Since the advent of electric lights, human demand for electricity has begun to grow geometrically. After visiting the Three Gorges, Sun Yat-sen proposed a bold project in his book "The Founding Strategy":
"When the sluice is used to weir its water, the boat can travel against the current, and it can use its hydraulic power."
Sun Wen's founding strategy
This was China's earliest idea of building a Three Gorges hydropower station, but for technical reasons, the project had to be put aside for the time being.
In 1945, the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Nationalist government cooperated with the United States to conduct on-site surveys of the Three Gorges again, but due to the outbreak of the civil war, the matter was shelved again, and after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Three Gorges Project was restarted, but in the end, because of the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations, the plan was shelved again;
Riverside, Chongqing in 1946
It was not until 1976 that the Three Gorges Project was officially put on the agenda and finally approved for implementation in 1983.
However, after continuous investigation, the people who participated in the discussion of the Three Gorges Dam construction meeting were roughly divided into two factions, one faction advocating construction and the other strongly opposing it;
In 1985, at the national meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Zhou Peiyuan, Li Rui and other scientists said that the construction of the Three Gorges Dam was an extremely dangerous act!
Zhou Peiyuan
At that time, Zhou Peiyuan was more than eighty years old, but he still insisted on leading people to the next line, and finally came to three main conclusions:
First, it cost a huge amount, more than 10 billion yuan of preliminary funds, for China in that era, this is almost an astronomical amount, not to mention the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, how can more than 10 billion be sent?
The second is to destroy the ecology, combined with the natural environment and local conditions, the construction of the Three Gorges will have an impact on the development of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, such as sediment precipitation, will lead to the dam bed elevation, with the passage of time the water level will continue to rise, if encountered heavy rain, the Three Gorges not only can not prevent floods, but will cause greater flood disasters.
Construction of the Three Gorges Dam
In addition, after the completion of the Three Gorges Dam, the Japanese have repeatedly calculated that the Three Gorges Dam will induce earthquakes in Japan.
The third is to argue from the national defense level, after all, the people of that generation came from the war years, the Three Gorges Dam because of the size of the problem, if war breaks out, this will be the enemy's first target point, then Shanghai may not be able to hold, half of China will be hit hard.
Based on the opposition of these people, the State Council reconvened professionals to re-argue the Three Gorges. After many arguments, the opposition put forward technical reasons, and before the Fifth Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee in 1992, Zhou Peiyuan still repeatedly called for:
"The decision-making of major economic construction projects and economic development strategies should conform to the democratization and scientificization of decision-making proposed by the party and the state, respect the opinions of scientists, and democratic voting."
Huang Shunxing objected
However, in the absence of his Fifth Plenum, a total of 1767 people voted in favor of the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, only 177 people voted against it, and more than 600 people did not vote or abstained from the remaining people;
In 1993, the Three Gorges Construction Committee was formally established, and bonds were issued for the construction of the Three Gorges throughout the country, which can be described as a national effort, and on November 1, 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission announced that the Three Gorges Project completed all the procedures for the completion and acceptance of the overall project;
Construction of the Three Gorges Dam
So far, the Three Gorges Dam is still the largest in the world, and the development it has brought is also a project that benefits the people and the country, and the reasons for the opposition put forward by the scientists at that time may only be left to time to demonstrate.