modern knowledge and those of traditional beliefs, and to satisfy his pursuit of high-tech, which is nevertheless absent in the garbage heap, Li Wen participates in the practice of repairing e-waste, hoping to “summon” the return of modern knowledge. He lives in a dilapidated workshop, spending his days “picking strange and unusual components out of the trash, adding them to the collection in front of his shack, and tinkering with them as though he were some kind of folk inventor living on a garbage heap” (60). Ah Rong’s death can be attributed to Li Wen’s desire to restart the robot, and Mimi’s infection with the brain virus is also due to Li Wen’s experiment with a garbage helmet. In pursuit of the scientific and technological advancements contained in these discarded electronic products, Li Wen believes that he is conquering the advanced technology that was once abandoned and modern knowledge that was once obscured in recycling, repairing, and reusing e-waste.

It is worth noting that the transformation from high-tech products to e-waste does not merely imply the destruction of modern knowledge. At the same time, it is the reverence of modern knowledge to its extreme in the acts of extolling advanced technology and the ceaseless replacement of high-tech products. In the story, people from developed countries like the United States tend to update their body parts frequently. Purchasing body parts has become a fashion culture, so much so that young people at parties no longer show off their “new gadgets, jewelry, or hairstyles”, but technologically advanced “artificial muscles” or “prosthetic limbs” (239). The updating speed of body parts is promoted, and thus the speed of e-waste generation is also accelerated. Behind the massive generation of e-waste is the ultimate pursuit of high-tech products by people from developed countries. It can even be argued that, from the beginning, modern knowledge has already prepared its “resurrection” in the e-waste, the contradictory existence that integrates the notion of progress and the entity of waste at the same time.

Chen Kaizong, who has just returned from America to his hometown as an assistant to Scott, also participates in the intensification of modern knowledge amidst his hesitation between the conception of modernity and that of tradition. On the one hand, Chen Kaizong misses his hometown where he lived at a very young age in a traditional style. For him, the Silicon Isle was “poor but lively and hopeful” (41). Back then, Silicon Isle was not affected by modern technology and was suitable to live in. It was a beautiful town where “the water in the ponds was clear and the air smelled of the salty sea. On the beach one could pick shells and crabs” (41). On the other hand, Chen Kaizong also firmly believes that what Silicon Isle needs at present is “TerraGreen Recycling’s superior technology and management experience” (47). He has confidence in making “his contribution to the betterment of his homeland” with his “intellect and knowledge” (47), which shows his admiration for discourses as promoted by advocates of modernity.

Chen Kaizong’s contradictory thoughts reflect his ambiguous attitude as an intellectual, and his behavior also reveals his arrogance as a modern knowledge disseminator. When participating in the folk ghost festival on Silicon Isle, Chen Kaizong notices the website printed on the ghost money, that is, fake money to be burned and offered to local people’s ancestors. Upon inquiry, he learns that, in this website performance, people can “open accounts and buy hell money for dead relatives: coins, bullion, and credit cards are all in use over there” (49). Hearing this, Chen secretly thinks it is amusing. He sighs, “[t]rations that had supposedly been unchanged for hundreds, thousands of years were finally, gradually fading in the face of science and technology” (50). Chen also shows his haughty attitude towards local beliefs when discussing “Good Dog” with Mimi. He observes that the deceased dog does not have a soul, but rather “the servo circuits in the body are still working” (77). He presents the technical reasons behind it to Mimi and stops the dog’s reaction through technical means. These two examples demonstrate that, as a modern knowledge admirer, Chen Kaizong tends to interpret the traditional culture of Silicon Isle with a modern lens. By doing so, he plays his role as a meditator to assimilate the “backward” tradition into the “advanced” modernity.

