Submitted By: Rob Belloni

Three Gorges Drama: Why Chinese Dam Is Forcing Yet Another Mass Exodus.   This article by Shai Oster of the WSJ focuses on current issues regarding the Three Gorges dam. The article frames larger issues with the dam in the context of a man named Fan Zhongcheng, whose mother and father were killed as they demolished their own home to move out of the path of rising lake waters.

Mr. Zhongcheng is just one of 1.4 million people displaced by the dam, and the displacement of human beings is just one issue among many that have resulted from the dam’s construction. As I read this article and contemplated the negative aspects of the dam I wondered two things. First I wondered who made the ultimate decision to build this dam? Second, I wondered what positives will come from this dam - or is everything about it bad?

Why the Three Gorges Dam was Built

According to Wikipedia, the dam was conceived by Sun Yat-sen in 1914. Sun Yat-sen was Provisional President of the Republic of China for a short period of time around 1912. This article on worldpress.org claims the dam was conceived in 1919. Whatever the case may be, the idea of building a dam in this region of China had been around for considerable time. The issue was revisited many times in the years leading up to the start of construction, but it was only in modern times that the Chinese government was able to secure sufficient funds to begin building.

The man behind the dam if you will, is Li Peng a Hydroelectric Engineer who rose to become the Premier of China from 1987 to 1998. Li Peng considered the Three Gorges Dam to be his life’s work, and pushed the issue through the National People’s Congress despite uncharacteristic dissent and absenteeism during the vote. What struck me here was how one person was able to initiate such a massive undertaking. Some would say this is the beauty of the communist system. Many would say that things like this reflect the horrifying nature of communism - that one person can have so much power.

What also struck me as I read about the history of the dam is how its building was viewed as an inevitable outcome. The train of logic was something like; Sun Yat-sen said we should do it, Mao said we should do it, Li Peng said we should do it - so we did it - and our only regret was that it could not have been done sooner. I have no doubt that if the capability and financing had been available any time between 1912 and 1992, the dam would have been built then.

In America there exists a system of checks and balances to rein in individuals who seek to use political power to advance their personal projects. Environmental agencies like the EPA mandate EIR’s and other checks to ensure that one person’s “good idea” is not a catastrophe waiting to happen. The system here is not perfect, and without a doubt we can find a litany of bad projects in the U.S. that resulted from lack of oversight, group-think, and other political failings - but I cannot imagine a project like the Three Gorges dam ever coming to fruition in the 1990’s in America.

The Three Gorges Dam was built because a historical context existed, because one man (Li Peng) achieved a position powerful enough to make it happen, because China reached a point of financial capability, and because a political system existed that did not have the necessary checks built in to prevent it.

Looking for Good in the Three Gorges Dam

A Google search for articles on the Three Gorges Dam will find you a long list of articles deriding the dam and pointing out its failings. The standard article format (like the one focused on here) starts with a litany of negatives about the dam, makes passing reference to the positive aspects of the dam, and follows that with comments about what “critics” say about those positive comments.

When you do find a positive article about the dam, it almost always originates from a Chinese media outlet and focuses on three things: flood control, energy production, and navigation of the Yangtze River. Ironically, if you research the Hoover dam in the U.S., you find articles touting the exact same things. Compare this article on sunsetcities.com about the Hoover Dam with this article on chinadaily.com and ask yourself why you didn’t mind what you read in the sunsetcities.com article, but felt like the chinadaily.com article was just a propaganda tool.

Why are we, as American’s, so willing to gloss over the negative aspects of our Dam projects while criticizing the Chinese with such thinly veiled vehemence? You will be hard pressed to find information and articles criticizing major American dams like the Hoover Dam. But the Hoover dam is responsible for flooding 20% of the Grand Canyon, killing off three of eight native fishes in the Colorado River, and the death of 104 workers during its construction. Granted this does not equate with the level of damage and destruction resulting from the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, but it is hard to look at these two dams without bias.

The Three Gorges Dam will generate substantial amounts of hydroelectric power, obviating the need to burn coal. The Dam will result in economic benefits for that region in China, and for China as a whole. People living below the dam will benefit from improved flood control. Boats will be able to navigate the 400+ mile long lake with ease. There will be costs associated with these benefits, but you cannot deny them. Perhaps the lesson here is that we should not be so quick to call the kettle black when we are occasionally the pot.