the political economy of the three gorges project

The Political Economy of the Three Gorges Projectgeor_725 154..165

MICHAEL WEBBERDepartment of Resource Management and Geography, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010.Email: [email protected]

Received 14 June 2011; Revised 15 September 2011; Accepted 18 September 2011

AbstractThis paper examines the debates over the decision to build the Three Gorges Dam,the subsequent flows of income to the firms involved in its construction, and thecontinuing implications of the dam for the Chinese space economy. The papermakes and justifies three claims. First, the construction project has been respon-sible for both dispossession and the formation of capital (primitive accumulation).But it is too simple to interpret the project as merely the face of modernity ordevelopment: proponents were reflecting traditional attitudes to bureaucracy andenvironmental management, whereas opponents sought liberalisation, marketisa-tion, and opening up. It turns out that the concept of modernity, as a westernprogramme introduced into China after the formation of the People’s Republic, isof remarkably little value in understanding the construction of this dam. Secondly,the decision to build the dam reflects both structure and happenstance – particularpolitical events and individuals were critical. Notably, the project shows few signsof having come into being to absorb over-accumulated capital: mega-projects likethis do not have to satisfy any capitalist logic. Finally, I emphasise that such hugeprojects have long run effects on the structure of power in China – indeed, eventsat Three Gorges underpinned much of the later debate and struggle over dams onthe Mekong, Salween, and Changjiang above Three Gorges.

KEY WORDS China; Three Gorges Dam; modernity; primitive accumulation;capitalism; mega-projects

IntroductionIn 2008, when the Three Gorges Dam was com-pleted, its official cost was RMB 180 billion(approximately AUD 30 billion). However,Chinese officials then said privately that the dammight end up costing RMB 400–600 billion (Dai,2009). Such a huge project, absorbing between1% and 3% of China’s total investment in fixedassets during its construction (depending onwhich estimate of costs you believe), embodiesthe characteristics of the nation – its peoples’ andleaders’ hopes and disappointments, its forms ofdevelopment, its modes of managing environ-ments, its structures of power, and its means ofresolving conflicts.

The dam and its reservoir forced the evictionof at least one million people from their land

and/or homes. (Estimates of the number ofpeople are disputed. The current official esti-mate is 1.13 million; correspondents and activ-ists write of two million: see Chen, 1989; Yao,1991; Dai, 1994; Topping, 1995; Chi, 1997;Chetham, 2002. We see bigger estimates later.)Most farmers were relocated to new land (and,often, houses) in the same county. Some farmersand urban residents were banished into townsand cities in the same county. And well over100 000 people were relocated outside the ThreeGorges region entirely (International RiversNetwork, 2003). None of the three groups ofhousehold has prospered since being evicted(McDonald, 2006; McDonald et al., 2008;McDonald-Wilmsen and Webber, 2010).Although there was great resistance to the

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154 Geographical Research • May 2012 • 50(2):154–165doi: 10.1111/j.1745-5871.2011.00725.x

forcible evictions (detailed in Webber, 2012), ithad little effect.

The farmers and small business people havebeen dispossessed of their means of production.(On dispossession, see Harvey, 2003; Bebbing-ton, 2009; Kapoor, 2009; Sarkar and Chowdhury,2009.) Authors such as Harvey claim that mega-projects represent a form of neoliberalism (apolitical programme that calls for openingeconomies to global flows of goods and money,privatising property and virtually all services,and using the market as the principal means ofregulating an economy and allocating goods andservices). This explanation identifies neoliberal-ism, including dispossession, as a political attackby the capitalist class on the pay and conditionsof workers, intended to raise the ratio of profits:wages in the 1970s and 1980s when rates ofprofit in advanced capitalist economies wererelatively low (Harvey, 2003; on mega-projectsas capitalist expansion, see also Feldman et al.,2003; Gellert and Lynch, 2003; for politicaldetails, see Blyth, 2002). Others, includingDwivedi (2002), Escobar (2003), Fisher (1995),and Hussain (2008), interpret mega-projects asembodiments of modernity or development –required because of high levels of resource-intensive material consumption (including trans-port) and implemented by the bureaucratic state,which relies on top-down expert knowledge andchampions forms of development that damageenvironments and pay little attention to the needsof the poor.

Both kinds of explanation oversimplify, asMcDonald (2007) demonstrates in her analysisof the structural conditions, interests, and con-crete actions that intersect in the struggle overdamming the Nu (Salween) River in south-western China. McDonald points to central andlocal governments’ demands for growth, theways in which hydropower is governed and non-governmental organisations are organised, chang-ing official tolerance of debate, the interests oflocal communities (and portrayals of their placein national development), as well as the motivesof the newly corporatised hydropower industry(compare Litzinger, 2007). Three Gorges is farmore complex than neoliberalism in practice oractually existing modern development.

