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Ⅰ. The Background of the Construction of the Three Gorges Dam: Water Control in the Yangtze
Ⅱ. Controversy over the Three Gorges Dam and President Xi Jinping’s Visit to the Dam in 2018
Ⅲ. Controversy over the Potential Dam Failure
Ⅳ. Outlook for Beijing’s Reponses
Although severe floods have subsided since early June, intense rainfall is still ravaging many parts of China. On August 19, Chinese authorities opened 10 floodgates to release floodwater from the Three Gorges Dam spanning the Yangtze River. It is usually the case in Korea that river stages return to normal after rainfall stops. However, as China largely consists of lowlands, river stages stay high even after rainfall stops. So, after farmlands near the Three Gorges Dam and four cities in Anhui Province were flooded due to the impact of 5 floods, the Yangtze River’s water level is still high.
The Xinhua News Agency kept reporting that flood damage this year is pretty much the same as previous years. And China’s Ministry of Emergency Management even announced on August 6 that economic loss from flood this year decreased compared to previous years. But the reality is more than 50 million people have been displaced, pleading for emergency relief in the wake of unprecedented flooding. And many foreign observers seem anxious about the safety of the Three Gorges Dam. Then why is the Chinese government uneasy about domestic and foreign observers blowing situations out of proportion?
Ⅰ. The Background of the Construction of the Three Gorges Dam: Water Control in the Yangtze
The biggest floods in China’s modern history occurred in 1931 and 1998 with death tolls exceeding 220,000. And many other floods occurred around the Yangtze River flowing from the west to the east of China. So, flood control around the Yangtze River had been a long-waited goal of many Chinese leaders including Sun Wen (孫文), who is revered as “the Father of the Nation,”Chiang Kai-shek (蒋介石), Mao Zedong (毛泽东), and Deng Xiaoping (邓小平). And in 1994, Premier Li Peng (李鹏) initiated the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, seemingly achieving the long-waited goal. The Three Gorges Dam project, which was completed on May 20, 2006, 12 years after its construction began. The Dam is 185 meters high and 2.3 kilometers long, making it the world’s largest power station in terms of installed capacity. The Chinese government expected the construction of the dam to resolve flooding and energy problems.
China has long been a society based on agriculture. This means that securing efficient and reliable water supply has directly affected people’s livelihoods. For this reason, many Chinese leaders endeavored to find effective water control measures around the Yangtze which produces approximately 40 percent of China’s total food production. It is said that Emperor Yu(禹), whose reign epitomizes the age of peace, could successfully tighten his grip on power for his contributions to water control. And the myth of the Xia (夏) dynasty, founded by Yu’s son Qi (啓), inspired the notion of ZhōnghuaMinzuthat has been the spiritual roots of the Chinese people.
China is a multi-ethnic state. And Chinese leaders tend to employ the concept of Zhōnghuawhich means “the Chinese”whenever there is a call for one single Chinese national identity. The Chinese Communist Party called for uniting 56 ethic groups as one Chinese nation to improve China’s capabilities as one way of achieving the goal of socialist modernization until 2049, the centenary year of its establishment. It seems that the Chinese government has adopted nationalism as political leverage to achieve national development goals. And this is why Chinese leadership has been putting more emphasis on the Three Gorges Dam, which is at the center of the Yangtze, than on Zhongyuan (中原), the Central Plain, as the origin of one Chinese nation state.
Ⅱ. Controversy over the Three Gorges Dam and President Xi Jinping’s Visit to the Dam in 2018
There has been much debate in China’s political and academic circles over the Three Gorges Dam, which took 100 years from conception to construction. With concerns over environmental degradation and destruction of cultural heritage, many in the Communist Party questioned whether it is capable of constructing the dam, and opposed to the project. The plan was approved in 1992 at the National People’s Congress (NPC) with 31.5 percent of members vetoed against the project (177 oppositions and 644 abstentions from 2,608 members). This is very exceptional because most of the votes in China come to unanimous decisions with a round of applause. But flood control would be a sensitive issue for Chinese people who suffered from the trauma of the collapse of the Banqiao Dam in 1975 in which 170,000 people were killed.
It appears that Chinese leadership stayed perplexed right around the completion of the Three Gorges Dam project. On May 20, 2006, China marked the official completion of the Three Gorges Dam in a simple 8-minute ceremony without key figures in its leadership including then President Hu Jintao (胡锦涛) and then Premier Wen Jiabao ( 温家宝). And even Li Peng did not show up at the ceremony although he had stepped down from all official posts at that time. This shows that there were much political pressure regarding the issue. The prevailing view is that almost none in Chinese leadership wanted to take credit for the project that could end up with hugh repercussions.
As mentioned above, the Three Gorges Dam was a double-edged sword for many Chinese leaders and politicians. President Xi Jinping was the first leader to give public recognition for the value of the Three Gorges Dam. In April 2018, President Xi visited the Dam for the first time in 21 years as head of state. It is quite meaningful that Xi talked up the project as “the fine example for the development of the entire Zhonghua Minzu,”mentioning the Two Centenaries (兩個百年) and his slogan – the China Dream with the three Gorges Dam. There are many interpretations of why Xi visited the Three Gorges Dam, but considering the circumstances at the time, it is possible to make several inferences.
