Engineer Memoirs
me. I gave Dave Freeman a preview of my briefing. He indicated I should make my points.
I then asked if I could go last because my presentation was going to be controversial.
As the final meeting with the Chinese proceeded, everyone's presentation was smooth and
pleasantly received until I came along. I began by mentioning we hadn't been there long
enough to get answers to many questions, however, our visit had generated some questions
that needed to be answered. Perhaps they had the answers to them and if so-fine. If they
didn't, they shouldn't build the project until they got the answers. That was the thrust of it.
The guests were all on one side of this long table and the Chinese on the other. I was sitting
next to Mr. Freeman, who was straight across from Mr. Li Rei. The Minister of Commerce
was there with the Minister of Communications, a woman. They did not seem to support the
project. Also present was Mr. Wei, the chairman and president of the Yangtze River
Development Authority. Of course, he was very much in favor of it.
Anyhow, I indicated there were five questions.
1. Would the Yangtze River be more important over the next century for
transportation or for hydropower?
2. Would it be more productive to build a number of smaller, yet large projects on the
excellent tributary dam sites, which would get their industrialization program moving
forward more rapidly? Even the smaller ones would be as big or bigger than anything
in the U.S.
3. If you're going to have flood control, and you're going to build levees below the
dam, why not raise the levees higher and strengthen them and lower the Three Gorges
Dam?
4. What problems were they going to have with environmental effects upstream in the
reservoir and dislocation of hundreds of thousands of people?
5. Were they prepared to put all their eggs in one basket in case they had a disaster,
a military operation, or some other event that put the project out of order?
So those were the five questions. The implication was that the project should be held off until
they were answered. In the course of doing this, Mr. Wei from this Yangtze River
Development Authority made an outburst but Li Rei kept order.
After the meeting ended the Chinese group came over saying things to me that I didn't
understand. Turned out, though, many were favorable. I was surprised that there was so much
support for not proceeding with that project at that time. I don't suggest there was support for
abandoning it, but over a decade later they still haven't built it. They're going to build it, but
they have changed their configuration. It's lower. The navigation situation is much better than
it was in the older project. It's a tough job but they can do it; it can be done. They've found
a way to relocate their people, apparently. I'm satisfied the questions were valid and worth
answering. I expressed to Mr. Li Rei before I left my hope that I hadn't done anything to cause
a big problem but I felt that we were asked to come over to give our opinions.
There were several articles written against the project and I was interested, and disappointed
to a degree, to see that there was only one article that intimated that the Corps of Engineers
might have had an influence on the project's description and configuration.
I went back to China in 1985. I taught a summer course in management as part of the
University of Maryland's exchange with East China Technical University in Nanking. It was
a very interesting experience.
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