ABSTRACT
When China celebrated fifty years of Communism on October 1, 1999, Premier Zhu Rongji proudly hailed the enormous achievements of the Chinese people, particularly the economic transformation undertaken during the previous twenty years. But the project that is meant to symbolize these achievements remains mired in controversy. Since it was first proposed by Sun Yatsen in 1919, the idea of damming the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River and constructing the world’s largest hydroelectric generation and water-control project has fascinated China’s leaders. Although the project had the personal endorsement of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, internal opposition was surprisingly strong and was silenced only during the crackdown on dissent after the 1989 Tiananmen protest. Meanwhile, international criticism—especially of the project’s far-reaching environmental impacts—rose to a fever pitch. The United States and Canadian governments and the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, which had showed initial interest in the project, quickly backed away. China went ahead anyway, determined to make the Three Gorges Dam the crowning success of its drive to modernize its economy. The first earth was moved in 1993, and by the end of 1997, two giant cofferdams enclosed the Yangtze River and construction of the dam itself had begun. Even die-hard opponents realized that nothing would stop the project, and the furor died down.