President Xi’s visit to the Three Gorges Dam came shortly after his re-election was confirmed in March 2018 after the NPC approved a constitutional revision to abolish the restriction on the president’s second term. There is a possibility that he has taken a bolder step than his predecessors with confidence coming from his firm grip on power. Viewed in the context of political dynamics, it may have been an attempt to save the face of his predecessors, and improve relations with the Shanghai clique by praising projects approved by former President Jiang Zemin. Or, it could have been an attempt to show that his grip on power is solid after Bo Xilai (薄熙来), the former Communist Party chief in Chongqing, was expelled from the Party for the corruption scandal. This is because the Three Gorges Dam is located near Chongqing and Sichuan, both of which were under Bo Xilai’s influence before his downfall. On top of that, as President Xi started to step up efforts at advancing national development goals and diplomatic, military expansion in his second term, his visit seems quite natural because the construction of the Three Gorges Dam symbolizes China’s technological advances.
What seems clear is that successive Chinese leaders expressed their views on the issues of the Three Gorges Dam based on their own political lens and interests. For instance, Chiang Kai-shek’s focus in discussing the issue was on post-war reconstruction, and Li Peng’s focus was on cushioning the impact of bloody suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests. In this respect, it appears that Xi visited the dam based on political calculations as his predecessors did.
It is said that the Three Gorges Dam itself met the expectations of securing power supply. And it is anticipated that the dam would give a boost to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in terms of the development of an inland waterway. But, the problem is more about flood control. It is true that making an accurate comparison between before and after the dam is quite difficult. However, it also holds true that the Three Gorges Dam was not that effective in terms of flood control in the sequence of flood peak stages. And a growing number of people in China are casting doubtful eyes on the dam’s efficacy, and even worry about the collapse of the dam.
Ⅲ. Controversy over the Potential Dam Failure
When President Xi took office in 2013 unveiling his slogan – the China Dream, average Chinese people viewed it as a simple, realistic dream of raising their standards of living so that they can enjoy high living standards like many Westerners. With income growth for Chinese households and technological advancements, the Chinese started to adopt various avenues to express their views on social issues. This has also been the case with the Three Gorges Dam. Most of them seem to be concerned about environmental problems including the accumulation of mud, sand, and algae, possible cracks caused by shoddy construction work, and approximately 1.3 million displaced people by the construction of the dam. Such views have been circulating on Weibo, which is often described as aa Chinese version of Twitter.
A striking example of this was a video of “the Three Gorges Dam’s failure simulation”posted on July 23. The video anticipates that the 39.3 billion cubic meters of water stored in the dam will sink Yichang City in Hubei Province with a population of 4.1 million within 30 minutes at a maximum speed of 100 kilometers per hour. The video also estimates that it will take less than a day to swallow from Wuhan, Hubei Province, to Nanjing in Jiangsu Province. And earlier in June, a posting allegedly written by a researcher named Huang Xiaoqun at the China Academy of Building Research (CABR) went viral and stoked greater fears among the Chinese. It says that those living in the areas below Yichang should evacuate their current residences immediately. Although he denied that he posted it and the posting was deleted, the video has been going viral.
There has been no comment from Chinese leadership as the Chinese public remains wary and skeptical of the issue. President Xi mentioned twice that officials should endeavor to prevent the dam’s failure. And he suddenly visited Jilin, one of the three provinces of Northeast China, in an attempt to boost corn production. Although it is the premier’s duty to head to the regions hit by natural disasters like landslides, floods, and earthquakes, Premier Li Keqiang visited flood-hit Wuhan on July 6, a month later the city was swept by the flood.
Ⅳ. Outlook for Beijing’s Reponses
With the growing attention of both domestic and foreign observers, Chinese leadership seems to be working hard to prevent the collapse of the Three Gorges Dam. On July 20, China blasted dams on the Chu River (滁河) in Ahhui to prevent the collapse of the Three Gorges Dam. Some conspiracy theories arguing that Anhui became a scapegoat for the sake of the upper Yangtze and Jiangsu have been circulating among Chinese internet users. But it is understandable that the Chinese authorities had to prevent the Three Gorges Dam’s failure no matter what it takes.
It appears that President Xi has been grappling to keep the symbolic importance of the Three Gorges Dam, and to effectively address public grievances over the possibility of the dam’s collapse. Although he visited the flood-hit city on August 20 after all, it took three months, which is an exceptionally long time, for him to make the decision. It is still questionable why it took him three months to visit the city. But his action also shows that there was much consideration in Chinese leadership over the Yangtze and Three Gorges Dam.
President Xi’s three-day visit to the dam from April 24 to 26, 2018, was quite unprecedentedly long as a head of state. Xi visited ecological protection zones, a camp hosting people displaced by the Three Gorges Dam project, and Fiberhome Telecom Tech, a fiber optic cable company. This shows where Chinese leadership is focusing their attention. In particular, Xi at the time encouraged Fiberhome Telecom Tech to ramp up its own efforts to develop core technologies, and the company is now leading the network and display industries. And in May this year, the U.S. added the company to its economic blacklist. Fiberhome’s growth reaffirms President Xi’s remarks in 2018 that the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt (長江經濟帶) is the CCP’s decision aimed at promoting China’s overall growth.
Beijing announced that it will impose a 10-year ban on commercial fishing on the Yangtze. It would be worth paying attention to whether the decision is to improve the Chinese people’s welfare rather than one-sidedly pursuing state-led development, or to seize the upper hand in terms of global efforts at promoting ecological and environmental security.
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