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Three Gorges Project History
The Three Gorges Project was originally envisioned by Sun Yat-sen in The International Development of China in 1919. In 1932 the Nationalist government, led by Chiang Kai-shek, began preliminary work on plans for a dam in the Three Gorges. Then in 1939 the Japanese military forces occupied Yichang and surveyed the area. A design, the Otani plan, was completed for the dam in anticipation of a Japanese victory over China. In 1944 involvement from the United States began when the Bureau of Reclamation engineer J.L. Savage surveyed the area and drew up a dam proposal. Around 54 Chinese engineers were sent to the U.S. for training. Some exploration, survey, economic study, and design work was done, but the government, in the midst of the Chinese Civil War, halted work in 1947.
After the 1949 communist victory, the leader Mao Zedong supported the project, but the Gezhouba Dam project was begun first and economic problems including the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution slowed progress. In 1958, after the Hundred Flowers Campaign, some engineers who spoke out against the project were imprisoned.
During the 1980s plans were revived. Pushed through by Li Peng, the dam was approved by the National People's Congress in 1992 with a record number of abstentions and dissenting votes. The construction started on December 14, 1994.The dam was expected to be fully operational in 2009, but due to additional projects such as the underground power plant with 6 additional generators, and due to the complexity of the ship lift, the dam is not expected to become fully operational until about 2011.The dam will raise the water level the third time to its designed maximum water level (175 m above sea level) by the end of 2008.
