China's Three Gorges Dam: Questions and Prospects

Abstract

The idea of building a massive dam in the Yangtze gorges has fired the imagination of Chinese and foreign engineers, adventurers and entrepreneurs since the 1920s. Politicians, financiers, presidents and chairmen have been bombarded and bamboozled with the nuts and bolts of Three Gorges and the impassioned views of project proponents and opponents. The crescendo of debate has risen steadily through decades of civil unrest, war, revolution, and national upheaval and reconstruction. Still, despite this long gestation, Chinese and foreign perspectives on the place and purpose of the proposed dam are remarkably limited in concept and substance.