Therefore, in this paper, I examine why the damat Three Gorges was constructed. Cost–benefitanalyses of the project were inconclusive, butanyway immaterial; more important were thepolitical struggles and structures of power thatsurrounded the dam. Also important are the con-

tinuing repercussions of events at Three Gorgesfor political power in China: the work of the damis not yet done. I make three claims. First, therewere dispossession and capital formation. But thedam is not merely a face of modern development:in struggling over the project, the attitudes ofproponents reflected several thousand yearsof bureaucratic and environmental practice inChina; while opponents were arguing for markets,opening up, and a more liberal political economy.Second, the decision to build reflected structureand happenstance; particular political events andindividuals were critical in shaping events, formega-projects like this do not have to satisfy anycapitalist logic. Finally, such huge projects havelong run effects on structures of political power –indeed, events at Three Gorges underpinned laterstruggle over the Nu River.

Rational analysis of the projectBenefit–cost analyses of the Three GorgesProject balance hydropower, flood control, andimproved river transport against financial, envi-ronmental, and social costs. A feasibility study,financed by the Canadian International Devel-opment Agency and conducted by Canadianprovincial utilities and private consulting firms,concluded that the project was socially, environ-mentally, and economically feasible (CIPMYangtze Joint Venture, 1989). An earlier study,by the Chinese People’s Political Consulta-tive Committee, had recommended against theproject (Economic Construction Group of theCPCC, 1986). Barber and Ryder (1994) discussthis debate. Although the costs and benefits aredisputed, the principal costs and benefits can beidentified.

The dam provides nearly 3% of China’sinstalled electricity generating capacity. Powerconsumption in China in the early 2000s wasrising at almost 15% a year, driven by demandfrom the expanding industrial economy (whichaccounts for over 70% of China’s energy de-mand), and electricity has been in consistentlyshort supply (Xinhua News Agency, 2003a;Chan, 2004; Steenhof, 2006). Electric power is aclear benefit of the dam, if such rapid industrialgrowth is to continue.

Flood control is the second benefit claimed.According to Li Peng (Cheung, 1994), the damwill control flooding in central and east China.Floods on the Changjiang during the 20th cen-tury killed over 320 000 people. The summerfloods in 1998 killed 3000 people, inundated 21million ha of farmland, destroyed five million

M. Webber: Political Economy of the Three Gorges Project 155

© 2011 The AuthorGeographical Research © 2011 Institute of Australian Geographers

homes, and caused damage worth US$ 20 billion(Jackson and Sleigh, 2001). However, Li’s claimis overstated: the dam has a minor capacity tostore the volumes of water that flow down theriver in big floods (Williams, 1994). Further-more, floods along the Changjiang are oftenproduced by rainfall below the dam (Chen, 1994)– and Three Gorges Dam cannot control thosefloods. The dam may also encourage reducedinvestment in dykes and diversion storagesdownstream and sanction investments on thefloodplain (Williams, 1994). Finally, in 1998,much of the damage was caused not by the sizeof the flood but by the shoddy construction ofdykes (Chan, 1998).

The third benefit is improved navigation. Thedam calms the rapids within the Gorges anddeepens the river, allowing boats of up to 10 000tonnes to reach Chongqing, where the harbour’scapacity will increase to 50 million tonnes peryear. The dam has a five-step and double-wayship lock as well as a lift that can raise a 3000-tonnes boat. However, little is known about thepredicted demand for river traffic; sedimentationupstream will obstruct navigation to Chongqing;and shipping traffic could have been tripledanyway by combining better traffic control pro-cedures and more powerful tug boats withextended navigation hours (Barber and Ryder,1994).

The benefits of the dam may be less obviousthan claimed; but the costs are more obvious. Thesocial costs include the consequences of evictionsand the scope within the project for corruption– manipulation of subcontracts (Ding, 2001;National Audit Office, 2007) and stealing(Becker, 1999; 2000). One way or another, includ-ing mistakes and subcontracting scams, less thana half of resettlement funds ever reached peasantsin Yichang municipality (Peacehall, 2006). TheNational Audit Office reported that between 2004and 2005, nearly 3% of the money granted toresettlement programmes had been misappropri-ated (Li, 2007a) – despite crackdowns ordered byZhu Rongji in 1999.

