Organizer: Irene Bloom, Barnard College
Discussants: Richard Hayman, Pomona, NY; James Nickum , East-West Center; Dai
Qing, Beijing, PRC; Lester Ross, Chadbourne and Park Associates; Vaclav Smil,
University of Manitoba; Lawrence Sullivan, Adelphi University, New York; Nancy
Liu, Columbia University
CIAC proposes to sponsor a roundtable on contemporary Chinese environmental issues, focusing on the highly controversial Three Gorges Dam project. Three Gorges has been described by geographer and environmental scientist Vaclav Smil as "a single high-profile story rolling into one the whole universe of political, economic, environmental, technical, and even foreign policy subsets." The roundtable will examine the issue of Three Gorges from several of these perspectives: political decision-making, economics, impact on local populations, management of energy resources, environmental law, and China's relations with other nations, foreign lenders, and international organizations. Contributors to the discussion include:
Dai Qing is a leading Chinese journalist, internationally known for her work on Chinese Communist Party history and for environmental activism especially in relation to Three Gorges. She approaches the Three Gorges project broadly from the multiple perspectives offered in her recent book, Yangzi, Yangzi (Earthscan, 1994).
Richard Hayman, a specialist in the structuring and scheduling of ships, is a consultant to American shipping companies. In his work for Victoria Cruises he has traveled extensively on the Yangzi for the past 6-7 years and had close contact with local Chinese officials. He considers local perspectives including those of the Tujia minority people who will be profoundly affected by the Three Gorges project.
Nancy Liu, co-translator of Yangzi, Yangzi, will serve as translator for Dai Qing as necessary during the discussion.
James Nickum, institutional economist at the East-West Center, is the author of Dam Lies and Other Statistics (East-West Center). He has been concerned with China's water institutions in people's communes, irrigations districts, conflicts due to urbanization, problems of environmental governance, and regional and international issues. He will examine the various options and alternatives to the dam in a way intended to strip away as much as possible its symbolic weight for both opponents and proponents of the project.
Lester Ross is an environmental lawyer with the firm of Chadbourne and Park Associates and author of Environmental Law and Policy in the People's Republic of China (Quorum Books, 1987) and Environmental Policy in China (Indiana University Press, 1988). He will address foreign direct investment and international financial assistance in relation to infrastructural development in China, particularly electric power and water resources development. He focuses on the interface between local authorities, presently subject to less stringent environmental regulations, and foreign developers, lenders and investors, who are subject to more demanding internal environmental constraints, in the changing climate of environmental regulation in the PRC.
Vaclav Smil, Professor of Geography at the University of Manitoba, is author of General Energetics: Energy in the Biosphere and Civilization (1991); Global Ecology (1993) and China's Environmental Crisis: An Inquiry into the Limits of National Development (M.E. Sharpe, 1993) for which the Association for Asian Studies awarded him the Joseph Levenson Book Prize for books on 20th Century China published in 1993. He focuses on environmental and technical issues.
Lawrence Sullivan, Professor of Political Science at Adelphi University, is a specialist on Chinese Communist Party history and leadership and on policy making. He is co-translator of Deng Xiaoping :Chronicle of an Empire by Ruan Ming (Westview Press) and of Yangzi, Yangzi. He views Three Gorges in terms of political decision-making.