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Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume Three
Spring 2004
The Three Gorges Dam and the Influence of Globalization in Central China - Page 3
by
Boleslaw Czachor
To counterbalance the obfuscation of the government, certain authors strive to express a poignant, and statistically supported, but biased and opposing opinion of the Three Gorges Dam. In every facet of their writing, these authors pepper their personal opinion onto the information surrounding the Three Gorges Dam, indirectly tainting the Chinese government and the benefits of globalization in central China. For example, from the start of her essay, Qing mixes her information with a strong opposing perspective of the Three Gorges Dam. Even her title, “The Three Gorges Project: A symbol of Uncontrolled Development in the Late Twentieth Century,” contains indicative words such as “Uncontrolled” ¾ defined as “subjective and describes someone who consciously fails to control his/her behavior” ¾ that reveal her opposition to the Three Gorges Dam (Qing3). Therefore, before any objective picture of The Three Gorges Project presents itself, Qing slights it and immediately infuses her opinion about the actions of the Chinese government. After such an opening, one can foresee the negative tone of the article written by Qing; consequently, reaching a conclusion independent of that first impression becomes harder. Another instance occurs when Van Slyke opens his chapter dealing with the Three Gorges Dam with the title “The River Changed Forever?” (181). Much like Qing, Van Slyke obfuscates his audience with the word “Forever” in his title. With this small addition, Van Slyke suggests that the change occurring to the Yangtze River in the form of the Three Gorges Dam does not present China with a better situation, The exact terms that define this lack of improvement remain absent, because this instance of obfuscation occurs in the title. However, reminiscent of Qing, Van Slyke imposes his opinions before presenting material that explains why the situation in China after the construction of the dam is not necessarily better. Through its analytical application, obfuscation downplays the titular negativity of Qing and Van Slyke toward the Three Gorges Dam. With obfuscation clouding the opinions of the Three Gorges Dam and globalization, the physical process of creative destruction remains as the executor of the will of globalization. With the implicit connotations that the authors place on the subject of the Three Gorges Dam, one cannot avoid coming to conclusions based on the opinions of the authors before the facts present themselves.
Obfuscation is not limited to the titular expressions of these writers’ arguments. It permeates into the material the authors use to support their negative views on the Three Gorges Dam. To cite an instance, both Van Slyke and Fu oppose the dam; however, Fu takes a much more radical approach. Within the essay, Fu spends a liberal amount of time criticizing the communist government of China and the Great and Small Leaps Forward, which consisted of campaigns to increase iron and steel production along with a large-scale water conservancy campaign. Fu refers to “[t]he crap from that era [the Great Leap Forward that] has not yet been cleaned up” (Fu 23). When referring to “crap” from the Great Leap Forward, Fu speaks of the many smaller hydropower projects constructed curing that time, half of which fell. In an effort to enlighten readers about the significant problems with dams in China, Fu employs a form of obfuscation in heaping all of the blame on to the government and essentially criticizing a political system instead of the engineering and the dams in China. Much of the creative destruction that the construction of the Three Gorges Dam brings fades in the squalor of this political attack. This obfuscation on the part of Fu leads the reader to believe that the benefits coming from the Three Gorges dam, mainly in the form of electrical power, do not help the Chinese people because of the damages that the people may incur. Fu possesses an utopian understanding of globalization and would like the profits from creative destruction directly benefit the entire populace of China. However, in the case of the Three Gorges Dam, the circumstances point to an alternate, more realistic, perception where the benefits concentrate themselves and then diffuse to the general public. While likewise opposing the dam, Van Slyke employs a much more subtle approach to his criticism. To cite an instance, Van Slyke uses a passage from A Single Pebble by John Hersey where the main character, a young American engineer, states the following about creating a dam at the Three Gorges on the Yangtze River:
How could I . . . have a part in persuading these people to tolerate the building of a great modern dam that would take the waters of Tibet and inner China, with their age old furies, on its back, there to grow lax and benign? How could I span a gap of a thousand year ¾ a millennium in a day?. . . [I began to] wonder whether a dam was the right thing with which to start closing the gap. (Van Slyke 182)
The young American engineer represents the perspective of a person who has already experienced the advent of globalization through creative destruction. He realizes that in order to build the dam he would sacrifice the gains he has reaped, whereas the Chinese forced to live with the Three Gorges Dam must entirely forfeit their livelihood and ancestry in hope of an inkling of the benefits experienced by the engineer. With such passages, Van Slyke craftily implies his opposition to the dam without obfuscation of the Chinese government. Thus, in order to gain a full sense of the environmental and political dangers associated with the Three Gorges Dam, obfuscation and creative destruction play an important role in attributing the problems associated with the building the dam to the historically faulty engineering of dams in China, and not wholly to the Chinese government.