The environmental effects of the dam arenot fully understood (Tullos, 2009). The mostobvious effect is to reduce flow velocityupstream and flood the valley. The flow regimebelow the dam is altered, raising low flows inwinter and reducing the higher flows of summer,potentially affecting rare or precious species andcausing declining water quality in lakes belowthe dam and new disease regimes above it (Tanand Yao, 2006; Li, 2007b). The dam also has

geologic impacts, most prominently erosion ofshorelines through wave action and landslides onslopes destabilised by construction and the 30 mfluctuations in the level of the reservoir (XinhuaNews Agency, 2007a). The landslides kill people(Zhuang, 2007), reduce the volume of waterstored in the reservoir (restricting electricityoutput and flood storage), and create waves thatdamage property and kill people. The sheerweight of water in the reservoir may also triggerfrequent, though so far low intensity, earthquakes(Shi, 2009a). Changes in the sediment regime ofthe river are also predicted (Tullos, 2009).

The dam raised rates of erosion through therelocation of households from the valley floorup onto the steep valley sides. The original plancalled for rural households to be relocated ontounoccupied land upslope from the reservoir.Because farmland was already in short supply,virtually all unoccupied land was on steepslopes (over 25°), suitable only for terracing andtree crops (Fearnside, 1994). Forests on theseslopes were to be cleared. Between 1991 (whentrial evictions began) and 1999 (when forestclearing was banned), relocation upslope andforest clearing constituted the official means ofrelocating peasants. However, each 1% reduc-tion in forest cover here increases the annualrate of soil erosion by 128 tonnes/km2 (Geogra-phical Resource Institute of the CAS 2000).Responding to the scale of the 1998 flood disas-ter and convinced that forest clearance had exac-erbated the flooding, Premier Zhu Rongji in1998 prohibited logging forests in the JinshaRiver basin and farming land over 25° (Hegge-lund, 2006).

Officials now admit that the dam has caused anarray of ecological ills (Xinhua News Agency,2007a). The central government plans to spendRMB 99 billion to cope with these social andenvironmental effects (Shi, 2009b) and Chong-qing plans to move another four million peopleout of the reservoir area (Xinhua News Agency,2007a). These ongoing expenditures make it dif-ficult to estimate the financial cost of the project.The official estimate is RMB 180 billion, notincluding these new plans (Chen, 1993; Cheung,1994; Shi, 2009b) or the costs paid by evictedhouseholds themselves. I estimate: RMB 180billion (official estimate) + 99 billion (environ-mental remediation) + 7.5 billion (private expen-diture on new housing at RMB 30 000 perhousehold) + 2.5 billion (present value of loss ofhousehold income, discounted at 10% annually)+ 280 billion (Chongqing’s new scheme, four

156 Geographical Research • May 2012 • 50(2):154–165


times the original programme of evictions) + 40billion (for private losses under Chongqing’snew scheme). These additions imply a total costof RMB 610 billion, roughly the same as esti-mates made privately by Chinese officials. Thisfigure excludes the value of un-remediated envi-ronmental damage.

Uncertainties about benefits and costs wereboth important and unimportant. The originalcalculus made the project seem feasible andfinancially viable when deciding whether or notto build it. The project was controversial insideand outside China, but at least RMB 57 billion(the cost quoted in the early 1990s) was not outof the question, particularly if World Bank orother international finance could be found. (Inthe end, the fuss prevented development banksfrom funding the dam.) This is ‘fishing’ (Ding,2001) – underestimating the problems thatwould be encountered, the effects that would becreated, and the costs that would be conferred(the Canadian International DevelopmentAgency was also fishing for the project). In thissense, uncertainty is important. In another sense,though, the benefits and costs were irrelevant:the project was not built for maximum financialgain nor because the benefits of power, floodcontrol, and navigation overwhelmed social,environmental, and capital costs. The dam hasanother logic entirely.

Dam and nationPost-colonial critics understand mega-projectslike Three Gorges as icons of modern develop-ment, typified institutionally by the nation stateand bureaucrats-as-experts; culturally by beliefin ideas of progress, rationality, individualism,and universalism; and economically by capital-ism and state socialism (see Escobar, 1995;2003; compare Dwivedi, 2002; Hussain, 2008).According to its proponents, the Three GorgesProject did represent a statement that China is amodern nation; it was a project in building thenation in the image of modernity, and within thatframe, benefits and costs were techniques ratherthan goals. Indeed, the idea of the dam excitedsuch disparate leaders as Sun Yat Sen and MaoZe Dong (for more on the pre-history of the dam,see Barber and Ryder, 1994; Dai, 1994; andJackson and Sleigh, 2001). But there are limits tothis idea of the dam as modernisation: the oppo-nents were modernisers too, and its constructionreflects social and environmental attitudes thatlong predate modern senses of development.

The dam as developmentThe dam asserted the power of the central state.In December 1994, Li Peng called on the buildersto ensure that construction kept up with topinternational standards (Cheung, 1994). In 1997,Li Peng stated that:

[The dam] will demonstrate to the world thatthe Chinese people have the ability to buildthe biggest and the most beneficial irrigationand hydroelectric project in the world atpresent . . . It . . . demonstrates the greatnessof the achievement of China’s development(Chan, 1997).

