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Divided by the great dam of China
(The Irish Times Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Clifford Coonan was questioned for hours by Chinese police after interviewing those affected by the building of the world's biggest dam
Standing on top of China's Three Gorges dam, looking down at the mighty Yangtze river flowing below, you become increasingly aware of the tension between the desire to keep an ecological balance and the need for progress and energy.
The Three Gorges project is the biggest dam in the world. It's a truly stunning creation and it's astonishing to watch how it manages to physically hold back the third-longest river in the world, how large container ships are floated up like toy boats by the locks at the dam, and how the surrounding mountains have been blasted and towns and countryside flooded to create it.
The 185m-high dam is as potent a symbol as you will find of massive social, economic and technological change in China. The Yangtze river, which neatly divides China into north and south, into the rice eaters of the south and the noodle eaters of the north, occupies a peculiar position in the consciousness of the nation. It is known in Chinese as Chang Jiang, or "Long River". You don't trifle with the Long River; it's like playing with the soul of the most populous nation on earth.
From a distance the dam seems impressive but is strangely underwhelming, somehow. It's only when you approach the huge edifice, and then drive on to the top section, that the scale starts to become clear. The project is enormous in every way: 2.3km wide, there are 10,000 builders working on the dam and it will ultimately cost anything between 20 and 60 billion, depending on who you believe.
And it could prove to be an enormous disaster. Environmentalists view the dam as a monstrous catastrophe waiting to unleash itself on the hundreds of millions of people who live near the Yangtze.
When the dam begins to operate in May - ahead of schedule - expect a gala launch with much fanfare; the central government in Beijing is fiercely proud of the dam, saying it will stop the river flooding all the time, provide much-needed clean, hydroelectric power and give ships from booming coastal cities such as Shanghai better access to central China.
Everything to do with the Three Gorges project, sometimes known as the Great Wall of the Yangtze, is very sensitive and closely monitored - I was hauled in by police for talking to a local activist who represents some of the million people whose homes were flooded during the project and have been relocated to new towns in the region.
Government engineers proudly herald the benefits for the 220 million people who live in the Yangtze basin and who will be served by the huge reservoir it creates.
"There will be an environmental impact but the benefits outweigh the harm and the loss. We had to move one million people and, sure, we flooded some areas, but you can't compare the loss of millions of hectares of farmland to the safety of 50 million people," said Zhang Shuguang, one of the project's top engineers.
When the dam opens in May, its first function will be flood control - the Yangtze regularly bursts its banks and nearly one million people have drowned in floods in the last 100 years or so. The dam is designed to stop this happening.
But building the biggest dam in the world involves social change on a massive scale, and even the most fervent backers of the dam agree that relocation has been a tough process.
"The Three Gorges dam is the biggest in the world, which means there were issues about technology, investment and migration. I think migration was the most challenging," said engineer Zhang.
The government estimates one million people have been relocated, while other estimates reckon that between 1.3 and two million people have been moved because their homes became flooded by the rising water of the reservoir.
THE DAM FORMS a dramatic backdrop to Maoping, a pleasant town where thousands of people were relocated during the 1990s. The new arrivals are pleased with the dam, as they believe it will boost China, and they like the new houses. Many, however, have nothing to do in their new homes.
"I used to be a farmer and I lived near a town that is now underwater. A lot are doing unofficial transportation work, using motorbikes," said one villager. One middle-aged woman, knitting in a group, says that, because whole communities were moved together, she still has her friends around her.
"But me and lots of other people have nothing to do," she says.
As we speak we are approached by Fu Xiancai, who says he represents relocated people who have not yet received their full compensation. The dam has led to a huge amount of corruption - one local official was executed in 2000 for taking nearly 1 million in bribes and scores of bureaucrats have been arrested for graft.
"Around 80 per cent of the migrant people I talk to are dissatisfied. We've nothing against the project, it's a good dam. But we want our compensation," says Fu.
Later he takes us to see where his house used to stand - it is not under water, but is part of a subsidiary dam near the main project. He has a new house near the site of the old one, complete with portraits of Mao.
As two Finnish colleagues, a Chinese editorial assistant and I leave down a dirt road, we are stopped by police and local officials and held for nearly four hours in a chilly government building, before being taken into rooms and interviewed separately. Talking to Fu, no matter how innocently, is a breach of Chinese rules governing how reporters can work. They demand our notes and any photos we have and we are eventually released after signing a statement and being told to forget about our interview with Fu, who is a "bad man".
It's hardly surprising that the world's biggest dam should prove a sensitive area in a single-party state. But the dam also sparked the biggest ever political debate in communist China's history.
The official row over whether to build the dam rocked the National People's Congress, China's annual parliament, back in April 1992 and a dam project centre near the Three Gorges has a display showing that nearly one-third voted against the dam or abstained - an unprecedented figure.
The then premier, Li Peng, who was a fan of the project, declared the debate over, but final approval was not granted until 1992.
The most famous opponent of the dam in China is the energetic environmental activist and journalist Dai Qing.
She opposes the dam because of the lack of public debate about such an enormous project, the fact that the warnings of independent analysts have been ignored and also because she sees it as a huge waste of money.
"The Three Gorges project is a political project. The project shows what Chinese people can do and achieves something other countries can't do. It's expected to show the advantages of socialism. I believe the government knows there are problems with the Three Gorges project but is avoiding the issue," she says.
Her book Yangtze! Yangtze! earned her 10 months in a maximum security prison, during which she was threatened with the death sentence. But she is sticking to her guns.
"I've held these views since the 1980s. I think the project will be harmful for the environment because of the sediment in the Yangtze. And to generate even more power, the project will keep the water level high, which is a flood danger," she says.
"Our efforts may look weak and limited in comparison with the government's strong and thunderous media campaign. Whether history proves the project to be a success or a failure, the fact remains that we were simply a group of journalists who took our profession very seriously. We tried to do what we felt was right at a time when we were needed," she says.
ENVIRONMENTALISTS BELIEVE THAT as the dam slows down the Yangtze, it will lose its ability to generate oxygen, while the waste flowing into the reservoir could turn the reservoir into a giant cesspool - 480km long.
Silt deposits could also prove a problem as they could choke parts of the river, blocking key ports such as Chongqing.
The engineersare upbeat. They point to the fact that hydropower is a very clean source of energy compared with the coal-fired power stations that provide the lion's share of China's energy needs.
Government engineers believe the amount of sand and sediment in the river will balance out over the years.
"And of course, cleaning the reservoir is a vital aspect to us - all refuse will be cleaned away and the central government has imposed strict standards on this," said Zhang.
The cultural activists have already lost the battle - most of the 8,000 areas of historical and social interest have been flooded.
Is there a warning here for other areas along the Yangtze, perhaps? Further along the river, construction of Xiluodu Dam has begun, which will be the third biggest in the world when it is finished. And three other dams are in the exploration stage near Xiluodu - including one that will flood the beautiful Tiger Leaping Gorge in Sichuan province. These four dams together will produce more electricity than the Three Gorges dam.
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