Beijing has announced plans for four major projects in recent years, the newspaper noted in its April 24 report. Construction has already started on the world’s highest railway, connecting Qinghai and Tibet, on a 4,000-kilometre pipeline taking natural gas from Xinjiang to Shanghai, and on a west-east electricity transmission system. In November, Zhang Jiyao, deputy minister of water resources, said work would begin early this year on the fourth scheme: a massive south-north water diversion project designed to alleviate the serious water shortage in the Beijiing-Tianjin area in north China.

“While the first three projects are under way, it’s a different story with the south-north water diversion scheme,” The Sun said. “At the annual session of the National People’s Congress held in Beijing in March, Premier Zhu Rongji failed to even mention the project.”

A number of NPC delegates, however, were talking about it, the newspaper said. Yang Zhenhuai, a former minister of water resources and current member of the NPC standing committee, publicly questioned why the megaproject had not been subject to debate by the NPC. He noted that the US$42-billion water-diversion scheme is more expensive than the Three Gorges project (a recent official estimate put the cost at US$25 billion). The Three Gorges dam was debated for decades and the focus of several feasibility studies before it was brought to a vote in April 1992, Mr. Yang pointed out.

“While the Three Gorges Project was approved by the NPC, why did the water-diversion project skip ratification by the NPC?” Zhongguo Xinwen She (China News Service) quoted him as saying in March.

The Sun suggests that now, “the cracked Three Gorges dam” has raised doubts about the south-north water diversion project. Even before the reservoir is filled, the Three Gorges project faces myriad problems, the newspaper said, citing the cracks in the dam (revealed publicly for the first time in March); official acknowledgement that the project’s flood-control benefits have been overstated; the serious pollution that threatens the future reservoir; the danger posed by geological disasters near the dam, which is being built in a region prone to landslides and earthquakes; and the botched resettlement operation, dogged by reports of corruption and coercion.

“Many people inside and outside China are asking the same question: How is the Three Gorges dam going to function after the reservoir is filled? Many people – even scientists and water-resources experts – share the sense that at this point nobody can do anything about the Three Gorges except pray,” the newspaper said.

“The problems afflicting the Three Gorges dam will likely trigger a new round of debate over the south-north water diversion project,” The Sun said. Someone has already suggested that instead of the current plan to draw water from the lower reaches of the Yangtze and move it north along the route of the old Grand Canal, it would be more cost-effective to transfer water from the Yalu River in northeast China, the newspaper said.

Premier Zhu Rongji’s government is also facing a serious financial deficit, the newspaper said, adding: “In these circumstances, no wonder the central government has tried to turn the volume down on the south-north water diversion project.”