He and President Jiang Zemin repeated similarremarks on 9 November 1997, when the riverwas blocked (O’Neil, 1997).

There is, though, a more particular sense inwhich the dam characterises the Chinese state. Inthe late 1980s and early 1990s, when debate overthe dam was at its peak, supporters of the projecttended to hold centrist, state-dirigiste, and anti-reform views whereas those who opposed itfavoured more market-oriented policies. As such,the project got caught up in events leading up to,and the fallout from, the Tian’anmen Square pro-tests (June 1989).

At the centre of events was Li Peng, premierbetween 1988 and 1998. As a hydroelectric engi-neer and staunch promoter of centrally fundedand directed projects, Li was the principal cham-pion of the Three Gorges Project. His premier-ship witnessed two important struggles.

The first struggle concerned the project itself.Proponents, led by Li, lost the first battle in 1986,when the Chinese People’s Political ConsultativeCommittee reported against the proposal, leadingthe National People’s Congress to recommendexcluding the project from the next five-yearplan. Li won the second battle when the CIPMYangtze Joint Venture (1989) reported in favour.However, debate about the project remainedfierce; the opposition, whose arguments weresummarised in Dai Qing’s Yangtze! Yangtze (Dai,1994), forced another postponement later in1989: Li lost the third battle. However, he wonthe war when, in April 1992, the NationalPeople’s Congress finally approved the project.Between 1989 and approval came Tian’anmen.

The second struggle debated the pace of mar-ketisation (code for capitalism) and opening up(Baum, 1997). The gradual introduction of capi-talist forms of production and increased contactwith the outside world was orchestrated by acoalition held together by Deng Xiaoping. In this



coalition were ‘liberals’ (make capitalism morequickly, open up to western influence, toleratepublic debate) and ‘conservatives’ (restrict capi-talism, keep out western influence, suppressdissent); Li Peng was a principal conservative.

Debate within the party was paralleled bypublic argument, especially about unemploy-ment, inflation, jobs losses in restructured stateowned enterprises (SOEs), corruption, and somedemocratisation of policy making. One cycle ofincreasing dissent culminated in demonstrationsin 1987. To conservatives (and some moderates)within the government and party, these demon-strations revealed the incompatibility of publicdebate and social stability. Deng Xiaoping and theconservatives clamped down on debate. A secondcycle of increasing public debate and dissent cul-minated in the events of April–June 1989. Deng(then chair of the Central Military Commission),the president (Yang Shangkun), and other conser-vatives used the support of the old leaders tostrengthen Li as he crushed the demonstration andpurged its supporters.

The newly powerful Li Peng and other conser-vatives mounted a crackdown on China’s privatesector, which lasted until the mid-1990s (Huang,2008). Public debate and dissent were sup-pressed. Whereas the main proponent of the dam– Li Peng – was relatively weak at the end of the1980s, he gained power during Tian’anmen andits aftermath; academic and public questioning ofthe dam and its benefits and costs was toleratedin the 1980s, but suppressed after Tian’anmen.Debate over the dam and the cycles of approvalsand rejections embody the history of toleranceand suppression within China. The Three GorgesDam is an icon of struggles between the twogroups of 1980s leaders – liberals, who soughtreform, opening and a smaller role for the state,and conservatives, who sought to retain a para-mount role for the Chinese Communist Party(CCP) and the state.

The dam also reflects the power of bureaucraticexpertise over the rights and views of peasants.In early 1990s China, few leaders, of whateverfaction, paid much attention to the rights andviews of peasants. But the Three Gorges ProjectConstruction Committee, which Li Peng chaired,took a strongly top-down, command-and-controlapproach to planning the dam and displacements:it instructed provinces, which in turn instructedcounties. At best, peasants were given reasonablenotice of where and when they were to move;none was consulted about the design of plans fortheir eviction or about appropriate entitlements.

The question of whether or not we want tomove does not arise. This is China . . . youhave to move. We have to accept it (shoeshop owner in Fengdu, Chongqing, quoted inO’Neil, 1997).

Time and again, now much less than 20 yearsago, officials assert that they know what is bestfor (ignorant, uneducated) peasants and how toachieve it. Yet this is not a modern characteristicof the Chinese state: it has roots deep in pre-revolutionary history (Furushima, 1972).

Likewise, the dam reflects a way of thinkingthat is over 2000 years old. This engineeringmentality deploys technology to control naturetowards human ends; it predates modern devel-opment (contra McCormack, 2001; Escobar,2003). As Jiang Zemin (1997) claimed:

Since the twilight of history, the Chinesenation has been engaged in the great feat ofconquering, developing and exploiting nature.

