Topics: China, Accelerationism, Globalization
Image: Three Gorges Dam (Date Unknown)
Livestream: https://www.twitch.tv/tgdfloodwatch
Water Management Data: http://3gd.mooo.com/
Weather Forcasting: https://www.windy.com/-Rain-accumulation-rainAccu?rainAccu,30.333,110.945,8,m:ewCajf3
Reading: The International Development of China (1919)
Over the past month, with increasing seasonal rainfall, anxiety in China has been mounting as 38 million people downstream of Three Gorges Dam are evacuated, with 141 people are already missing or dead. Towns have been flooded, sometimes without warning, as engineers release water and blow a dam in hopes of stabilizing the regional flooding.
While the term Chernobyl was adopted as a code word to bypass state censors when discussing the coronavirus outbreak of Wuhan, the virus being of a natural birth does not symbolize the CCP doctrine in quite the same way of this hundred-year-old idea. If there were a situation more similar to the events of Chernobyl, I’d be at a loss to suggest it.
The Three Gorges Dam
The Yangtze River has been subject to periodic flooding since ancient times, typically seeing a rhythm of ebb and flow demarcated by a major flood of the decade. The Ba people who settled the area more than 4,000 years ago would bury their dead in coffins high up in the caves on the cliffs, presumably so that they would not be disturbed by the floods.
Considered by many as the Father of Modern China, Sun Yat-sen would share his idea for what became the Three Goges Dam in 1919, in an act to stabilize a world and build a nation. Yat-sen was born a commoner under the conservative rule of the Qing Dynasty in 1866. Upon completing his primary schooling, he moved to Honolulu [Kingdom of Hawaii], where he was supported by his eldest brother. Sun enrolled in the Iolani British missionary school for three years, followed by a semester at the American school, Oahu College. Before he could complete his studies, his brother sent him home out of fear that Sun had begun to convert to the Christian faith and culture.
With this exposure to [western | imperialist | colonialist | capitalist] ideas and back in his homeland, at the age of 17, Sun reunited with his childhood friend Lu Haodong and quickly began to rebel against the local medical practices. After breaking a statue at the temple of Beiji, God of the North Pole for which Beijing is named, Sun and Lu would incur the wrath of the local villagers and be forced to the first of several exiles—this time, fleeing to Hong Kong to become baptized and earn his license as a Christian medical doctor from the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese (the forerunner of The University of Hong Kong) in 1892.
It was from this context where Yat-sen would grow into the charismatic revolutionary leader that he is remembered for today. After overthrowing the Qing Dynasty he would become the provisional first president of the Republic of China in 1912, for which he quickly resigned. In 1919, on the heels of the World War [One], Sun would publish The International Development of China, which outlined his plan to develop China into a modern nation-state, including the idea that would ultimately become the Three Gorges Dam.
The recent World War has proved to Mankind that war is ruinous to both the Conqueror and the Conquered, and worse for the Aggressor. What is true in military warfare is more so in trade warfare. Since President Wilson has proposed a League of Nations to end military war in the future, I desire to propose to end the trade war by cooperation and mutual help in the Development of China. This will root out probably the greatest cause of future wars.
It would be easy to romanticize this bid to grow China from an economic “dumping ground” into an “economic ocean” as a matter of international stabilization and trade while seeing to the betterment of the Han people, now freed from the rule of the Qing Dynasty. Still, the western world wasn’t just to be joined through capital development and caught up to through nationalization, but also the transition from imperialism to be maintained in colonistic style.
The Colonization of Mongolia and Sinkiang is a complement of the Railway scheme. Each is dependant upon the other for its prosperity. The colonization scheme, besides benefitting the railway, is in itself greatly profitable undertaking. The result of the United States, Canada, Australia, and Argentina are ample proofs of this. In the case of our project it is simply a matter of apply waste Chinese labor and foreign machinery to a fertile land for production for which its remuneration is sure. The present Conolization of Manchuria, notwithstanding its topsy turvy way which caused great waste of land and human energy, has been wonderfully prosperous. If we apply scientific methods in our colonization project we could certainly obtain better results than all the others.
While the enthusiastic consent of the [Han] Chinese lay foundation to the plan, others who were outside of this identity were not to be considered for the opportunity to see to their prosperity; but rather exploited for it.
Over the years the idea of this hydroelectric dam, and the symbology of Chinese industrialization, would grow in size and scope, wherein 1932 the Nationalistic government, likely in response to the compilation of the Hoover Dam, would move the idea upriver to the Three Gorges and start the preliminary work, however, this was then superseded in 1939 under the invasion of the Japanese Empire by the Empire’s very own Otani plan which was completed in anticipation of Japanese rule.
In 1944, after helping to liberate China, the United States Bureau of Reclamation surveyed the area, drawing up a proposal while training some 54 Chinese engineers for the task that lay ahead. This initiative mostly ground to a halt in 1947 amid the Chinese Civil War, ending in 1949 with Communist Mao Zedong taking power.
During 1954 the Yangtze River flooded resulting in destruction and plague killing 33,000 people. Water levels reach new historic highs seeing 97 feet in Wuhan while the upstream city of Jingzhou reached nearly 150 feet. This naturally caused a return to the ideas of taming the Yangtze river, and with it building upon ideas of accelerationist industrialization as applied as the through Mao’s The Great Leap Forward. Notability, in 1958, during the Hundred Flowers Campaign a couple of engineers who spoke out against the project were imprisoned, cementing the partisanship of the idea. The following depression would halt the project once again, but laid the seed for the smaller Gezhouba dam as a precursor.
