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DAM-L New report from China's top advisors admits big unrest (fwd)
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Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 14:54:03 -0400
From: ProbeInternational@nextcity.com (ProbeInternational)
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To: ProbeInternational <ProbeInternational@nextcity.com>
Subject: New report from China's top advisors admits big unrest
THREE GORGES PROBE, June 8, 2001
(1) New report from China's top advisors admits big unrest
(2) Power ploys
(3) China's eco conscience
(4) Three Gorges Dam: Premier Zhu stresses quality
(5) Activists warn investors about Yangtze banks
(6) Three Gorges dam makes smooth headway
(1) New report from China's top advisors admits big unrest
June 3, 2001 -- A New York Times article by Erik Eckholm
reviews a "startlingly frank new report from the Communist
Party's inner sanctum" that describes a spreading pattern of
"collective protests and group incidents" rising from
economic, ethnic, and religious conflicts in China, and says
relations between party officials and the masses are "tense,
with conflicts on the rise."
The unusual report, produced by a top party research group
and published this week by a Central Committee press,
makes urgent but vague recommendations for "system
reforms" to reduce public grievances.
Reviewing trends in 11 provinces, the 308-page report cites
growing social and economic inequality and official
corruption as over-arching sources of discontent, and
describes corruption as "the main fuse exacerbating conflicts
between officials and the masses."
Protests are becoming more confrontational, the Communist
Party's report says. "Protesters frequently seal off bridges
and block roads, storm party and government offices,
coercing party committees and government and there are
even criminal acts such as attacking, trashing, looting and
arson."
The report warns that economic development must benefit
the majority of people and that victims of change must be
fairly compensated, an implicit admission that this has often
not happened, Eckholm writes. [[Full Story]]
Though not specifically cited, the Three Gorges dam has
seen its share of corruption-induced protests, followed by
the state's heavy hand to quash them. In April, Three
Gorges Probe reported that four villagers from the Three
Gorges area were arrested by local officials after protesting
corruption and coercion related to the resettlement of
thousands of fellow farmers. [[See "Imminent Trial of Three
Gorges Dam Protesters," Human Rights Watch/Probe
International Press Release, April 19, 2001.]] Still in
detention, the four men have been charged with disturbing
public order, leaking state secrets, and "maintaining illicit
relations with a foreign country."
(2) Power ploys
June 6, 2001 -- South China Morning Post's Jasper
Becker reviews the troubled state of China's power
sector restructuring. China's big generating companies
posted record share values this past year, based on
long-term fixed-price contracts, while millions of rural
Chinese are being gouged by local governments that still
control both the generation and distribution components of
local electricity networks. Up to 60 million rural Chinese
still do not have access to electricity. On the big hydro
front, China's largest hydropower station, Ertan, risks
bankruptcy because Sichuan province refuses to buy its
power. To allow cross-provincial competition and deliver
Three Gorges power to other parts of the country, the
government is investing in a large trans-provincial grid that
is expected to be in operation by 2008. Premier Zhu Rongji
wants the power industry, famous for its price gouging,
subject to market discipline and competition, and hopes that
reforms will see the industry start favouring consumers over
shareholders, Becker writes. [[Full Story]]
(3) China's eco conscience
June 5, 2001 -- South China Morning Post
by Calum Macleod and Lijia Macleod [[Full Story]]
(4) Three Gorges Dam: Premier Zhu stresses quality
June 4, 2001 -- Premier Zhu Rongji recently told the Three
Gorges Project Construction Committee that construction
quality is of life-and-death importance to the Three Gorges
Dam Project, China Daily reports. [[Full story]]
(5) Activists warn investors about Yangtze banks
May 31, 2001 -- Environmentalists are warning investors
that soon-to-be-issued China bonds will indirectly finance
the socially and environmentally disastrous Three Gorges
dam, IPS-Washington bureau reports.
Major investment banks, including, Goldman Sachs,
JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter, Deutsche Bank,
BNP Paribas and Barclays Capital, are currently pricing
approximately US$1.75 billion dollars in bonds for the
People's Republic of China.
While the banks maintain that the use of proceeds from the
bonds is not slated for the dam but will support "general
governmental purposes", environmental groups point out
that the preliminary prospectus of the bonds specifically
mentioned the Three Gorges dam.
Activists say completion of the dam is not guaranteed,
despite the Chinese government's insistence that it is. As
costs for completing the dam increase, the demand for
foreign assistance is growing, they argue.
The dam's future, "rests squarely in the hands of
international bankers and investors", says Dai Qing, a vocal
Chinese environmental activist who opposes the project.
"Only if they continue to lend to this project can this
disaster continue," she says.
The Financial Times reported in mid-May that sales of the
China bonds were intended for the United States as well,
but following pressure from activists, China decided to
sidestep the US market. China may have also avoided
selling the bonds in the United States because of new, more
stringent securities disclosure requirements, including
reporting on human rights issues.
U.S. activists are encouraging people to question the banks
underwriting the China bonds if they have a bank account,
credit card, retirement account or own shares in the banks.
[Full Story]]
For more information about the campaign to block
international financing of China's Three Gorges dam
see www.floodwallstreet.org
(6) Three Gorges dam makes smooth headway
April 23, 2001 -- China Daily releases the latest official
figures from the China Yangtze Three Gorges Project
Development Corporation. Since 1993, more than 300,000
people have been moved out of the reservoir area, and
another 50,000 residents are expected to be resettled this
year. By 2009, a total of 1.3 million people will have been
resettled to make way for the world's largest hydro power
project, according to the corporation. [[Full story]]
- END -
All Chinese stories that are translated and published by
Three Gorges Probe are as true to the original Chinese
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kept to a minimum in instances where misinterpretation
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