Ever since the first dam, 2600 years ago, damsand irrigation canals have been essential tools ofthe state, raising and stabilising yields and there-fore revenues, to make the state more powerful(Needham, 1986, 271; Elvin, 1993). Althoughcritics (such as McCormack, 2001) claim thatthe current paradigm of water management com-bines the centralising tradition of empire withwestern nature-dominating and nature-exploitingparadigms of modernism imported from Russia,the Three Gorges Dam is not anchored inmodern attitudes to environment but in traditionalChinese attitudes to hydrology.

Official comment about the dam has sinceenrolled other discourses. First, governmentsclaim that the dam (and others like it) help unifylevels of development across China, by reducinginterregional disparities in access to jobs andinvestment. Dams power ‘Grand Western Devel-opment’ (China Daily, 2003c). Second, govern-ments argue that hydropower is environmentallybenign, producing less pollution and carbondioxide emissions than coal-fired power stations(Xinhua News Agency, 2006). Thirdly, the ThreeGorges Project encouraged the government tounify power grids in China, replacing a systemthat was focused on individual or small groups ofprovinces by a national system of electricity pro-duction and distribution. (Such huge generatorsas Three Gorges are located where demandis relatively low and so have to sell electricityover a wide area, unlike previous smaller powergenerators.) These discourses make the dam



symbolise the kind of China that its presentleaders want: more equitable, less environmen-tally destructive, and more unified.

The dam does exhibit features consistent withmodern development. It states the state’s powerand pride in that power; it expresses a victory ofelites and rich over peasants; and it symbolisesChina’s technical capacity and demand forenergy. However, several modern characteristics– official attitudes to peasants and preference forengineering to solve the problems posed byhydrology – have a long history in China. Fur-thermore, its modern character did nothing toensure that the dam was built: that decisionrested on a struggle between two views of whatdevelopment meant in China in the late 1980sand early 1990s. Equally, the dam nearly did notget built. If the protesters at Tian’anmen hadbehaved differently; if an army commander hadexpressed doubts; if Deng or one of Li Peng’ssupporters had died: at least for the then-foreseeable future, the dam would have beenomitted from five year plans. As well as drawingon long traditions of statecraft and bureaucracyin China, the construction of the dam relied a loton luck and individual behaviour.

Making capitalism with the damMuch of the pressure to build the dam camefrom people and corporations hoping to makemoney.

Among the biggest beneficiaries of the damwere local construction companies. More than300 000 new houses were built, endless kilome-tres of roads and tunnels, and infrastructure forhundreds of new towns and cities. Many houseswere built by the peasants themselves, but mostother construction was undertaken by local com-panies. The total cost of all this is likely to be halfthe official budget. The city at which the projectwas managed, Yichang, boomed. In 1990, annualfixed capital investment in Yichang prefecturewas about RMB 1.8 billion; by 2006, it exceededRMB 30 billion. The prefecture’s populationdoubled. Everyone who owns, manages, orworks in the new operations benefited as incomefrom construction multiplied through the localeconomy.

Nevertheless, the real action was in corporatecapital formation. The project was managed bythe State Council Three Gorges Project Construc-tion Committee. The committee in September1993 established China Yangtze Three GorgesDevelopment Corporation (now called ChinaThree Gorges Corporation or CTGPC) to finance,

construct, and operate the project. GezhoubaHydropower Plant, 40 km downstream of theThree Gorges Dam, was incorporated intoCTGPC in 1996, so that the profits from this plantcould help finance the Three Gorges Project. InSeptember 2002, CTGPC created a subsidiary,ChinaYangtze Power Co Ltd (CYPC), to managethe hydropower plants at Gezhouba and ThreeGorges; CYPC was listed on the Shanghai StockExchange in November 2003. CTGPC contractedChinese and foreign engineering and construc-tion companies to actually build the dam andprovide equipment (CTGPC, 2002).

The largest single contract (70% of theconstruction budget) was awarded to ChinaGezhouba (Group) Corporation (CGGC). Thiscorporatised SOE constructed the Gezhou dam;it is now an enterprise of over 30 000 employeesthat builds infrastructure, hydroelectric worksand highways, as well as developing real estate(Xin, 2006). The corporation used its experiencein building Gezhouba and Three Gorges Dam, aswell as over 100 other hydroelectric projects inChina, to expand into the Middle East, SouthAsia, South-East Asia, and Africa (CGGC, 2007;Net Resources International, 2009).

