Who wanted the three Gorges dam to be built? Was it the Chinese government?
The dam was originally envisioned by Sun Yat-sen in The International Development of China in 1919. But several hurdles, Japanese invasion, financial crunch etc delayed the implementation. 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. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorge… Of course many people including farmers and environmentalists are dead against the dam. 13 cities, 1400 villages are affected or likely to be affected. On top of that the dam is built on a seismic fault line. Several ancient monuments are also affected.
