with the Yunnan provincial government in early 2003 to accelerate electric
power development. In mid-2003, a joint venture firm called the Yunnan
Huadian Nu River Hydropower Development Company^43 formed, drawing
resources from the China Huadian Corporation, the Yunnan Development
Investment Company, the Yunnan Electricity Group and Construction
Company, and the Yunnan Nu River Electricity Group;^44 and it prepared plans,
which were reviewed by the National Development and Reform Commission,
a powerful national ministry (which had already approved blueprints for
reservoirs and cascades in the middle and lower reaches of the Nu River.)
In June, 2003, the new development corporation revealed ambitious plans
to build a 13-step dam system in 20 years, and proposed construction of the
first, 180000-kilowatt station at Liuku to begin in September, 2003. With over
2.1 million kilowatts total capacity upon completion, the project would exceed
the Three Gorges Dam in output and become one of the world’s largest dam
projects. While construction companies would recoup large economic benefits
from the project, the local government would stand to gain increased revenue
in the amount of RMB$1 billion (US$123.3 million). Provincial and local
governments expressed strong support for the project, pointing to its
consistency with the national ‘Great Opening of the West’ campaign, the
benefits to local economic development that hydropower would bring to the
region, as well as jobs in dam construction.
Opposition to dam construction grew quickly in the second half of 2003 and
involved a developing and ad hoc coalition of journalists, scientists, and
ENGOs. The initial strategy of the opposition was supplied by the Southeast
Asia Rivers Network (with its headquarters in Bangkok), which organized
protests in Thailand, and contacted both Friends of Nature (FON) and the
Green Volunteers, asking them to join the campaign to stop dam construction.^45
The Nu River flows into both Myanmar and Thailand, and the Rivers Network
objected to any planned dam construction that would affect the livelihood of
people living downstream, who had not been consulted about the project. The
Rivers Network also coordinated a petition drive to the Chinese People’s
Political Consultative Conference. In fact, the Thai Director of the Rivers
Network submitted a letter of protest to the Chinese Embassy in Thailand,
asking for an immediate suspension of the project.^46 The Director of Yunnan
University’s Asia National River Research Center, He Daming, organized two
conferences in the provincial capital Kunming on the effects of dam
construction on rivers and endangered habitats. He commented: ‘the purpose
of these forums is to raise people’s awareness on this matter’.^47 An
environmental activist Yu Xiaogang, then working in the Yunnan Academy
of Social Sciences in Kunming, went to Nu River to conduct research. In
late 2002, Yu had established Green Watershed, the first Chinese non-
governmental organization specializing in river management. Although his
Politics and biodiversity conservation 211