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total power generation.”28 Compared to the United States, where the exploitation of hydropower reached 80%; while Brazil and Norway already tapped over 90%
of their hydropower capacity, China only under 25% of cultivation does seem comparatively lower.
Indeed, pro‐dam officials lamented the under‐achievement. In an interview with People’s Daily, China Electricity Council Vice President Sun Yucai reasoned from an even broader scheme of things. From perspective of strategic resource development, Sun argued, as long as China possesses the God‐given advantage of hydropower, not realizing its potential would be a terrible waste. “…We cannot starve ourselves, just because we were worry that we might choke,” Sun used an old Chinese saying (yin ye fei shi) to arrive at his point. “Giving up on hydropower development would mean, regrettably letting the rapid rivers flow away under your nose.”29
Argument IV: Human Factor Opponents: Dam Migrants Worse Off
About 50,000 villagers in the region would have to relocate in order to make way for the planned dams. Leader of the Yunnan‐based grassroots NGO, Green Watershed (GW), Yu Xiaogang said that, instead of informing the villagers exactly what would happen to them after the move, the local government turned to slogan‐propaganda. “The day of hydroelectricity is the day of happiness” (Fa dian
28 Ma, Hongtao. “The Fight over Damming the Nujiang,” (Nujiang jianba zhi zheng), Jingjibanxiaoshi, 29 December 2003.
29 Ruan, Yongping and Wu, Jiang. “What is the future of China’s Hydroelectricity” (Zhongguo shuidian he qu he cong) People’s Daily, 1 November 2004, pg. 15.
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zhi ri jiu shi xing fu zhi ri).30 So Yu decided to take a group of Xiaoshaba villagers from Nujiang to visit the Manwan area, to see for themselves the reality of displaced people from the Manwan and Xiaowan hydropower stations. From 25‐
28 May 2004 Yu toured the Lancang river with the Nujiang villagers, and filmed the interviews he conducted on site.31
What the Nujiang villagers saw, stunned them. Before their eyes was a 78 year‐
old elderly woman picking through trash, next to her was a 26 year‐old mother, carrying a two year‐old child on her back. “We can earn 10 to 20 cents each day picking through trash,” the elderly woman told the Nujiang villagers. “If we’re lucky, maybe even one to two yuan.” The young mother wasn’t so resigned to life;
she burst into tears as she spoke. “No land, no job,” she said, “if I don’t pick through trash and sell the recycling, we would have no way to live.”32 Migrants complained that there was no adequate compensation for the relocation. The numbers would even more telling. Before their villagers were flooded, villagers of Manwan were making decent income. In fact, they made 11.2% more than the province’s average, and 63.5% more than the average of the dam region. Yet after their hometown was flooded in 1997, their income dropped drastically, down to less than 50% of the area average.33
“Of course the power company will be the biggest recipient of benefits in the construction of hydroelectricity plants,” Yunnan‐based Professor He Daming said.
30 Author’s interview with Yu Xiaogang.
31 Mertha, 2008: 128‐130.
32 Yin, Hongwei. (2004) “Social forces take on dam construction on the Nujiang,” (Minjian liliang duijue Nujiang jianba) China Society Periodical, 8, pp. 34‐36.
33 Li, Ziliang. (2004) “Nujiang Face‐off” (Nujiang zheng ba) Outlook Weekly, 49, pp. 24‐31.
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“Local government will likely get out of poverty too, but it would be hard to know whether this money will be spent on the average folks.”34 He’s candid analysis of the trickle‐down economic theory is a slap in the face for those who champion economic development as the only way out of poverty for Nujiang’s residents, but what stings the most is probably this following analogy. “Blindly go into development is like killing the hen to get at the eggs.”35
In 2006, the first site of the NRP, Liuku, began to evacuate migrants for the preparation of preliminary construction. The local leaders claimed that all of the 134 households, totaling 537 migrants had voluntarily agreed to relocate.
However, when reporter went to the town to verify the facts, he found that the migrants were unhappy about the compensation. Compared to an annual income of ¥4‐500 on a single mango tree, the migrants were paid a once‐compensation of ¥200. “If they can’t take care of a few hundred migrants,” CAS researcher Lee Yuchuang asked. “How can we expect them to adequately relocate tens of thousands of migrants?”36
Proponents: Economic Benefits as Means of Poverty Alleviation
Out of Nujiang’s total hydroelectric capacity of 42 GW, the plan to build a cascade of 13 dams on the river would produce a total installed capacity of 21.3 GW, exceeding that of the TGP (which has installed capacity of 18 GW), and
34 He, Daming. (2004) “The Pros and Cons of Building the Dam,” National Park of China, 6, pp. 26‐
27.