Power-generating equipment was supplied bytwo consortia. In total, 14 power-generating unitswere installed in the first phase, and 12 in thesecond. The first 14 were contracted to alliances:Alstom-ABB-Kvaerner and Voith-Siemens-GE.These are all global corporations, headquarteredin Europe and the USA. (Although GE isheadquartered in the USA, GE Canada was thecontractor, perhaps to gain export financingfrom Canada’s Export Development Corpora-tion). All employ tens of thousands of staffto design and produce power-generating andpower-transmitting equipment.

Two Chinese corporations played on this field.Ha’erbin Power Equipment and Dongfang Elec-trical Machinery each worked with one of theforeign groups, under the terms of technologytransfer agreements. Their subcontracts wereworth 31% of the total. The last two units ofthe first phase were almost entirely constructedin China. As the president of Ha’erbin PowerEquipment, Wu Weizhang stated:

We have completely grasped the technologies,and are now capable of independently design-ing and producing 700 000 kilowatt genera-tors . . . The significance to us is not how biga share it is in our business. It symbolises alandmark improvement in our international



competitiveness that we now have the abilityto produce the largest hydropower generatorin the world (Zhang, 2004).

Another group of beneficiaries included financialinstitutions. Originally, the plan was to financethe project through:

1. a tax of RMB 0.003–0.004/kWh on all elec-tricity produced in China;

2. net income from electricity produced by theGezhouba generators;

3. profits from the Three Gorges generators asthey came on stream from 2003;

4. loans from the China Development Bank anddomestic commercial banks;

5. bonds issued in China and overseas, and6. export credit loans and commercial loans

from foreign banks (Zhongguo Xinwen She,1994; Nikkei Weekly, 1995; Xinhua NewsAgency, 1997; Water Power & Dam Con-struction, 1999).

China Development Bank loans were to befunded from domestic bond issues as well asissues in Japan and the USA.

The China Development Bank did secure $US1.2 billion in commercial loans (from DresdnerBank, Commerzbank, Banque National de Paris,Societe Generale, and HSBC) and export credits(China Daily, 1997). However, environmentalistsand human rights groups in the USA preventedthe project from obtaining much foreign funding(Becker, 1997; Lai, 1998; Harding, 1999; WaterPower & Dam Construction, 1999; Chen, 2002)for underwriters, and foreign banks feared fortheir reputations. The collapse of GuangdongInternational Trust & Investment Corporation,the Asian financial crisis, and the low internalrate of return (less than 4%) also deterred inter-national investors.

To offset these difficulties, the CTGPC insteadset up CYPC in 2002. CYPC was given theGezhouba power plant, worth RMB 7.6 billion;other investors in the company were ChinaNational Petroleum Corporation, China NationalNuclear Corporation, Huaneng InternationalPower Development Corporation, and somesmaller enterprises (Liu, 2002). The company waslisted on the Shanghai stock market in 2003,raising RMB 9.6 billion (China Daily, 2003a).In 2003, CYPC bought four generators fromCTGPC for RMB 18.7 billion, and in 2005another two for RMB 9.8 billion (China Daily,2005a; Wang, 2009). In May 2009, CYPC boughtthe remaining generators and business operations

of the project for RMB 107.5 billion (Wang,2009). These investments – and its purchases ofother power companies in China – have beenfunded by debt, bonds, and profits from Gezhoubaand the generators that it already owned in theThree Gorges dam.

These data provide an approximate set ofaccounts for the two corporations (Tables 1 and2). CYPC earns about RMB 18.5 billion annually(net) from the sale of electricity produced atGezhouba and Three Gorges. In the mid-2010s,corporate income and expenditure associatedwith the project will be in balance (allowing forinterest on CYPC’s loans), provided that officialestimates of the total cost are correct. In themeantime, CTGPC made over RMB 60 billion incapital out of the project; CYPC earns nearlyRMB 20 billion annually from operating

Table 1 Income and expenditure of CTGPC, 1993–2008(2009 prices).

Income Source RMBBillions

Electricity tax, 1993–2008 @ RMB0.003/kWh

87

Sales of generators to Yangtze Power 136Bond issues 16Export credits and foreign loans 10Commercial loans in China 4China Development Bank loans 30Income from Gezhouba before transfer

to Yangtze Power21

Total income 304

CostsProject (dam, resettlement, interest):

official data180

Loans and bonds to be redeemed 60Development fund to assist evicted

people3

Total costs 243

Net income 61

Notes and sources: Transactions concerning Three Gorgesonly. Income from Gezhouba is calculated at an annual outputof 15.7 billion kWh/year, a price of RMB 0.15/kWh, and acost of production of RMB 0.05/kWh. In fact, the price wasraised to RMB 0.22/kWh in 2005, but the income benefit toCYPC was offset by a reduction in the electricity tax, whichreduced the income flowing to CTGPC; this rebalancing ofincome flows between the parent and its subsidiary is notcalculated in these tables. On details of electricity prices andcosts, see China Daily (2003a; 2003b; 2005b). On ChinaDevelopment Bank loans, see China Development Bank(2005). On the Development Fund, see Xinhua News Agency(2003b).



