China’s premier reportedly orders restudy of controversial dam, but officials say they know of no change China’s premier reportedly has ordered the government to reconsider controversial plans for a dam on a river shared with Thailand and Myanmar, but the official in charge of the project said he knew of no decision to cancel it. Any decision to
scrap plans for the dam on the Salween River would delight environmentalists who have lobbied against it and please Thailand and Myanmar, which are planning their own dams and object to the Chinese project. The Salween plans are the latest in a series of dozens of dams across China designed to harness water for a developing country of 1.3 billion people that is racing to provide its fast-growing cities with the water and electricity they need. Premier Wen Jiabao sent the plan back to lower-level officials, noting that such projects “cause great concern in society,” the newspaper Ta Kung ao in Hong Kong reported.
The newspaper, which has close ties to the Beijing government, didn’t say what changes Wen told the officials to make. But the director of the Nu River Power Bureau, Li Yunfei, said he was still working on the project and had not heard of any changes. The Salween is known in Chinese as the Nu. “The premier’s viewpoint on the project is ‘scientific research, proper development,’ as far as we know,” Li said. Officials of the National Development and Reform Commission, which in August recommended approving the project, couldn’t confirm the report.

The press office of China’s Cabinet declined to comment, and other offices contacted in Beijing did not respond to inquiries. The Salween is one of three great rivers that originate in the Himalayas and traverse China’s southern borders with Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam.
Its Chinese name means “Angry River.” The other two are the Mekong and the Yarlung Zangbo. The Salween and the Yarlung Zangbo are the last two major rivers in China that haven’t been dammed for hydroelectric projects. China is building six generating stations on the Mekong. The Three Rivers National Park, which covers parts of China, Thailand and
Myanmar, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site last year.
Environmentalists say the area is one of the last pristine sections of wild ecology in overpopulated, fast-developing China. The government says the area has some of the richest biodiversity in the world and is home to unique species of plants and animals, including the Yunnan snub-nosed monkey, Asian elephants and wild oxen. The area also is
popular with whitewater rafters. Ta Kung Pao said Wen’s comments about the dam raised expectations that Beijing might reconsider ambitious hydroelectric plans, despite chronic power shortages in many parts of China. Wen and other top Communist leaders recently have begun promoting a more “people-oriented” concept of economic development.
They say resource and transport shortages suggest the breakneck growth rates of recent years are not sustainable. But a rejection of the Salween River projects would be especially significant, countering China’s feverish pace of dam building as part of plans to shift away
from polluting coal as a source of power. The 13 dams proposed for China’s section of the Salween River would have a total generating capacity of 21.32 million kilowatts, according to state media. That would surpass the Three Gorges Dam in central China, which is the
world’s biggest hydroelectric project and is due to have a capacity of 18.2 million kilowatts when finished in 2009. Conservation groups and others in China have agitated against such gargantuan projects. But the Three Gorges went ahead despite such widespread opposition and dissent within China’s legislature, which usually routinely approves policies of the Communist leadership. China has promoted the Salween River dams as a chance to reduce poverty in the remote region, inhabited mainly by ethnic minorities such as the Lisu, Miao and Yi. Thousands of workers will be needed to build roads and bridges as well as the dams. “Our government, together with the 490,000 Lisu minority people living in
the canyon, are looking forward to a chance to becoming well-off, just like the rest of the country,” said Li, of the Nu River Power Bureau.

He argued that smaller dams already built on tributaries of the Salween had caused little damage. “Even if the plan for the 13 power stations was denied, I don’t think we should give up,” Li said. “We just have to find a balance between conservation and improving people’s lives.”