If completed, the dam on China’s Yangtze River will be the world’s largest, creating an inland sea the length of North America’s Lake Superior and submerging more than 100 towns and villages. It will also forcibly relocate 1.3 million people and flood thousands of hectares of the best farmland in China.

According to the internal Chinese security documents, the area will experience a population boom as hundreds of thousands of construction workers swarm to the Three Gorges looking for work. Officials from the Hubei Province Yichang Municipal Public Security Bureau warn that "a loss of control over the large temporary population will have grave consequences." Already, say officials from the Wanxian Prefectural Public Security Department, "the number of ‘six scourges’ cases [i.e., prostitution, hooliganism, etc.] has shot up," gang crimes are increasing, and "mafia-type gangs will become an evil force." Mass theft of construction materials is on the rise, officials admit, and "violations of public safety and the personal safety of citizens will become more serious."

Officials fear that because of the "influence of international terrorist activities, crimes such as blowing up, murder, kidnapping, and injuring" will increase. Also, according to the documents, "bourgeois culture from abroad . . . will seep in," corroding people’s thinking and becoming "an important element in encouraging crime." Officials in the Wanxian Prefecture claim the number of spies and agents sent by hostile international forces to "spy out information on the project and the population relocation under the cover of legal activities such as tourism, visiting relatives or news reporting" has escalated. Resisting and eliminating the influence of the "corrupt ideology" of foreign countries must remain one of the chief goals of the public security departments, say the authorities.

The police have already used strong-arm tactics to quell rising opposition to the massive dam, arresting 179 members of the Democratic Youth Party in 1992. One of the leaked security documents prepared by officials in the Wanxian Prefecture claims the group was a "counterrevolutionary clique" which aimed to sabotage the "smooth progress" of the Three Gorges project.

The Democratic Youth Party was based in Kai County, most of which is destined to disappear beneath the Three Gorges reservoir. According to Human Rights Watch/Asia, this alleged counterrevolutionary organization uncovered by the county’s security authorities in May, 1992, was merely an unofficial local pressure group, formed by residents concerned about their impending forced relocation. Nothing is known about the fate of the group’s members.

Publicly, Beijing has defended the Three Gorges project, calling it "the most magnificent project of the Chinese people." Privately, however, as the leaked documents reveal, officials question the feasibility of forcibly resettling over a million people and admit they are ill-prepared to meet the expected rise in crime. Nevertheless, they vow to "uphold the policy of speed and severity in striking timely blows at crimes and criminals that sabotage Three Gorges construction and relocation."