The River Dragon Has Come! (review)

34 China Review International: Vol. 6, No. ?, Spring 1999 Dai Qing [compiler]. The River Dragon Has Come! Edited by John G. Thibodeau and Philip B. Wüliams. Foreword by Audrey Ronning Topping. Translated by Yi Ming. An East Gate Book. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1998. xxix, 240 pp. Hardcover, isbn 0-7656-0205-9. Since the government of China announced its decision in the late 1980s to build the world's largest dam in the Three Gorges area ofthe Yangzi Valley, much literature has been published on this project—one of the most controversial engineering projects ofthe twentieth century. None ofthe books or articles that have appeared thus far, however, can match the wealth of content and strong unanimity of opinion contained in this volume, compiled by Dai Qing and edited by John G. Thibodeau and Philip B. WiUiams, two internationally known experts on water resources. The book represents a joint effort by eighteen contributors in addition to Dai Qing, including seventeen Chinese. Since the Three Gorges project is still a highly controversial political issue, four ofthe Chinese authors are known here only by their pseudonyms, but the majority—ten altogether—have used their real names, including two professors from Beijing University, two researchers, and two journalists from the Liberation Army News. It is no surprise that so much information on both the positive and negative aspects offhe project can be found here. The Three Gorges Dam will be the largest dam ever built. Its concrete walls, towering 185 meters into the air and stretching two kilometers across, will create a 600-kilometer long reservoir below the city of Chongqing, with a storage capacity of39.3 billion cubic meters ofwater. The dam will require technology of unprecedented sophistication and complexity. It will include 26,680-megawatt turbines, generating 17,680 megawatts of electricity. The generation ofhydroelectric power is the most important reason for this megaproject, as the output of electricity will equal that ofeighteen nuclear power plants once the dam becomes operational. The government claims that the energy produced by the dam's huge turbines will provide about 10 percent of China's electricity, most ofwhich will be used in Sichuan and Hubei, the two densely populated and industrialized provinces on either side of the Three Gorges site. In fact, few such projects in the world are so conveniently located near an area where electric power is so urgently needed. The excellent geographical location was probably the greatest attraction for fhe Chinese government when it made its decision to proceed wifh this gigantic project. ' ' ly It is apparentiy most eager to minimize the use ofcoal for its ever-growing industries and to improve China's infamous reputation as the world's second largest producer of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide. While Dai Qing has provided a simple table to illustrate these points, however, she and the other contributors to ofHawai'i Press Features 35 this volume have not made a serious attempt to evaluate the dam's positive impact on China's socioeconomic development. The most significant contribution ofthis volume is to provide a historical account of dam construction in the People's Republic. Chapters 2, 3, 8, and 10 are devoted to fhe history ofcatastrophic failures ofdam construction projects over the past fifty years. Shui Fu gives an overview ofdam building since the 1950s and the quality issues for most ofthe eighty thousand dams that have been constructed —on average, China has witnessed the collapse of110 dams per year in the past two decades. Yi Shi provides a vivid description ofthe catastrophe that followed the collapse of fhe Banqiao and Shinantan Dams on fhe Huai River in Henan Province in August 1975—mainly the result offaulty safety specifications by Soviet advisers—and laments that the Chinese leadership has learned few lessons from fhat experience. Mou Mo and Chi Wenmai discuss the lack ofadequate compensation for the 280,000 people who were resettled in the Xin'an River Power Station project in Zhejiang Province during the hasty Great Leap period of 1958-1960. Due to a miscalculation of the water levels in the reservoir, many inhabitants of the region were forced to move twice in the subsequent twenty...