From 1980 to 2010, the Chinese government introduced a set of environmental programs across western China. These programs include Three North Shelterbelt Program, Suspended Village Migration, Natural Forest Protection Program and Sloping Land Conversion Program. The thesis examines the implementation and effect of these state-led eco-modernization programs in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region that resettled millions of people. An ecomodernization framework associates ecology with enlightened self-interest and economy, whose desires may or may not align with those desired by the state institutions. Geographer Emily Yeh (2009) has claimed the outcome of these large-scale environmental programs as exercising a form of graduated sovereignty. Graduated Sovereignty is defined as the different modes of governing segments of the population, how these groups relate to global markets, and the different mixes of legal compromises and controls tailored to the requirements of special zones.