Chinese government acknowledges Three Gorges Dam “disaster”

[Karmadillo]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/oct2007/chin-o12.shtml

After hailing the huge Three Gorges Dam for years as a major national achievement, the Chinese government has admitted for the first time that the project could be a disastrous failure with damaging environmental consequences. The about-face is not a revision of Beijing’s promotion of the unfettered operation of capitalist market. Just a year from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, it is trying to improve China’s ugly global image as a manufacturer of shoddy goods, a giant sweatshop and a huge industrial polluter.

The Three Gorges Dam is located in the middle of the Yangtze River, with a total power generating capacity of 22,500 megawatts—far larger than the world second largest dam in South America. Commenced in 1994, it has cost more than $US25 billion and is still not fully completed. Pushed by former President Jiang Zemin as a prestige project, the dam came to symbolise Chinese Communist Party (CCP) policy in 1990s of “opening up” to foreign capital. Public criticism of the dam was suppressed.

Now a different assessment is being made. On September 26, the official Xinhua news agency reported a high-level meeting of government officials at which “the many ecological and environmental problems concerning the Three Gorges Dam” were acknowledged. Participants expressed concern that “if no preventive measures are taken, the project could lead to catastrophe.” Wang Xiaofeng, the head of the Three Gorges Dam Project of the State Council declared: “We cannot win passing economic prosperity at the cost of the environment.”

The meeting discussed the glaring problems previously unacknowledged by the authorities. The most serious were landslides caused by the 600-kilometre reservoir that began to fill last year. Tan Qiwei, the vice mayor of Yangtze’s major city Chongqing, pointed out that slippages had occurred at 91 places along the reservoir, and that 36 kilometres of shoreline had caved in. He said the landslides had produced waves of up to 50 metres high. A number of farmers and fishermen have been killed in recent months.

more....

[havocmom]

1. “We cannot win passing economic prosperity at the cost of the environment.”

Can we import that from China?

[kurth]

2. Stupid scum

"Public criticism of the dam was suppressed"

[bananas]

3. I'm sure their nuclear reactors will be built to the same high standards

"The main cause of the environmental problems is not the dam itself, but Beijing’s pro-market policies, which are creating similar disasters throughout the country."

Instead of "The China Syndrome", they'll call it "The U.S. Syndrome".

[Systematic Chaos]

4. Good thing their coal plants are already built to wonderful standards.

Otherwise, we'd have to contend with all kinds of carbon dioxide, radioactive ash, a warming planet, melting ice caps, people dropping dead from unbreatheable air, and other such mayhem.

I'm sure glad they're building a new coal plant every couple of days rather than those horrible nuclear facilities, for which there are tens of millions of reported deaths and environmental damage beyond the bounds of quantification.

:applause: