November 15, 1997
Gigantism on the Yangtze
A milestone was reached recently when China's
Yangtze River was diverted to a side channel to
make way for construction of the world's biggest
dam. The rhetoric of Chinese leaders at the riverside ceremonies revealed an outdated Communist
pride in gargantuan engineering projects and a
stubborn belief that sheer size testifies to the vitality of the political system.
The Three Gorges Dam, which will cost at least
$25 billion, will be 600 feet high and more than a mile
wide, creating a lake nearly 400 miles long. More
than 1.2 million people will be forced to move. The
project will generate 18,200 megawatts of electricity, supplying a tenth of the nation's energy output.
But the promised benefits of abundant power and
seasonal flood control could be better achieved by
building several smaller dams on the tributaries of
the Yangtze.
President Jiang Zemin, an electrical engineer
by training, proclaimed that the project "vividly
proves once again that Socialism is superior in
organizing people to do big jobs." Prime Minister Li
Peng, also an engineer and the dam's chief promoter, declared that diverting the Yangtze "demonstrates the greatness of the achievement of China's
development." Criticism of the dam is considered a
crime. Debate has been banned, and critics have
been imprisoned for writing about it.
Chinese and international observers worry that
heavy silting could compromise the dam's operation and increase the risk of a catastrophic collapse
in a heavy flood. There are other potential problems, including water pollution from raw sewage
that would be pumped into the reservoir, the loss of
a magnificent stretch of the river, and the destruction of hundreds of cultural and archeological sites,
some 6,000 years old.
The environmental hazards are so great that
the U.S. Export-Import Bank has refused to finance
loans for the project, and the World Bank has
declined to participate. But Beijing has managed to
get private foreign financing for the dam through
bonds issued by the State Development Bank of
China. A coalition of 45 international groups, including the International Rivers Network and the Sierra
Club, is calling on American financial institutions to
stop underwriting those bonds. Public pressure in
Japan led one investment house to back away from
underwriting a second bond offering for the State
Development Bank.
The Three Gorges project faces major obstacles that could delay its completion. Official cost
estimates have doubled in three years, and while
the project remains a political symbol for China's
leadership, the weight of its financial and technical
problems is inescapable. Opposition from abroad
that halts the flow of foreign financing could still
have an impact that would be healthy for the global
environment and, in the long run, for China's people
and its economy.