I see you’ve got my dolphine joke there, OG, I know it’s not particularly a nice joke, but toughness always does well with a bit of humor.
Toughness is what needed in having carried out this whole dam project, one of the hugist project in history. Toughness in political unity, toughness in financial backup, toughness in engineering design, toughness in inter-tempero organisation, toughness in risk-aversion management, toughness in demanding construction, and this tough list goes on.
My point lies on top of this list, it has to, because it’s the toughness required in deciding to launch the project in the first place. The Chinese economists, scientists and local governments are not stupid, that is to say, they spent years and millions on working out the cost-benefit analysis on the project, before commencing it. Jiang Zemin, the concurrent president, was personally involved in this pre-constructional procedure, precisely because of the vast environmental and social cost that this projects inevitably excerts, not merely because the sheer size of the project. Political work must be done in order to gurantee the unified voting prior to the decision day. This was a vote that concerned a large body of local governments, it concerned a large body of groups of interests, from marine scientists to social economists, from local businesses to foreign investments. This project was a result of the generalised consensus of all these involved parties.
Significant sarifise is a necessity of any voting on such a scale. People living nearby have been reallocated and refunded right from the start. Whether they have been sufficiently and effectively managed and compensated, is entirely another matter if you think about it. Various national as well as international wildlife welfare organisations came to the construction site to save and preserve what can be done at their best. The government didn’t bar the door against them, it coorporated fully and mobolised the entire nation to donate to the funding for the affected people, mostly farmers and fishers. I donted some of my cloths via the organisational effort of my school, as every and each school, university, work unit, were required to do. This showed socialist spirit, it was moving and something celebrated. It was not an one-off donating event either. Many overseas citizens, mostly rich American-Chinese, have donated to the project throughout.
Whole villages and town, even several considerably sized cities, were flooded during the past thirteen or so years. Do not assmue that the people were underwater too. Niether assume that they would stay dry had the government not forced them to move. As I mentioned, the Yangtze is not the most stable river in the world, during the entire civilisational history of China, its flood is something awed, cursed, sufficiently suffered, plenty killed. The most recent significant flood I have experienced was in 1998, hundrends of thousands were killed, near as well as beyond the Three Gorges. It was one of the most severe flood in recent history. We donated to that too, needless to say. That gave more reason and support for the concurrent on going dam project.
China needs vast amounts of energy to feed its fast economic growth. My friend, when I say “needs”, I really mean “needs”. An economic collapse or significant slowdown, is simply not allowed to happen at whatever cost. China’s future, and its long run economic fruits for today and tommorow’s growth effort, can only be guranteed with a guranteed body of infrastructure, which in dam will play a major part for the energy supply of the entire Yangtz valley and nearby areas. You have the idea of the significant of the Yangtz valley (which goes from Tibet down to the Pacific at Shanghai) in comparison with China as a whole? Well I tell you my friend, narrow mindedly speaking, it consists of a quarter of the mainland, widely speaking as we should, its fate is sealed together with the rest of China, to expand our vision yet one step higher here, that its fate is related to the rest of the world. This godamn dam, is built and will be working for the whole damn world.
Otherwise where do you get affordable Nike and Adidas from? Nowadays, where do you get your affordable motherboards and cars from? In the future, there’s goning to be a lot more to ask from China. The BBC, has it got more brains than it has at the moment, would emphasis more positively on China’s peaceful rise, like The Economist, who knows what’s going on and what’s best to say. BBC’s more or less consistent bash on Chinese phenomena are pathetic and stupid. It’s slightest yet provocative comment on the negative side of things the Chinese accomplish, while offsetting the positive side, are unfortunately very influencial onto a certain part of domstic bourgeois racist dumbshits.
For example, BBC passionately raised worries of 2008 Beijing Olympics over human right, citing Dalai Lama. I think that’s just a load of fucking rubbish. The BBC really needs a in-depth and up-dated grip on China after what happened in Tianmen in as long ago as 1989. We could easily complain, like many others actually did, about the 2012 London Olympics, we don’t want our athelits who can win more golds than the British can win altogether, to be bombed with no limbs left just because Britain invaded Afgan and Iraq. Also, we could raise the issue of Northern Island, which is in every aspect parallel to Tibet, to pound the British on their own fantastical human right. Either way, there isn’t a chance for they to even argue back here.
China, the civilisaion of peace throughtout the majority of history, despite of being several times the strongest nation around, never launched any invasion on massive scale, never commited genocide, always content with themselves, always imagining fine things overseas. Throughroughly unlike the Greco-Roman legacy, which America and Britain seem to have inherited well, as demostrated most recently by the wars. China from the outset wants a peaceful and harmonious rise. It’s a real want and a sincere one. They don’t give a shit how America fucks around with themselves and others, dragging Britain in every and each time. All they need is a stable environment to achieve material and cultural prosperity. Capitalist they fight. Communism they also fight. They fight the greatest evils of modernity, while America is advocating for these evils more than ever. Yet they get blamed for allegesions of these evils? Wake up western media, acknowledge your own failures and don’t expect the newcomers to fail like you. Have some good hopes for the future of the world.
The dam is a gesture of China showing decencey, competence and goodwill.
