What cost as China tames mother river?

By Mary-Anne Toy

Communist leaders since Mao Zedong have dreamt of taming the mighty Yangtze: China's flood-prone mother river which has nurtured and abused the country's people throughout 5000 turbulent years.

Today the "walls of stone" that Mao envisaged back in the 1950s, in the infancy of the People's Republic of China, will be completed with the final pouring of concrete for the massive Three Gorges Dam.

The Chinese Government will be hoping that the completion of the dam will quell opposition as efficiently as it will tame the Yangtze floods that killed more than 300,000 people last century alone.

But the world's biggest hydro-electric project and the pride of Chinese engineering, which has swallowed $US19 billion, 630 square kilometres of farmland, two cities, 11 counties, 116 towns and 1200 villages and necessitated moving more than a million people, seems set to continue as a battleground between authorities and the emboldened environmental movement.

Work began on the dam, which is 181 metres high and 2.3 kilometres wide, in 1993. In 2003, its left bank was completed, the reservoir was filled to 135 metres. The first generator began producing power shortly after.

The right bank was completed nine months ah___ of schedule. The entire project is due to be completed and fully operational in 2009, when the reservoir level will rise to 175 metres above sea level.

Three Gorges was approved during acute power shortages in China. When it is fully operational, it will supply 85 billion kilowatts of power annually — just 2 per cent of the country's energy needs by 2010.

That is why China's hydro-electric industry has another 100 dams planned or being built, including many needed to resolve problems caused by Three Gorges. Officials are pushing ahead with plans to dam China's deepest gorge, Tiger Leaping Gorge, 1500 kilometres away, and 12 more dams on the Yangtze to support the Three Gorges.

Last month, the Government said that another 80,000 people would be moved to new villages but their homes will be flooded when the reservoir level is raised later this year.

Government engineers agree there has been environmental damage but argue that the benefits: clean power, flood control and improved access to central China from the eastern ports — outweigh the drawbacks for the 220 million people who live in the Yangtze basin.

Environmentalists and scientists fear the reservoir behind the dam will become a giant cesspool that will affect water quality for the 30 million residents of China's biggest urban conglomeration at nearby Chongqing.

They say that its flood-control benefits are exaggerated and that the dam has caused a bottleneck for shipping, with lengthy delays to get through five levels of locks, and that the migrants it has created will cause social turmoil for generations to come.

There are also concerns that such a massive re-ordering of nature is increasing instability in a seismic-sensitive area.

The dam's most outspoken opponent is Dai Qing, a journalist turned activist whose book Yangtze! Yangtze, which argued that the dam is a waste of money and an environment disaster, brought her 10 months in a maximum security jail.

Some activists consider the Three Gorges a dead issue and are focusing on other pending projects, such as the even bigger $66 billion south-north water diversion.

The dam was finally approved by Mao's successor, Deng Xiaoping. Then party secretary Zhao Ziyang warned him that the project was economic, political and technical trouble.

The opposition spurred Deng and his supporters on, although China's normally acquiescent parliament, the annual National People's Congress, made an unprecedented show of opposition, with nearly a third of delegates voting against the project or abstaining in April 1992 when it was formally approved.

"Deng Xiaoping made two mistakes: one is June 4th (Tiananmen Square), the other is Three Gorges Dam," Ms Dai said.

But even Ms Dai concedes that the Three Gorges Dam has had one benefit. It has nurtured environmental awareness in a country that has traditionally valued development at any cost.

Environmental reporting is becoming mainstream and government agencies are working with green groups.

But Arthur Kroeber, the managing director of Dragonomics, which advises on the Chinese economy and its growing influence, said it was unrealistic to expect China to deal with its energy, environmental and transport needs without giant engineering projects. More accountability was needed, as well as better balancing of the costs and benefits of projects.

Under way are the massive south-north water project, which will divert Yangtze River water to northern China through three 1000-kilometre canals, and the creation of China's biggest container port on the Yanshan islets, connected to Shanghai by a 32.5-kilometre sea bridge.

"In theory, these ought to be subject to greater constraints now because of environmental and energy efficiency concerns," Mr Kroeber said. "In reality, the momentum behind them is large."