THE COMING CHINESE CRACK-UP

Three Gorges: Cracks in the bureaucracy (Miao Ye, 6/19/03, The Asia Times)

According to a correspondent from a newspaper based in Chongqing, China's largest municipality, a local news organization's president said, "Our reports on the Three Gorges must outperform outside competitors, win news awards and bring glory to Chongqing media." The president imposed a moratorium on reporting four aspects of the project: alluvial sediment buildup, the more than 100 cracks that have already appeared in the dam, pollution/environmental damage and the return of those who were displaced from the area by the project. The first three issues are not allowed because with the passage of time, China's science and technology will improve, so they can be solved. The last taboo is forbidden because of the threat that it poses to social unity and stability. Last, the president encouraged his staff to work assiduously, since positive news related to the project is quite difficult to find nowadays.

Huang Wanli, a pre-eminent water-resources engineering expert from Qinghua University in Beijing, whose predictions regarding the Sanmen Gorge of the Yellow River were proved to be dead-on, has written many times to urge officials not to overlook sediment in the bottom of Yangtze River. According to his study, each year some millions of tons of sediment move along the bottom of the river. When the dam halts the sediment's flow, it will accumulate at the bottom of the lake. To date nobody has dared to tackle that problem. Although the issue has been mentioned before in central government-controlled television broadcasts, its serious consequences were not mentioned.

Huang Shunxing, a member of the National People's Congress (NPC) and an agricultural and environmental protection expert, said the Chinese government acted single-mindedly on the Three Gorges project and willfully ignored dissenting voices from opponents of the project. He said that in 1992, in order to adopt the resolution to implement the project, the government established many restrictions at the time when the NPC was discussing and approving the construction, even refusing to look at even the most basic relevant data. Materials presented in support of the project weighed dozens of kilograms, yet only a few brochures contained objections and/or criticisms.

We tend to be equally skeptical about libertarianism and neoconservatism around here, but China policy is one issue where the neoconservatives have been better leaders than any other faction of the Right. The pro-business Right, in order to justify its eagerness to gain access to Chinese markets and cheap labor, has had to convince itself that China will just reform its way into liberal democracy over the next couple years and that significant progress has already been made. As part of this self-hypnosis they're willing to ignore human-rights abuses, which is merely repugnant of them, but also to ignore the fatal structural weakness in China as a nation and as an economic entity, which is foolish of them. This is still China's antediluvian age. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 19, 2003 9:57 PM