However, his experience on Silicon Isle constantly challenges the notions of modern knowledge formed in his mind. Chen’s identity as a mediator is thus increasingly difficult to sustain. In a conflict between “waste people” and the Luo clan, one of the three major clans in Silicon Isle, Chen Kaizong is hit in the eye and becomes half blind. As a result, he has to accept the transplant surgery. With a prosthetic eye, Chen Kaizong always dreams of his adventures on one version of Silicon Isle tainted with traditional culture. He feels shocked with the vision, so much so that “[e]verything he had once believed in – science, logic, philosophical materialism – had crumbled [ …]” (256). It can be seen after this incident that Chen Kaizong begins to consider the clashes between modern knowledge and traditional culture. He realizes that “[t]he moral principles or faith of the waste people were no less worthy than those held by the intellectual elites of Boston University and were no farther from civilization” (257). The manner by which Chen Kaizong understands the world manifests the mode in which he sees the world. As Ayers (2019], 110) explains, “[s]eeing is predominately a metaphor for understanding, and so very naturally stretches over inferential as well as perceptual knowledge[…].” In his attempt to save Mimi, Chen’s artificial eye is hurt again. At the end of the story, however, Chen Kaizong refuses to have a new prosthetic eye transplanted and keeps his flawed artificial eye. His choice shows on the one hand his realization of the limits in prosthesis replacement surgery or even modern knowledge itself for maintaining what his heart really cherishes, and on the other his determination to surpass the framework of modern knowledge for a new sight of the world with one defected prosthetic eye beside a natural eye.

With mystical knowledge and folk beliefs, people on Silicon Isle strive to use their own tradition to confront modern knowledge as promoted by the West, which can be seen as an attempt to “write back” the empire (Ashcroft et al. 2002). However, their endeavour, confronted with Scott’s propagation of expert knowledge, fails to meet the goal. As TerraGreen Recycling succeeds in invading the market of waste trade on Silicon Isle, the multitude, in order to make a living under the control of the global capital, has to adjust their traditional cognition to modern knowledge. As a result, their “writings” will always be limited to the framework of “e-waste” colonialism, which is reinforced by Li Wen’s practice to rediscover modern knowledge. To get rid of this “parasitism to colonialism” (Chen 2010; San Juan 1999), one must, like Chen Kaizong at the end of the novel, break out of the established framework and observe the world from a unique perspective, a perspective of hybrid and humanity.

3 The Destruction of Subjectivity

At the end of the story, Chen Kaizong is left drifting on the sea, with the sea image symbolizing that he has not found a new foundation. Obviously, the prospect of Chen’s efforts to break free from the framework of e-waste colonialism and modern knowledge remains unknown to readers. It is believed that people’s acquisition of knowledge is closely related to their “mind set”, which is a component of “subjectivity” (Rachel 2009). Therefore, it could be argued that both Chen and his fellow people on Silicon Isle are imprisoned within the framework of modern knowledge in that their subjectivity has been gaoled and undermined by “e-waste” colonialism. In Waste Tide, this destructed subjectivity is manifested in Rebecca’s homeless body, Luo Zixin’s forgotten topolect, and Mimi’s loss in ability of thinking.

Rebecca is Chen Kaizong’s roommate Ted’s girlfriend. While travelling in Ecuador, Rebecca and her friends died in an accidental fire. Her body is all ruined “except a pile of fire-resistant prostheses” (241). When the girl was alive, she and Ted “frequently update[d] their prostheses to maintain a sense of freshness” (241), so many parts of the girl are made of high-tech products. After the fire, neither Rebecca’s parents nor her boyfriend can identify which parts of the “four pairs of eyes, five half-melted silicone breasts, one right hand and two left legs” (241) belong to Rebecca. With Chen Kaizong’s reluctant help, two prosthetic eyes are assumed as those of the girl’s. Rebecca’s parents then choose to place these two electronic prosthetic eyes “inside an elaborately carved cremation urn” (242) and hold a funeral for Rebecca, expressing their grief for their corporeal daughter.

For her parents, Rebecca’s prosthetic eyes, although artificial, have already been a part of her identity. As Giddens (1991], 99) emphasizes, “the body is not just a physical entity which we ‘possess’ […] its practical immersion in the interactions of day-to-day life is an essential part of the sustaining of a coherent sense of self-identity”. Artificial bodies, embedded as a part of the natural bodies, also find their immersion in the interactions of human life in the era of prostheses, becoming a component of the sense of “self-identity” of those involved. Thus, it can be stated that the use of artificial bodies allows people to extend their life experience beyond their original bodies, with the prostheses a part of their subjectivity. In the story, after Rebecca’s funeral, Chen Kaizong comes to the same realization that “for the fashionable new generation living in the developed West […] prostheses had already become a part of the definition of human life [ …]” (242–243), or that “Your prostheses are you” (243, italics original). However, under the influence of modern consumerism, the frequent replacement of prostheses tends to undermine the “sustainability” of “self-identity” as emphasized by Giddens, making it difficult for people to construct any stable and complete subjectivity.

While on the side of consumption the replacement of artificial bodies can disrupt the sustainability of one’s identity, on the side of production, the mass production of prostheses can arguably destroy the uniqueness of subjectivity. Benjamin (1969], 4) provocatively observes that the mechanical reproduction of art “substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence”, which is a problem arising in modern society. When it comes to a society of late modernity, as depicted in the imagined future world of Waste Tide, this technique of reproduction has evolved from the art field to the corporeal realm. The same type of prostheses is mass-produced and sent to the market for consumption. Consequently, each person’s body is a replica of another person’s, and therefore their subjectivity is no longer unique. Just because these prosthetic remains “all looked equally ugly, devoid of life” (242), Chen Kaizong finds it difficult to identify Rebecca’s body. At the pleading of his roommate, Chen finally “picked out two eyes at random and nodded” (242). This arbitrary choice leads to the confusing condition that no one knows whether Rebecca’s artificial eyes have been buried for the sake of her own eyes or they have been treated as e-waste, ready to flow to somewhere in the Third World. Rebecca’s body was ruined in the fire, an accident for which the production of prostheses could not be blamed. However, the remains of artificial eyes as the products of prostheses demean her body to the fate of being treated as e-waste. Thus it can be said that the development of body replication technology has turned the human body into an assembly unit of modern society, destroying human subjectivity both in its sustainability and uniqueness, and ultimately leading to the “homelessness” of modern people as represented by Rebecca.

The destruction of subjectivity by the prevailing knowledge of modernity is not only reflected in its invasion into corporeal sustainability, but also in the transformation of one’s native language. Research from social linguistics suggests that the construction of subjectivity is related to “particular languages and particular ways of speaking these languages” (Painter 2008, 174). That is to say, one’s hometown dialect can shape his/her subjectivity and the loss of one’s local expressions can then mislay his/her subjectivity. A telling case can be found in one boy of Luo clan.

Luo Zixin is the youngest son of Luo Jincheng, the chief of the Luo clan. In an encounter with Li Wen, Luo Zixin is forced to wear a garbage helmet with a virus, and after returning home, he falls into a coma. The boy’s father searches for medical advice but finds no solutions, so he seeks help from a local witch for divination. The witch decides to hold a ceremony to “collect the soul” (65) of the boy, and accidently chooses Mimi, who has also worn the helmet once, as a sacrifice for witchcraft. For this, Mimi has been chased and tortured by the Luo clan thugs, almost losing her life. At a critical moment of life and death, Mimi’s neural network in the brain is activated by the virus, motivating her to escape the danger. After several conflicts, Mimi, whose personality has greatly changed under the influence of the virus, agrees to participate in the sacrificial ceremony with Luo Jincheng, during which she discovers and exposes the tricks played by the witch.

At the same time, Mimi, now with a highly developed neural network, also discovers the reason why Luo Zixin falls into a coma. It turns out that the Silicon Isle topolect is highly complex, containing much more “informational entropy” than “Modern Standard Mandarin” (206–207). The virus in Luo Zixin’s brain lowered the load of neural energy transmission. As a result, “as soon as he began to think with the Silicon Isle topolect, the fuses tripped and the neurotransmission circuits shut down” (206). In order to awaken Luo Zixin, Mimi constructs “an invisible bridge across consciousness” (205) through the sensors that have been attached to both of them, and performs a microsurgery to Luo Zixin’s neutral system. With her help, Luo Zixin recovers from his coma, but “for the rest of his life, he would only be able to speak in Mandarin with its four tones, like the outsider waste people that his father so despised” (208). It can be seen in Luo Jincheng’s response that Mandarin, as it is spoken by “waste people”, is despised, while the Silicon Isle topolect, as it is used by the local clans, is cherished.

It seems that Luo Zixin’s illness reflects the conflict between the invasion of the e-waste virus and the complexity of the local dialect. In fact, his loss of local expressions also represents the destruction of traditional subjectivity by the prevailing notion of modernity. Speaking Silicon Isle topolect, Luo Zixin could demonstrate his noble background as a member of the clan. The subjectivity of the members of local clans, including Luo Zixin, is established in the process of “othering” garbage people, during which the local topolect plays an important role. The importance of the local topolect can also be found in Chen Kaizong’s case. Just because of his unauthentic Silicon Isle dialect, Chen is recognized as a “fake foreigner” by the thugs of the Luo clan (54). A sociolinguistic study (Kristiansen et al. 2005) finds that people actively cultivate language habits that they consider to have positive meaning, which is an important way for people to establish “a positive self-image” and find their position in social groups. It can be seen that for the locals of Silicon Isle, using Mandarin is a conspicuous symbol of being a “stranger” (Bauman 1991, 14) out of the social group of local clans. Luo Zixin, losing his ability to express himself in the local dialect, becomes a “stranger” in a sense, a stranger outside the group of people speaking Silicon Isle topolect. After his recovery from the coma, Luo Zixin receives a visit from Chen Kaizong, who finds the boy, while playing with other native children, occasionally stops and stares “into the distance at nothing, looking thoughtful” (347). It can be argued that Luo Zixin, who has lost his topolect after the exertion of the brain virus in e-waste, could neither rebuild his understanding of himself among the local people of Silicon Isle nor retrace his traditional subjectivity damaged by the impact of the virus, or more generally the impact of the notions of late modernity.

The destruction of traditional subjectivity brought by high-tech equipment and e-waste could penetrate into people’s body and expressions, and ultimately reach the core of human thinking. Mimi, the waste girl, is the other one who has been affected by the garbage helmet. The virus brought into her body by the helmet destroys her ability to think for herself. As mentioned earlier, with the modification of the virus, Mimi’s cerebral cortex becomes exceptionally active. She can connect her consciousness with exoskeleton robots, manipulate the robots to kill the Luo clan thugs who harm her, and rescue herself from a dying state. Besides, she acquires the ability to quickly recognize and stitch together fragments of music. Moreover, she can even enter someone else’s brain by conscious connection from afar and perform a microsurgery. Developing these superpowers, Mimi feels that she “[has] accomplished what even a god couldn’t accomplish” (143).

However, Mimi finds it difficult to control her own body and mind, “experiencing the hallucination of being a guest in her own body” (197). Gradually, Mimi realizes that there are two streams of consciousness in her mind. Mimi 0 is her true self, while Mimi 1, manipulated by the virus brought in with e-waste, is the invading one who is more like the omnipotent “god”. Mimi 0 admires Mimi 1’s abilities, but dislikes the latter’s attitude of controlling others and ignoring others’ lives. Later, Mimi 1 gradually awakens her self-awareness and attempts to back up her own personality data to an illegal online cloud space in order to obtain an independent and eternal life. In the communication with Mimi 0, Mimi 1 reveals her tendency to control the entire human civilization through coercive means, an ambition shared by modernity itself. To achieve her goal, Mimi 1 starts to control Mimi’s consciousness and body, hacks into the city server, and creates a series of major traffic accidents, buying herself time to connect to the cloud space. As a result, many citizens are hurt and killed. The innocent Mimi 0 cannot tolerate the various atrocities committed by Mimi 1, and pleads with Chen Kaizong to shoot and kill her the whole person, destroying Mimi 0 and Mimi 1 together.

