The Three Gorges Dam in China

In April 1992, China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) formally approved the “Resolution on the Construction of the Yangtze River Three Gorges Project,” marking the conclusion of decades of controversy within the Chinese leadership in favor of supporters of the world’s biggest-ever river dam project. A showcase for China’s “opening and reform” policy, the dam is a model for how lack of transparency and debate, authoritarian decision-making and underlying unfair labor conditions can taint an ambitious enterprise.