Gezhouba and the project; and the more than1 million evicted residents of the valley get RMB3 billion over 10 years as development assis-tance. Just as the Gezhouba Project spawned theGezhouba Group, so the Three Gorges Projectspawned two huge, aggressive energy corpora-tions as well as two engineering companies thathave the technology to build the generators thatthe next suite of dams will require.

These corporations – Gezhouba, China ThreeGorges, China Yangtze Power, Dongfang, andHa’erbin – are ‘virtually’ capitalist. The shares inthese companies are majority owned by the state,but other shares are traded on stock exchanges;they are forced to compete in a market, includingthe market for labour; they have been strippedof their social obligations to provide pensions,health care, and education. The ways in whichsuch corporatised SOEs raise finance, the mannerin which they hire and employ labour, and theirprofit orientation are almost purely capitalist. Bycreating such corporations out of the arms of thevarious ministries and SOEs, the state shiftedworking conditions and corporate organisationwell on the road towards capitalism, even if thecorporations themselves are still only ‘virtually’capitalist.

The future and Three GorgesThe dam produces virtually 90 billion kWh ofelectricity every year; boats power up and down

the Changjiang. But the dam is not finished:work on managing its consequences goes onand so do its effects on China’s societies andenvironments.

Work continues to try to control the environ-mental consequences of the dam and its reser-voir. Wang Xiaofeng, director of the office of theState Council Three Gorges Project ConstructionCommittee, officially recognised some of theproblems at Wuhan in 2007 (Xinhua NewsAgency, 2007c). He stated that the project hadcaused an array of ills, and if preventive mea-sures are not taken there could be an environmen-tal catastrophe. A landslide engulfed a school inYichang in April 2008, though fortunately therewere no pupils or teachers in the school at thetime. Seven months later, five million m3 ofmountainside fell into the reservoir. In onecounty in Chongqing, officials have designatedmore than 800 disaster-prone areas and land-slides forced the relocation of more than 13 000people since 2004; in another, landslides led tothe deaths of 24 people and the homelessnessof another 1100. Others pointed to deterioratingwater quality in tributaries (Peacehall, 2007a;2007b; 2008; Yardley and Zhang, 2007; ThreeGorges Evening News, 2008). Even the StateCouncil (2011) recognised the threat.

Eviction also continues. In October 2007,State Council approved Chongqing’s develop-ment plan for 2007–2020 (Xinhua News Agency,2007b). More than four million people in Chong-qing municipality will be encouraged to resettleon the city’s outskirts. The director of the Chong-qing development plan bureau explained:

One of the key elements in Chongqing’s newdevelopment plan is to further our effortsto protect the environment of the reservoirarea since the environment here has changedgreatly due to the Three Gorges Projectand massive population relocation (Reuters,2007).

More than half these people are rural residents,who will lose their rights to land. If the displace-ment of 1.2 million people costs RMB 80–90billion (official data), the relocation of these fourmillion people can be expected to cost an addi-tional RMB 200–300 billion, more than doublingthe official cost of the project.

Meanwhile, China’s demand for energycontinues to rise; the government claims greencredentials; large, ambitious engineering andconstruction companies look to expand theirwork; the western development plan entices

Table 2 Income and expenditure of CYPC, 1993–2008(2009 prices).

Income Source RMBBillions

Setting up assets (cash) 1Share issue 10Net income from Gezhouba since transfer 8Net income from Three Gorges power to

200828

Accumulated profits, 2003–2008 15Total income 62

CostsPurchase of generators from parent 136

Total costs 136

Net income -74

Notes and sources: Electricity from Three Gorges is chargedat RMB 0.25/kWh with a cost of production of RMB 0.05/kWh. On details of electricity prices and costs, see China Daily(2003a; 2003b). CHYPC bond issues and loans are notincluded as it is not always obvious whether they are intendedfor operations at Three Gorges or for purchases of other assets.



investment westward; and engineers observe thatsilting in the Three Gorges reservoir can bereduced by building new dams upstream on theJinsha River and its tributaries. Another 100dams are planned or being built on the JinshaRiver and its tributaries (Shi, 2008; China Daily,2009). Four dams are under construction alongthe Lancang (Mekong) River and preparatorywork continues on others; and while PremierWen Jiabao called a halt to construction of damson the Nu River in 2003 (on the politics of thesedevelopments, see Magee, 2006; McDonald,2007), the government decided in 2011 to resumeplanning for these dams (Zhu 2011).