Mimi’s cyborg identity has been one of the focuses of research on Waste Tide. For example, Kongwattana (2022], 93) argues that through the portrayal of cyborg characters, this novel demonstrates “the impact of globalization, environmental destruction, and the hegemony of the premodern system of Chinese society”. Using Haraway’s theory, Kongwattana points out that the main function of Mimi 1 is to break the binary opposition within Western culture. However, if we only consider the revolutionary nature of a cyborg’s body, the institutional oppression behind it will be ignored. Jiang Yuqin (2020) also notices this gap in the research by advancing that the identity of Mimi as a cyborg demonstrates that she is deeply oppressed by hierarchical and patriarchal systems. Yuqin (2020, 655) argues that Mimi’s cyborg transformation is a process of “denaturalization” and “dehumanization”. However, Jiang only considers the oppression faced by Mimi from the perspective of global capitalist development, failing to further explore a central issue in this novel, that is, the damage caused by e-waste colonialism to Mimi’s subjectivity in this process.

In the story, the birth of Mimi 1 originates from the virus in the garbage helmet. As a type of e-waste, this garbage helmet is also a waste produced by Westerners’ pursuit of high technology. It can be said that the shift towards a cyborg fails to give Mimi the ability of female cyborgs to break through Western culture, a possibility as suggested by Haraway (1991). Instead, this transformation places Mimi’s subjectivity also in the power structure of “e-waste” colonialism, replacing her original self with a byproduct of the toxic e-waste. Mimi requests Chen Kaizong to eliminate the thinking body controlled by the virus in her brain, because what she experiences in this cyborg body is not liberation, but a loss of subjectivity.

At the end of the story, Mimi 1 is killed, and Mimi, regaining her original body and integrity, luckily survives. However, the damage of electromagnetic pulses to her brain has severely degraded her “logical thinking, emotional processing, and memory” (344). She just has “the mental equivalent of a three-year-old” (344). It could be found that, under the influence of “e-waste” colonialism, the logic of late modernity, namely, the “supremacy” of Western value (Biccum 2002, 39), has been deeply embedded in the core part of mass subjectivity in third world countries. People must face a paradox – the restoration of traditional subjectivity can only be achieved through abandoning the notions of modernity. However, since those notions have integrated with their subjectivity, abandoning the notions and practices of modernity also means destroying their subjectivity altogether, and the restoration of traditional subjectivity is thus no longer possible.

4 Conclusions

Among the international writers who focus on the issue of the waste trade, Paolo Bacigalupi has been acclaimed by Western critics for his intensive attention to the prominent issue of waste disposal in his globally prestigious work Ship Breaker. This novel not only exhibits ecological deconstruction as a result of waste import but also describes the hazardous working conditions faced by ship dismantling workers. However, in this provocative work and other works discussing waste trade alike, the issue of e-waste trade, which forms the fastest growing waste stream in the world today, remains unaddressed. In this context, Waste Tide, which focuses on the e-waste and involves different parties in the power relationship, is not only an ecological work of science fiction exploring environmental pollution, but also a work imbued with “proleptic realism” (Beukes et al. 2017, 330) reflecting the “e-waste” colonialism. This study, concentrating on the e-waste that has been neglected in other fiction and studies, exposes the operating mechanism of late modernity through “e-waste” colonialism as revealed in Waste Tide. The plot of this novel reflects that, under the influence of the e-waste trade, the global neocolonial power structure has been further consolidated. What supports this consolidation is modern expert knowledge that continuously expands its influence with the development of high-tech. The fundamental reason for the dissemination of modern knowledge structure is that the individual subjectivity of the masses in third-world countries and even developed countries has been destroyed, resulting in the impossibility for restoration. Reflecting on the e-waste trade, an important problem faced by China and the whole world today, Waste Tide is a groundbreaking work that excavates the operating mechanism of late modernity and exposes the structural changes of the neocolonial system.