35 Ibid.
36 Li, Yuchen. “Chiang Kaoming: Nujiang hydroelectricity development should consider both sides,” (Chiang Kaoming: Nujiang shuidian keifa heide quanheng libi) Beijing News, 2 March 2008.
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would meet 10% of China’s total energy needs.37 What does that translate to cold hard cash? China’s state newspaper Legality Daily tallied the numbers: the estimated annual production value would reach ¥34 billion (approx. US$5.4 billion), of which the central government would get ¥8 billion in taxes, while local government’s tax revenues would increase by ¥2.7 billion. Nujiang prefecture alone could receive an additional ¥1 billion in taxes, compared that to the entire prefecture’s 2002 GDP of ¥1.4 billion.38 Now, that’s a big chunk of change, and very enticing to anyone who comes across it, but just to put the money matters in better perspective: Nujiang prefecture is one of the poorest places in Yunnan province, with 220,000 people living below the poverty line, the situation is even bad in comparison to all of China.
“All that talk about protecting animals and plants,” scoffed CAS scholar He Zhuoxiu. “What about the humans? You can’t disregard the people.”39 Proponents of the NRP argue that in order to lift the mostly ethnic minorities living there out of poverty, development was the only way. The problem was though, due to the impossible terrain of steep mountains, the region was almost inaccessible. Local government explained that the lack of infrastructure was the main reason behind the economic backwardness of Nujiang prefecture.
Zhao Zenzhong, an official from the Nujiang Prefecture Planning Committee told Beijng News reporter, “Nujiang became a prefecture 50 years ago, and in all of this time, the central government had only invested ¥930 million.” Zhao
37 Young, Tom. “Official confirms government has revived plans for Nujiang River hydroelectric plant,” Green Business, 1 February 2011.
38 Legality Daily. “Environmental Impact Assessment Law: How much money is lost from halting the Nujiang construction,” (Huanping Fa: Nujiang tinggong sunshi duoshao qian) 31 January 2005.
39 Yan, Xueshi. (2004) Western Forum.
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complained, “What does that mean really? That means in all this time, they’ve only built one road.”40 To the local officials, no infrastructure meant no tourism, although they badly needed both.
Another reason behind Nujiang prefecture’s high poverty rate was the lack of industries. Since about 58.3% of the total area in Nujiang region is considered natural reservation, protected by the central government. In the 1990s, local officials wanted to use logging to kick start its economy, but a logging ban was enacted in 1998,41 so all the abundant forestry and mineral resources were strictly hands‐off, to developers or local residents alike. According to Beijing Review,42 the average farmer in China earned about ¥2,622 in 2003, but in Nujiang prefecture, that number was less than half, at only ¥935, and half of the farmers had trouble feeding their families.43 As can be imagined, if the residents weren’t bringing in much income, then the local government would have little from which to tax. In 2002, the prefecture government collected ¥1 billion in revenues, but their expenses exceeded ¥7 billion; their self‐sustainability was a pathetic 14%.44
Political Stream
Kingdon describes political stream as a combination of “swings of national mood, election results, changes of administration, changes of ideological or partisan
40 Beijing News. “Nujiang to build 13 dams, plan met by strong opposition from experts,” (Nujiang jian shangma shisan ji shuiba, zao huanbao zhuanjia qianglie fandui) 25 November 2003.
41 Mertha, 2008: 123.
42 Beijing Review. “Rural and Urban China: Worlds Apart,” 26 February 2004.
43 Beijing News, 25 November 2003.
44 Legality Daily, 31 January 2005.
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distribution in Congress, and interest group pressure campaigns.”45 In other words, the primary actors in this stream are the people in power, such as officials or presidents, who act against the backdrop of the current dominating socio‐political atmosphere. In the anti‐NRP campaign, the primary actors, who have direct impact over the outcome of the controversy, are Premier Wen Jiabao and the vice minister of SEPA, Pan Yue.
Interestingly, Wen’s background in geology and Pan’s experience in journalism became integral to how they understood and worked with the anti‐NRP campaign. On the other hand, the political atmosphere, or conditions at the time provided Wen and Pan with the opportunity to call for suspension of the construction, and collaborate with the ENGOs, respectively. If these circumstances did not exist, China’s environmental activism would have faced even harsher of an uphill battle.
