Category: Three Gorges Probe

Chapter 1

(May 31, 1994) CHAPTER ONE
THE STRUGGLE TO PUBLISH YANGTZE! YANGTZE! IN CHINA by Dai Qing

Since the mid-1980s there have been only three occasions when the Chinese people have openly voiced opposition to the Three Gorges project. … The third instance was when I and several colleagues first published this book, Yangtze! Yangtze!, in China.

Introduction

(May 31, 1994) OPPOSITION TO AN UNVIABLE DAM by Patricia Adams and Philip Williams

On February 28, 1989, an extraordinary alliance of Chinese journalists, scientists, engineers, scholars, and army generals organized a press conference in Beijing to release their independently produced book criticizing the proposed Three Gorges dam on the Yangtze River.

Preface

(May 31, 1994) THE THREE GORGES DAM AND THE CHINESE POLITY by Lawrence R. Sullivan

The contributors to this volume are generally not liberal, Westernized dissidents. Many are long-time loyal communists; others are veteran members of China’s normally compliant satellite parties. These are not the young idealists who filled Beijing’s streets in the democracy movement of 1989, but largely elderly officials with scientific and technical backgrounds who have opposed the dam out of a genuine concern for China’s economic health and political stability.

EDITORS’ NOTE

(May 31, 1994) Yangtze! Yangtze! is a collection of Chinese documents debating the Three Gorges project. This English translation is organized in a manner similar to its Chinese predecessor, with interviews, essays and letters to Chinese officials forming distinct sections. But this edition, which is being published after the project has been given the official go-ahead, also reflects the continuing struggle against the dam: 10 new chapters are included here, which both update and expand the material contained in the original Chinese edition.

Probe International publishes Yantgze! Yangtze! by Dai Qing, China’s foremost female journalist

(March 21, 1994) Because of Probe International’s work to stop the Three Gorges dam, Dai Qing, China’s foremost female journalist, asked us to publish the English-language version of Yangtze! Yangtze!, a remarkable book that rallied public opposition to what threatens to become the world’s largest and most harmful dam, and led to her 10-month imprisonment.

Probe International publishes Yantgze! Yangtze! by Dai Qing, China’s foremost female journalist

(March 21, 1994) Because of Probe International’s work to stop the Three Gorges dam, Dai Qing, China’s foremost female journalist, asked us to publish the English-language version of Yangtze! Yangtze!, a remarkable book that rallied public opposition to what threatens to become the world’s largest and most harmful dam, and led to her 10-month imprisonment.

Planning for Disaster: China’s Three Gorges Dam

(September 19, 1993) ON THE NIGHT OF AUGUST 27, 1993, a dam burst high in a remote western province of China, sending torrents of water crashing down on nearby villages, killing more than 200 people, and rendering thousands more homeless. Though no official reason has been given for this latest human-made disaster in a country plagued by them, one government spokesperson admitted that a destructive earthquake which hit the region of the Gouhou dam in 1990 "may have had some effect" in causing the dam to collapse under this year’s flood waters.