By 1964, in response to the mounting cold war tensions and the escalating Vietnamese proxy war, the idea reemerged as apart of the Third Front Movement. The First Front being regions where war could breakout directly. New investments would be positioned in the heartland out of fear, and exclusively by the design of military strategic goals. kaoshan, fensan, yinbi [Close to the mountains, dispersed, and hidden].
The best workers and equipment were shipped to go work in some of the worst and most remote places. Electronics factories were sometimes put in caves, which are naturally humid and dark. Then parts like these would have to be shipped across the country to assembly anything. Once assembled projects like submarines produced by the Chongqing shipyard would have to be then moved some 2,000 kilometers [1,250 miles] down the Yangtze River to Shanghai before they could actually be submerged and tested. All of this was done in the same continuing haste of Mao’s development under the fear of war, with the construction of facilities sometimes starting before the designs had been finalized. This mandate would ultimately start to relax after Nixon’s trip in ‘72, but had many considerable adverse effects on China’s development.
It was under these tensions that the Cultural Revolution would spring forth as Mao sought to protect his legacy and distance himself from the de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union. With the Soviet’s now the enemy of the north at the Sino-Soviet border conflict, efforts were paused yet again out of fear of Soviet Sabotage and redirected towards the smaller and much safer Gezhouba dam. The Gezhouba dam, however, ran into technical and cost overrun issues into the ‘70s and would not be completed before Mao’s death in 1976. Foreshadowing potential risks of building the much more difficult feat of the Three Gorges Dam, the project would not be completed until 1988.
Upon Mao’s death, Hua Guofeng, with control of state propaganda, seized power from the Gang of Four and pushed forward his version of Sun’s and Mao’s legacy, starting with economic reforms of 1978, which required more electrical power to support the continuing industrialization effort. This would continue to kick off several feasibility studies throughout the ‘80s in collaboration with Canadian engineers; Who naturally are more invested in the idea of building a wonder of the world than living with its consequences.
In 1992, with the Tiananmen Square Incident still fresh in the memory of the party, and the support of international banks, the project was approved by Congress with an unusually low 67.75% vote. In a context where it was common to rubber-stamp government proposals the opposition of 841 mainly abstained from the vote, with only 177 votes directly against the 10-year plan to construct the Three Gorges Dam.
The project after 70 years of false starts and politicizing would finally start in earnest, with the initial relocation of 1.4 million people at a cost of $5.2 billion to start in 1994. The resettlement disbursements, meant to be paid mostly as lump sums, would become light, forcing a series of governmental investigations into corruption that made headlines across the world. Many were severally punished, including one man who was sentenced to death and executed over 12.0 million yuan [USD 1.4m].
As construction began, the voices of people who spoke against the project only became louder, attacking from nearly every angle; human rights, ecological, geographical, engineering, and economical. In a rare act of civil disobedience, 53 senior Chinese engineers and academics petitioned the government multiple times warning about the technical and economic problems. Then in 2004, troops were stationed at the project to protect “against threats from Taiwan independence terrorists”.
"The Three Gorges Dam will not collapse and cannot be destroyed," - Senior Chinese General Liu Yuan
That, however, would be a matter of opinion. As early as 2002, before the project could be completed, government officials were addressing concerns about cracks. In 2003 officials boasted that the dam would be able to withstand the worst flood in 10,000 years. In 2007 the estimate was reduced to 1,000 years. By 2008, as the project was completed ahead of schedule, its estimate of strength dropped to 100 years. In other words, a flood of this magnitude has a 1 percent chance of happening in any and every year. Not to mention, the cement foundation will take a century to fully cure.
All of these estimates built on a historical understanding of flooding, ones that are unlikely to forecast our accelerating climate change situation; An accelerating situation [communist | capitalist] China does not seem particularly concerned with preventing.
Outside the dam itself, there have been hundreds of landslides and thousands of geological hazards that have plagued the surrounding area over the years. A study published November of last year illustrates how additional pressure of filling the 660-km [410 miles] long reservoir increased the region’s geo activity from approximately two earthquakes per year with magnitudes between 3.0-4.9 to about 14 earthquakes per year with magnitudes sometimes reaching up to 5.4.
As of July 21st, the Three Gorges Dam hit water levels of 162 meters, below the theoretical limit of 175 meters but above the 145 meters target used during flooding season. Initially, water was held to help prevent further flooding from the increasing rainfall, but as levels continued to climb, the call was made to start releasing the water and protect the dam. Flooding throughout the region has already displaced tens of millions of people, pushing into cities without warning, affecting factories, and risking farmland.
A tsunami-like wave from a breach in the Three Gorges Dam could wipe out millions of acres of farmland right before the autumn harvest, possibly leading to famine-like conditions. As it is also the world’s largest hydroelectric power station, a failure would lead to huge power outages. Low-lying cities of millions along the Yangtze’s banks cities could become uninhabitable and the death toll could be staggering. - National Review
While a tsunami-like wave is probable, such a large amount of rapid water release and displacement will likely also trigger a number of landslides and geohazards above the dam as well. As the largest feature of its kind, measuring at five times the size of the Hoover Dam, a critical failure at this scale is unprecedented, and by most accounts simply a matter of time.
When these floodwaters finally recede, in whatever course they are to take, I think important to remember that the path that China set upon was one of both western and eastern ideology; built either in likeness or response to extractive institutions in a world dominated by empires, for which we have all profited from. And while each empire walks its own path, these are not paths walked alone.
At the time of publishing, water levels reached 163.15 meters, with overnight inflow returning to safer levels.
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