Top Leader’s Geology Background
Like his previous two generations’ technocrat predecessors, China’s Premier Wen Jiabao is well trained in the fields of science and engineering. After graduating from the Beijing Institute of Geology with postgraduate studies in structural geology, Wen Jiabao’s first post in the government was Gansu Province’s geology bureau, where he worked his way up to the position of deputy director, and then went to head the Policy and Regulation Research Section at Beijing’s Ministry of Geology.46
45 Kingdon, 1984: 170.
46 US‐China Business Council. “Wen Jiabao Biography.”
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Given his extensive education and experience in geology, Wen is said to have his reservations about large dams. After Wen issued a statement admitting the inadequacies of the TGP in March 2011, Wall Street Journal interviewed senior journalist, and anti‐TGP activist Dai Qing, who said:
Both Wen and Zhu (Rongji) have made remarks about disliking this project, but because of their position, both had no choice but to support it Now that the problems can no longer be covered up, I think We is seizing the opportunity to bring them more into public view.47
Problems with the TGP are much similar to the concerns of the NRP, among them ecological damage, relocation of villagers, and potential geological risks. After the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, the chief engineer of Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau Fan Xiao suggested the possibility that the culprit of the deadly earthquake may have been the nearby dam.48 (More in Chapter V) It is likely that Wen’s insistence on scientific development49 contributed to his decision to twice suspend the NRP. After all, Wen did say: “I have deep conviction and my own judgment of things, and I am not afraid of shouldering responsibility.50
SEPA Official’s Media Background
Pan Yue’s role in the anti‐NRP campaign primarily focused on providing the legal framework with which opponents of the dam could use to press for administrative oversight of the proposed plans. Moreover, Pan aggressively implemented the Environmental Impact Assessment laws to pressure construction companies into compliance with procedures of environmental assessment, often ordering suspension on the construction projects before the
47 Yang, Jie. “Critics Hail Admission of Chinese Dam Flaws,” Wall Street Journal, 20 May 2011.
48 Moore, Malcolm. “Chinese earthquake may have been man‐made, say scientists,” The Telegraph, 2 February 2009.
49 People’s Daily. “Premier Wen highlights scientific development concept,” 22 February 2012.
50 BBC News. “Profile: Wen Jiabao,” 5 December 2003.
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agency gave its approval. (See Chapter III, EIA Law) Pan’s collaboration with anti‐dam activists was the main force behind the strategic delaying of the NRP with bureaucratic red‐tape, while the legal framework of EIA laws offered a platform for ENGOs to further scrutinize any development project that had the potential of harming the environment.
Named “Person of the Year 2007”51 by British political magazine New Statesman, described by Bloomberg’s Businessweek as “a courageous voice,”52 Pan Yue is an ambitious, outspoken political reformer. Pan joined SEPA as vice minister in March 2003, after nearly a decade of taking on powerful construction companies and local governments with his Environmental Impact Assessment storms, without as much as blinking an eye, somehow Pan Yue always managed to get away relatively unscathed. This led some to say that Pan’s political life can be used as the barometer with which to gauge the political atmosphere in China.53 Others attribute Pan’s ability to weather any political storm to two reasons: 1) Pan’s boss, “SEPA director Zhou Shengxian, appears to be every bit as much as an activist as his deputy”; and 2) Pan’s father‐in‐law is Liu Huaqing, a general serving on the Central Military Commission and member of Politburo, both are the top organization in China’s central government.54
Despite having “friends in high places,” Pan’s unrelenting courage to withstand pressure and speak the truth, most likely came from his conviction as an
51 Byrnes, Sholto. “Person of the year: The man making China green,” New Statesman, 18 December 2006.
52 Roberts, Dexter. “A Courageous Voice for a Greener China,” Bloomberg Businessweek, 11 July 2005.
53 Sun and Zhao, 2008: 157.
54 Mertha, 2008: 8, 20.
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environmentalist and his training as a journalist. According to China’s Top Level Thinkers (2008) after serving in the People’s Liberation Army, Pan Yue first took a journalist internship at Workers’ Daily, then as a file clerk at Economic Daily News, later becoming a reporter for China Environmental News. It was there that Pan penned a 10,000‐word investigative report, exposing Yunnan provincial government’s complacency over local developers’ practice of illegal dumping, burning and clear‐cutting forest. Unfortunately at the time, the local government responded by accusing him of untruthful reporting, and Pan had to resign.55 However, this “mishap” landed him a deputy editor in chief position at China Youth Daily. From there, Pan went on to serve as the deputy director of State Council’s Office of Restructuring the Economy, before assuming his current post at SEPA.56
Beginning of Environment Protection in China
The beginning of China’s environmental movement actually came under the directive of the State Council, after delegates returned from 1972 United Nations Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm.57 Then in June 1973, delegates shared what they learned at China’s first‐ever National Conference on Environmental Protection.58 From there on, environmental protection offices were established in all branches of Chinese government. From central to provincial, environmental protection was now formally on the CCP’s agenda.
