(June 16, 2011) From “monstrous” to “outstanding quality,” China’s Three Gorges dam wins the National Quality Investment Award despite admissions of problems by Premier Wen Jiabao.

The timing could not be worse, or less credible: last month the State Council, and Premier Wen Jiabao himself, admitted the project had many problems that must be “urgently resolved,” and the Shanghai Daily called it that “monstrous damming project” for depriving the downstream Yangtze areas of water.  Let’s hope that the recipients have the good grace to blush. Read The Guardian’s Jonathan Watts coverage of China’s national embarrassment.

A ship removes trash from the Three Gorges reservoir

Read Jonathan Watts’ June 14, 2011 piece in The Guardian here.

Read more in Wen Jiabao’s statement here.