Twenty years after the completion of China’s monumental Three Gorges Dam, a new study by Chinese geologist Fan Xiao finds the mega-project’s impacts on his hometown of Chongqing, some 600 kilometres upstream, have been dramatic. Lost in the dam’s grand scale are the harsh consequences borne by the region’s environment and economy; its after-effects are felt most intensely by the individuals and communities struggling to adapt in the immense shadow of China’s largest public works effort since the Great Wall.
Big deal U.S.-China climate change pact buried in Beijing
Why did Beijing downplay a “historic” climate change pact with the U.S.? Is it China’s famed reserve? Or is it to keep a lid on citizens’ post-summit APEC blues?
A letter to my husband, Guo Yushan
Pan Haixia, lawyer and the wife of economic scholar and influential think tank founder, Guo Yushan, posted a letter online that she wrote to her husband after he was taken from their suburban Beijing home by police officers on October 9, at around 2 a.m., on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking troubles” — a pretext used to silence China’s growing community of rights activists. Conflicted by the danger Guo’s activism brought to their doorstep, Pan’s heartrending words to Guo, to whom she wasn’t able to say ‘goodbye’, powerfully relate the torment activists and their families endure as targets of political persecution in China.
“Daddy’s ‘friends’ are actually plainclothes cops”
Zeng Jinyan, the wife of Hu Jia, one of China’s best-known human rights activists, shares her personal experience of the high cost of political expression in China.
From Chinese labor camp inmates to you: Help!
(November 20, 2013) How did Halloween decorations made by inmates at a notorious Chinese labor camp end up on US store shelves?
Home at all costs
(October 30, 2013) In April 2012, Liu Bai, a retired journalist dedicated to exposing the plight of Three Gorges Dam migrants and the project’s resettlement legacy of shattered lives, set out to discover what had happened to the first group of migrants who were moved from their homes in the ancient town of Dachang, in Wushan County, Chongqing Municipality, and resettled elsewhere around 11 years ago to make way for the world’s largest dam. What Liu Bai did not expect to find at the other end was that the resettlement of these migrants had not stuck! The majority of this first group of migrants had in fact returned home.
Civil disobedience in Sodom – A letter to Xu Zhiyong
(September 18, 2013) Guo Yushan, a longtime friend and colleague of high-profile Chinese human rights activist Xu Zhiyong, penned a grand and robust entreaty to Xu in late July (translated here into English), urging Xu to stand his ground as he awaits trial for “assembling a crowd to disrupt order in a public place.” In reality, Xu, a well-known lawyer and founder of China’s fledgling “New Citizens’ Movement”, had called on officials to disclose their financial assets as it is thought assets disclosure will reveal the true level of corruption among government officials who exploit their political power for personal gain. In his letter, Guo likens Xu to Socrates facing the wrath of Athens and China to the disgraced biblical city of Sodom, and exhorts Xu to rise to his fate as an idealist, unrepentant — “let them charge you, let them torture you”.
Farewell, Wu Dengming, “China’s green hero”
(July 25, 2013) Wu Dengming, praised as “China’s green hero” for his tireless dedication to protecting the environment, passed away this month, aged 73. He is remembered here by those who knew and admired him — even those commercial interests he challenged — as a remarkable and devoted advocate to the end.
Beijing social think-tank shut down amid crackdown
(July 20, 2013) On the heels of anti-graft campaigner Xu Zhiyong’s detention, authorities continue to get tough on rights activists as they endure another wallop of repression, shutting down a Beijing-based think tank. The move is seen as payback for activists who have called on government leaders to declare their assets, and on lawyers who defend “sensitive” cases.
China detains journalist who documented labour camp abuses, Tiananmen crackdown accounts
(June 12, 2013) Beijing-based photojournalist Du Bin has been detained by Chinese state security officials after he disappeared following the release of his documentary on Chinese labour camp abuses — profiled here by Probe International last month. His sister, high-profile human rights activist Hu Jia, says Du is being held because his work directly challenges the authorities: “They are suppressing him to send a message to others,” she says. Gillian Wong reports for the Associated Press.
Uprooted
(June 14, 2013) Yang Yi’s surreal photo memoir of his childhood home, flooded for the construction of China’s Three Gorges Dam project, received special mention as one of New York’s Best Weekend Art Events in May when it debuted at Galerie Richard. Its run ends tomorrow, June 15.
New documentaries take on the horrors of China’s labor camp system
(May 7, 2013) Two new documentaries released this month reveal more horrifying details about China’s notorious re-education through labor (RTL) system. Other recent exposés of systemic human rights abuses in the RTL have led to calls to scrap the long-contested practice entirely. China’s new leadership is reportedly reviewing it.
Ningbo’s people power halts petrochemical plant expansion – for now
(November 2, 2012) The power of protest in China continues to gain momentum as yet another show of strength in numbers by protesters in Ningbo, an affluent port city of 3.4 million people, has halted a plan to expand petrochemical production in nearby Zhenhai.
No country for private houses
(October 26, 2012) The history of government property seizure in China reads like an appalling dystopian fiction. A new film, which debuted in New York on October 28, looks closely at the astonishing but all-too-true stories of individual citizens – survivors of this ongoing battle for property rights – who have been robbed of their homes, their lands, unconscionably beaten, tormented and forced to endure bizarre and cruel new realities as a result of a social-political ideology gone mad and corrupt officials and developers who will stop at nothing in their pursuit of power, privilege and gain.
Dammed and betrayed
(October 3, 2012) Wang Like is a Three Gorges Dam migrant who moved thinking it was his duty and honour to do so. Wang and his family, along with so many others, gave up everything for the construction of China’s concrete colossus – an edifice that would later be described as equal parts vanity project and technological marvel – in the belief that it was for a greater good. But on arrival in their new resettlement area, Wang’s family experienced what has become standard for countless Three Gorges Dam migrants: a welcome of open hostility, corruption of resettlement funds, broken promises and incomprehensible ill-treatment – as though he and his fellow migrants were being punished for their sacrifice. Wang’s story is rendered in powerful detail here, in a letter he wrote to a sympathetic journalist, in the hopes his voice would be heard.
Patricia Adams
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
Probe International
Lisa Peryman
Probe Media
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