(December 17, 2001)

Article excerpt:

… According to a report last year produced by the World Commission on Dams, a project of the World Bank, large dams tend to have net negative environmental and social costs, emit large levels of greenhouse gases, have a poor economic return, often fail to provide projected benefits, and are widely marked by corruption and vested interest that skew the initial intention of the project.No dam, says the report, should be built without proper social consultation and compensation, or without proper assessment of existing water and energy options. It can be argued the Three Gorges project satisfies none of these conditions. As such, Beijing would have a hard time pushing through such a project, not only in China, but internationally. Even as Premier Wen Jiabao gives the nod for a further stage of the project to go ahead, displacing a further 80,000 locals, it’s worth wondering whether party bigwigs sitting in the middle of Changan Avenue are looking at the project as a large white elephant. Today, there is plenty to suggest the project would never have got started: the world and China have moved a considerable distance in the past 13 years. It’s just a shame there’s no going back. China is stuck with it.

James Rose, The Standard (Hong Kong), December 17, 2001

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