Power, nation, and evictionThe lives of the million or more people who werebanished from their homes and land to make wayfor the dam and reservoir at Three Gorges arelinked directly to struggles within the inner circleof the State Council and decisions made in theboardrooms of some of the biggest corporationsin China and the world. Dispossession is some-times a matter of local conditions, opportunities,and struggles, but here at Three Gorges, dispos-session was a national project, involving the prin-cipal structures of the state.

Local households have in general not ben-efited from the project. On average, peasantslost income. They were increasingly forced towork for pay, as most of the land that supportedtheir living as subsistence farmers and indepen-dent commodity producers was removed. How-ever, the peasants’ struggles to remedy theseoutcomes were unable to catch the sustainedattention of the central government throughcredible threats to internal social order or inter-national embarrassment.

The project is so big and its ramifications sowidespread that it raises questions about thechanging configurations of power within China.The central government could not arrange jobsfor people evicted from their lands nor controlthe manner in which evictions were carried out,but it could contain protests within individualvillages and towns. The project likewise reflectedsome crucial characteristics of China’s pro-gramme of industrialisation – its speed andheavy reliance on electric power, the increasingsalience of capitalist forms of production, and thecreation and encouragement of huge national‘champion’ corporations. The project enlisteddiscourses of western development, green devel-opment, and the creation of a unified nationalsystem of power generation and distribution.

Such mega-projects do reflect the nature of thedevelopment path that is chosen by the state andits supporters.

Despite its size, the vast majority of theproject’s funding came from within China.Global capital did provide some investment, butthe World Bank and major commercial bankswere involved little. Individual contractors had toprovide their own capital to build the equipmentthat was required; and for that they earnedincome, some of which became accumulatedcapital. But this was not a project of globalcapital: not only was the decision-taking domes-tic but so was almost all the money.

The project has helped along the creation ofcapitalism in China. A lot of peasants lost theirindependent means of production and wereforced to become labourers. The project fosteredlarge almost-capitalist corporations and enlargedthe capacities of already-capitalist firms. Ithelped to create and sustain smaller enterprisesthroughout the region. But it was not a projectgoverned by an economic logic alone. Certainlyit contributed to capitalist goals; but it dependedcritically on the political goals of the centralstate. In this respect, the form of developmenthere was an accidental outcome of strugglesamong central leaders over the direction ofChina’s development after 1989 – whether thepath of development was to be centrally directedor market-led, open to international influenceor closed, and more tolerant of debate and dissentor less liberal. That is, an economic outcome –development of capitalism – has origins welloutside the narrow concerns of profit and loss,and capital creation and accumulation (see alsoWebber, 2008a; 2008b; 2012). Economic changedoes not always have economic causes.

Nor was the Three Gorges Project an effect ofa universal path, that can be usefully labelledmodern development: state-fostered and rational-ity progressive perhaps, but also distinctivelyChinese. Without the events at Tian’anmen,Three Gorges might never have happened. Thepolitical struggles over inflation, unemployment,and corruption that culminated at Tian’anmenwere particular to China’s historic shift froma state-directed to a more market-oriented paththat offered ambiguous and disputed spaces fordissent. The conservative leaders, including LiPeng, who grabbed power at that time, were thepeople who insisted on building the dam. It wasnot an outcome of abstract characteristics ofthe Chinese state and its development path; itdepended on particular struggles for power over



forms of development, struggles that culminatedfor a while in a programme of state-centred,urban-focused, dissent-intolerant, heavy indus-trialisation. Furthermore, the project was a tradi-tional response to day-to-day problems of floodcontrol and water management – of the kindthat the state has implemented in China for thepast 2500 years – rather than a new form of ratio-nal, bureaucratic, capitalist mega-project thatemerged out of the state’s modernising goals.

Finally, the project is still working its influ-ence over China’s development path. It contrib-uted to the formation of a workforce of formerpeasants and large, capable almost-capitalist cor-porations. The project provided an incentive tocreate a national power grid, dominated by twocorporations that purchase power for sale ontoconsumers across China. The separation of thetasks of managing the project from the Ministryof Water Resources and the State Council andcorporatising them into China Three GorgesCorporation was the model for the subsequentcorporatisation of China’s energy-producingSOEs into five huge almost-capitalist enterprises.It is these energy and construction corporationsthat are building the new generation of damsaround the world (McDonald et al., 2009). Andthe project continues to have its environmentaleffects along the Changjiang valley.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSSophie Webber, Sally Weller, and Mark Wang provided sharpcomments on an earlier draft of the material in this paper.Brooke MacDonald did the field work that provided the dataabout the effects of eviction on households. I am grateful tothe Australian Research Council for grants DP0209563 andDP0880244 (with Mark Wang), which partially funded theresearch reported here.

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the political economy of the three gorges project

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