Thou Shalt Not Dam The Yangtze River

There are some projects or human endeavours which history suggests are just not a good idea. The classic example is trying to invade Russia; a pretty tall order with extremely slim chances of success. Attempting to bore through the Earth’s crust, or swim single-handedly across the Pacific, is not advisable. Trying to tame The Yangtze River is likely to be an exercise in futility.

Yet the damming of The Yangtze is exactly what the Chinese Communist Party began to attempt in 1994. By 2003 they had completed the modern wonder, The Three Gorges Dam, which until recently stood as an example of the very best that human structural engineering could achieve.

In some very real respects, China is defined by its rivers. The Yellow River, The Pearl River and The Yangtze are the biggest three, but there are hundreds of gigantic rivers in China. Much of Chinese history is a chronicle of its struggles to live with and deal with the endless obstacles these vast watercourses present to an orderly civilisation. 

China’s battles against the flooding and inundation of its inhabited land is one that is as old as recorded history. Often less predictable, but more violent, than many of the world's other great rivers - The Danube, The Nile, The Amazon - China’s rivers are responsible for the top five deadliest floods of all time. Looking further down the list, China is somewhat over represented there too.

In a land criss-crossed by rivers, it isn’t particularly surprising that China is also a nation that has a long and storied relationship with dams. Man has been building dams since time immemorial. Yet it is true to say that the bigger the damming project, the bigger the cost, both financial, ecological and human. The larger the body of water that is held back by a dam, the larger the potential disaster it is capable of producing.

Large scale dam collapses can be among the most devastating man-made calamities it’s possible to observe. In 1975 the Banqiao dam collapse cost the lives of between 85,000 and 240,000 people. True horror. Of course, the Communist Party tried to cover up the extent of the damage and instead lie about it in every way possible. Afterall, that is the Party’s hallmark, lying. That’s their default, their go-to, their first port-of-call. Lies upon lies upon lies.

Big dams are notoriously difficult engineering projects, though. There is no doubt there. Many of the dams built during the Maoist period were constructed in the wrong location, or to the wrong specifications, or with substandard materials, or by inept workers. This, I would argue, was the result of Mao’s personal obstinacy, the nature of a command economy and the general unwillingness to listen to experts who weren’t towing the party line.

We might have hoped that by the 1990’s - when The Three Gorges was begun - China had rid itself of at least most of these shortcomings. Unfortunately though, it seems not, or not entirely. Political corruption, financial embezzlement, inadequate building practices and the ubiquitous default of ignoring and covering up all of the above, means that a cataclysmic collapse is not entirely unthinkable. 

It is rumoured that The Three Gorges Dam is warped and cracked. Of course The Party downplays and denies any such accusations, yet tellingly they aren’t allowing any third-party engineers to assess the situation. Even this is potentially quite a perilous situation for a dam that is holding back tens of billions of tonnes of water. That’s billions, with a ‘B’. Should this mega-dam fail or collapse, the resulting flood would be truly biblical in scale. The surge would be terrifyingly fast, destroying other smaller dams downstream, as well as obliterating multiple large cities - including Yichang and Wuhan - and numerous smaller ones. The death and displacement would be unprecedented.

We can expect The Communist Party just to lie through its teeth about all of this. They are already being extremely careful and tight-lipped about any ongoing developments. We only know about the many cracks and bowing effects due to a combination of whistleblowers and satellite photography. The CCP, like a dull-witted and insecure teenager, would rather endlessly lie and prevaricate than admit any wrong or own up to any embarrassment.

The Communist Party has fallen victim to one of the classic blunders. Never get involved in a land war in Asia, never go all in against a Sicilian when death is on the line, and never, ever attempt to tame The Mighty Yangtze and expect to get away with it for very long.