55 Xi, Yin. (2008) Zhongguo Gaoceng Wendan. Hangzhou: Zhejiang People’s Publishing House.
56 Ministry of Environmental Protection, People’s Republic of China. “Vice‐minister, Mr. Pan Yue.”
Last updated 20 June 2007.
57 Cai, Shouqiu and Voigts, Mark. (1993) “The Development of China’s Environmental Diplomacy,”
Pacific Rim Law & Policy Association, 3, Spec. Ed. pp. 17‐42.
58 Economy, 2004: 95.
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China’s first environmental protection themed magazine was launched in 1973, and simply called Environmental Protection.59 Little more than a decade later, China Environment News became CCP’s official environmental newspaper.60 Then in 1986, China Forum of Environmental Journalists (CFEJ) became the formal association responsible for, among other things, the “information dissemination tasks for State Environmental Protection Agency” and awarding outstanding environmental protection reporting.61 In 1993, China’s National People’s Congress Environment and Resources Protection Committee organized 14 other agencies and launched the China Century Environmental Protection (CCEP) campaign.62 Since then, environmental reporting mushroomed in China.
Policy Stream
Kingdon’s idea of policy stream is a process in which solutions or alternatives are tossed around by researchers or specialists.63 In the case of NRP, this process is not so much of a brainstorm or debate between the viability of options; rather, it is the act and the pursuit of applying existing tools to search for alternative solutions. This section explains how the tools with which NRP opponents engage the fight emerged. From inside the government, SEPA bureaucrats extend the legal framework of evaluating the viability of a construction into a practical method of interference with environmentally unfriendly projects. While on the outside of government, media took years to
59 Zhongguo Huanjing Chuban Wang. “Overview of ‘Environmental Protection,’” (Huanjin Baohu Jieshao) http://www.cesp.com.cn/qk/qklist.asp?id=16 Accessed 2012/4/10.
60 Council of China Environmental News. “Zhenghe chuangxin meiti quanmian fuwu huanbao shiye,” http://www.cenews.com.cn/lsh/lshhk/201003/t20100316_631983.html Accessed 2012/4/10.
61 China Forum of Environmental Journalists. (Updated 2008) “Zhongguo huanjing xinwen gongzuozhe xiehui jianjie,” cfej.net, http://www.cfej.net/?list‐82.html Accessed 2012/4/10.
62 Chen, Tao. “Zhongguo huanbao Shijixing jianjie,” Xinhua, 12 May 2006.
63 Kingdon, 1984: 122.
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nurture the atmosphere of environmental journalism, as well as an environmentally conscious public.
Environmental Impact Assessment Law
The Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) was introduced in 2002, but it was not formally enacted until December 2003. The EIA Law essentially requires all public construction work to pass environmental impact assessment before it receives permission to begin construction, so while this piece of law does not prevent construction, it can stall and slow down the progress of the project.
Theoretically speaking, if the project in question fails to pass environmental impact assessment, then it could never begin construction.
The Administrative Licensing Law (ALL) is a supplementary legislation that further allows citizens to apply for public hearing, on those construction projects and EIA reports. However, these laws have vague wordings that can be interpreted differently, by different officials, and were lacking in “teeth”
Therefore, in 2004, the State Council released an outline, that mandated government officials to seek public opinion on construction projects, and ensure that the public has the right to know. In addition, on 1 July, SEPA launched the “Interim Measures for Administrative License Public Hearing system in Environmental Protection,” (ALL Measures) which legalized public participation, legal demand for public involvement in environmental protection related projects.64 SEPA used this program to invite citizen inquiries into projects that have questionable environmental impact. The ALL Measures
64 Chan and Zhou, 2007: 11.
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is essentially a new tool SEPA created for the environmental activists, because it listed specific provisions for public hearings concerning EIA reports and licensing of projects, to ensure the implementation of the laws.
Wielding these newly passed laws, SEPA vice minister Pan Yue stirred up so‐
called “environmental protection storms” by ordering 30 large construction projects to be halted, for not filing the EIA report.65 SEPA then proceeded to impose a ¥200,000 (approx. US$31,000) fine for each project.66 “Environmental Impact Assessment is not a rubber stamp,” Pan was resolute at the press conference that announced the news. “We must insist on stopping any behavior that violates the EIA law.”67 The fact that these 30 large construction projects spanned 13 provinces and had a combined value of ¥118 billion (approx.
US$13.7 billion) raised more than some eyebrows, because it was the first time since the law passed in December 2003, that SEPA actually put the law to use.68
US$13.7 billion) raised more than some eyebrows, because it was the first time since the law passed in December 2003, that SEPA actually put the law to use.68