Privatization, efficiency, gender, development, and inequality—transnational conflicts over access to water and sanitation

Human Rights & Human Welfare, Annual, 2008 by Srini Sitaraman

Enthusiasm for dam building is at its zenith in China. Just on the Yangtze River basin, forty-six large dams are being built, along with ten on the Pearl River, and eight on the Yellow river (WWF 2004: 16). The number one dam-building nation in the world is China; it has built 22,000 large dams that are more than fifteen meters high, which is nearly one-half of the total number of dams in operation around the world (WCD 2000: 8). China's growing appetite for dams is symbolized by the Three Gorges Dam, which is heralded as the "biggest dam in the world, biggest power plant, and biggest consumer of dirt, stone, concrete and steel" (Yardley 2007b). Official estimates suggest that Three Gorges Dam has displaced more than 1.13 million people and created widespread environmental problems such as landslides, sedimentation, and water pollution. Dams and overextraction of water are leading to rapid decline of underground water aquifers by an average of four feet every year in places such as Shijiazhuang city in North Central China, which has more than two million people (Yardley 2007a). (3) Presently, 280 new dams are in various stages of construction in China and they are expected to become functional within the decade (WCD 2000: 9-10). Growing energy demands are fueling the drive to construct dams in China. The absence of functioning democratic institutions and the lack of "sustained domestic opposition" prevented global environmental norms from seeping into the Chinese policy discourse, and the inability of transnational lobbying groups to connect with activists within China emboldened the technocrats within the Chinese government to develop grandiose water infrastructure projects without any restraints (Khagram: 171). Importantly, mechanisms such as "independent courts, competing political parties," organized protests, free press, and access to information was not available to antidam activists to oppose dam-building efforts within China (Khagram: 171-172).

Environmental activists are viciously silenced by the authoritarian Communist Party, which "treats environmental advocates as bigger threats than the degradation of air, water and soil" (Kahn 2007). For instance, Wu Lihong, a local environmentalist protesting rampant pollution of Lake Tai quickly lost his job and was eventually arrested and jailed on trumped up charges. Grass-roots environmentalists encounter enormous challenges in exposing abuses and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) views them as a bigger threat than the damage to the environment that the grassroots activists seek to expose. However, although more than twice the number of dams is scheduled for construction in India, many projects are bogged down in complex litigation, citizen protests, and sustained local resistance to dam construction because of population displacement that overwhelmingly affects landless peasants and tribal settlements. Dam building has been politicized by rival political parties and grassroots activism as anti-poor, which has slowed down the rate at which dams are commissioned in India. The Narmada Bachao Andolan ("save the Narmada movement," also known as the NBA), a coalition of tribal leaders, farmers, environmentalists, and human rights activists have consistently thwarted the speedy construction of Sardar Sarvor Dam on the river Narmada in India (Khagram: 40-54).