Although there exists a predominance of sound negative information about the Three Gorges Dam, some positive support, too, appears from credible sources. For example, the articles “Dams: Second Phase completed at Three Gorges Dam,” by Greg Brouwer, and “A Visit to the Yangtze River and the Three Gorges Dam: Reflections From a People to People Ambassador Program in China,” by Ned Paschke both view the Three Gorges Dam as a great project that will help the people of China. Brouwer takes the standard route of most Three Gorges Dam proponents by advocating the large power production of the dam, which according to him constitutes about 10 percent of the nation’s power supply (Brouwer 37). As a complement to the support Brouwer offers the Three Gorges Dam, Paschke offers the reader a first hand account of the improvements in the region. “ Chongqing, like many of China’s large cities, is being transformed by new construction. Central China has historically lagged behind such eastern cities such as Shanghai and Beijing. But this is now changing for Chongqing in anticipation of the Three Gorges Project. Located at the upstream end of the future reservoir, increased navigation and commerce is expected to significantly benefit the city” (Paschke 31-32). Although the picture seems bright for central China , in his obfuscation Paschke fails to do more than mention the relocation of the villages flooded by the reservoir or the distribution of electrical power amongst provinces. Thus, the need for the Three Gorges Dam from Brouwer and Paschke’s supportive point of view bases itself on an improvement of the power supply and overall navigability of the river, and falls under the paradigm of creative destruction defined by Friedman. However, once again, due to the selectiveness of the benefits produced by the dam, the damage it inflicts to those who lose their homes, the provinces that accept them, and the towns that will continue to live without electricity unfortunately must be obfuscated by authors such as Brouwer, Paschke, and the Chinese government.
In the case of central China, globalization has acted as an extremely powerful social norm that constantly shaped the perceptions of the globalizing world in terms of what central China must sacrifice in order to maintain pace with everyone else in the world in reaping its benefits. The confused, or obfuscated, information surrounding the Three Gorges Dam works as insurance for the inevitable completion of the creatively destructive dam. Due to the creative destruction brought by the Three Gorges Dam, the hard-to-swallow pill of globalization must come with obfuscation. The construction of the Three Gorges Dam places very high demands on the public without truly sufficient justification, but completion is essential in order to provide electrical energy for globalization to feed on. The Three Gorges Dam appears to pose a greater threat than benefit to the Chinese people; the concepts of obfuscation and creative destruction give the evidence from all sources clarity and independently point it against the dam. The history of dams in China, the imprudence of the government, and the possibilities of further senseless casualties outweigh the benefits of energy production, an improved river economy and even flood control. The building of the Three Gorges Dam, undertaken by the Chinese government, makes a hasty gamble with technology while wagering lives. One can only hope that the future will turn out much brighter than the past in China so that the cost of the Three Gorges Dam does not linger amongst families like the water from the reservoir will.
Works Cited
Brouwer, Greg. “Civil Engineering News: Dams ¾ Second Phase Completed at Three Gorges Dam.” Civil Engineering. Jan. 2003: 36-37
The People’s Republic of China. Embassy of the PROC in the U.S. “Three Gorges Project May Cause Less Damage to Ecology.” Unsigned. Washington, D.C.: 2003. Issues & Events: The Three Gorges Project. 4 April, 1997 <http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/6891.html>
Friedman, Thomas. The Lexus and the Olive Tree. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000.
Fu, Shi. “A Profile of Dams in China.” The River Dragon Has Come! Ed. Dai Qing. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1998.
Mander, Jerry. “The Dark Side of Globalization: What the media are missing.” The Nation. 15/22 July 1996: 9+.
Paschke, Ned. “A Visit to the Yangtze River and the Three Gorges Dam: Reflections from a People to People Ambassador Program in China.” Leadership and Management in Engineering. Jan. 2003: 30-32
Qing, Dai. “The Three Gorges Project: A Symbol of Uncontrolled Development in the Late Twentieth Century.” The River Dragon Has Come! Ed. Dai Qing. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1998.
Van Slyke, Lyman P. Yangtze . New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1988.