South China Morning Post
April 11, 2002

Engineers must not sacrifice quality for expediency in building the Three Gorges Dam, a senior government adviser has warned.

Qian Zhengying, a vice-chairman of the advisory Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, was quoted yesterday by the semi-official China News Service as saying engineers must pay special attention to cracks that have appeared in parts of the dam.

The rare outburst by Ms Qian, who was Minister of Water Conservancy and Power in the early 1980s, came when she made a recent inspection tour of the mammoth project on the Yangtze River.

It followed a report by a Guangzhou newspaper that claimed surface cracks had appeared in some parts of the Three Gorges Dam, some wide enough to fit a hand inside.

The report prompted a swift denial from Lu Youmei, general manager of China Yangtze Three Gorges Project Development, who said surface cracks were normal in any hydro-power project, and Chinese engineers had taken proper procedures to ensure the cracks would not compromise safety of the dam.

But CNS said Ms Qian wanted better standards from the engineers.

“In the past three years, the quality of our concrete pour has improved but we have not reached the best possible standard,” she said.

“This is the root cause of our various concrete pour problems.”

The former minister wanted engineers to take “meticulous steps” to prevent widening of the cracks and pay special attention to the likely impact of unusually hot weather on concrete this year.

In her analysis, Ms Qian said some cracks developed because of “engineering problems” but some were the results of “design faults”.

“Who will be responsible if we cannot sail our boats [on the Yangtze River] after the Three Gorges Dam is complete?” Ms Qian said. “We owe our future generations a dam which is up to standard.”

Since construction of the Three Gorges began in the mid-1990s, the project has been dogged by scandals, including embezzlement of construction and migration funds, allegations over pollution control and questions over commercial viability.

Mr Lu revealed earlier that the total cost of the project had been revised down to 180 billion yuan (HK$169 billion) and it would become the world’s largest hydroelectric dam in 2009.

Mainland leaders repeatedly have trumpeted the merits of the project, arguing it would not just tame the Yangtze River but also become an important revenue generator from its electricity sales.

But Ms Qian cautioned engineers that they must give quality top priority and should not blindly pursue investment returns on the project.

“Repaying the debts raised for building the Three Gorges Dam will depend on the generation of electricity,” Ms Qian said.

“But we will lose ourselves to ‘formalism’ if we sacrifice quality so that we can start power generation early,” she said.

“Formalism” is a term often used by Communist Party leaders to criticise cadres who ignore the real consequence of events when blindly following orders or working according to the book.