Tells the Facts and Names the Names

oct. 16-31, 2010 Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair vol. 17, no. 18 The Class Struggle Britain’s Tri-Partisan Electoral Monolith in France Slash-and-Burn Tory Coalition Picks By Larry Portis Up Where New Labour Left Off Montpellier lower power dans la gueule – By Susan Watkins “Flower power in your face!” This London was my favorite slogan seen at the he interregnum between the wide as before. demonstrationF in Montpellier, France, on Crash of 1929 and the banking Britain’s draconian cuts only make October 16, 2010. It emblazoned a card- collapses and defaults of 1931, sense in the context of a broader pro- board sign and was carried by a young Twhich ushered in the Great Depression, gram: to shore up the financial sec- girl with curly hair and a headband. At exerts an eerie fascination today: where tor, at any cost, and to use the crisis to the bottom of the sign was printed in are we now, along the path from the Wall ram through a wish list of structural very large capital letters: Tous ensemble Street meltdown of September 2008? reforms. It was easy enough for the in- pour la Grève Generale – “All together With a depressed Atlantic core, its fi- coming Conservative-Liberal Democrat for the General Strike.” nancial system sodden with bad debt, Coalition to present its Coalition Curious, I asked the girl about the and a bubbling South, policies are set to Agreement as slightly to the left of New sign, and about the reverse side on which diverge. The Obama administration is Labour: a bill to roll back Blair’s surveil- was written, “Never trust a hippy” (“Ne pursuing a Reaganomics strategy: lower lance state, an inquiry into British col- fais jamais confiance aux hippies.”) “Is the dollar to make exports and boost the lusion in extraordinary rendition and this really a problem?” I asked, “Are there current account, while running a large torture, a mildly redistributive capital still hippies around?” Respectful of my fiscal deficit to prop up the financial gains tax; Cameron made it clear that age, she hesitated to respond, before say- sector. China, knowing very well what he was unenthusiastic about the war in ing, “Yes, there are. We are the hippies.” Reagan and Baker’s 1985 Plaza Accord Afghanistan. But once securely installed She is 15 years old and, I found, as capa- did to Japan, fears the decimation of its in office, with the unprecedented guar- ble of discussing the issues of neoliberal export sector. Fast-growing Southern antee of a 5-year fixed term brokered reform of public institutions in France economies, from Brazil to India, struggle by Whitehall chiefs, the Coalition has as anybody. At least people like her un- to control destabilizing inflows of capital. moved right to occupy New Labour’s derstand what might be called simple In Europe, while mainstream economists ground – relaunching the New Labour common sense. Students at all levels are divided over policy, political elites revolution in health, welfare and edu- and young workers know that requiring and central bankers are virtually unani- cation, which had petered out after the people to work longer, as the retirement mous on the need for austerity. trauma of September 2008, with renewed reform proposed by the Sarkozy govern- As under New Labour, so under the vigor, as part and parcel of the £80 billion ment calls for, will result in fewer jobs for new Conservative-Liberal Democrat cuts program. the young. Coalition, London’s aim is to be the van- The results will be catastrophic, as This is an ineluctable deduction, but guard in this. There is no convincing eco- Blairite marketization policies are deep- one avoided by almost all French politi- nomic rationale for the unprecedented ened in conditions of savage public- cians. Even the French Socialist Party, for four-year fiscal squeeze premised in New expenditure cuts. Osborne’s Spending example, also accepts that the retirement Labour’s March 2010 budget, trumpet- Review expects to make half a million age must be raised, in accordance with ed in the emergency budget in June put public-sector workers redundant; the ac- the decisions of the sacrosanct European forth by the new governing coalition and counting firm PwC estimates nearly half Union. Only the more radical organi- now detailed in the October 20 Spending a million more private-sector jobs will zations, such as the Communist Party, Review, laid out by the new Conservative go as well, due to reduced public-sector the Greens, the New Anti-Capitalist Chancellor George Osborne. Unlike demand and lower household spending – Party (former Ligue Communiste Greece or Ireland, the U.K.’s borrowing raising British unemployment to around Révolutionnaire) and, of course, revolu- costs are not soaring and the recession- 3.5 million, well into double digits, and tionary unions and political formations ary effects of the squeeze on government higher than the notorious jobless rates of like the CNT (Confédération Nationale revenues will likely match the reductions the Thatcher years. The governor of the du Travail), Alternative Libertaire, Lutte in spending, leaving the deficit almost as Bank of England reckons it will stay there portis continued on page 2 watkins continued on page 3 oct. 16-31, 2010 portis continued from page 1 of critical consciousness in France, the the help of her family connections and emergence of new pernicious forms of fabulous inherited wealth). “Super Sarko” Ouvrière, and the Fédération Anarchiste media distraction (typically originated in was born. call for real progressive fiscal reform, the the United States), the fact that there are It might have worked. But then, in reduction of work time, and other radi- more McDonalds restaurants per capita 2008, a bit more than one year after his cally structural changes. in France than elsewhere in the E.U., the election, the crash of the New York Stock We can analyze the facetious slogans dumbing-down of education, and all the Exchange changed everything for Super as we wish, and there are thousands of other symptoms of consensual one-di- Sarko. People in France, as elsewhere, them, conceived and formulated with mensionalism. began asking questions: Why are the humor and creativity. Whenever a move- But this is what a revolutionary tradi- banks and other financial institutions ment in France lasts for more than a few tion means. Regardless of adaptations to being given assistance, and not ordi- weeks, there is an impressive explosion of technological change, rebellious attitudes nary people? Why must the universities imaginative sloganeering, the comman- to authority persist. Popular uprisings in become unequal in status? Why are the deering of popular songs provided with France are part of a heritage going back numbers of schoolteachers being re- new and politically pointed lyrics (often at least to the seventeenth century. duced when it is generally understood far better than the originals), and street Resistance grows when a centralized that more are needed? Why are post of- theater of all types. state forces the populace to steadily give fices and railroad lines closed? Will pro- I’ve been to almost all the recent dem- up more and more of its personal liber- grammed privatization really result in onstrations in France, at least since 1986, ties and resources. In the present con- better services? when French students forced the govern- text, a good part of these liberties and At the same time, more and more in- ment to withdraw a reform of entrance resources are to be found in the fruit of formation about Sarkozy’s connections to requirements to universities. What I have former struggles. The eight-hour day and the industrial and financial elites became observed during these numerous occa- paid vacations were won through hard known. On the night of his election, he sions to participate in mass mobilizations popular struggle in 1936. The resistance gave a party for them in one of the most is what I learned during long-ago gradu- movements during the wartime occu- expensive restaurants in Paris. Sarkozy is ate studies focused on the history of pation and then the Liberation in 1945 a funny little man with a large ego, and he France and its popular movements, and gave birth to the present system of so- tends to call ridicule onto himself. Soon the ideas that accompany them or react cial security, public health services, and he became the butt of jokes, and the ob- to them – there is a revolutionary tradi- retirement benefits. These institutional ject of scurrilous speculations about his tion in France. changes quickly came to be considered need to vaunt his virility and to demean And yet, paradoxically, I’m always sur- inalienable social rights. his subordinates. Sarkozy came to be the prised. For, in between the movements, The present government in France most despised French president in recent I habitually lament the progressive loss has pledged to overturn the situation. history. Today his approval rating is in Privately, already in 2007, president the vicinity of 26 per cent. Nicolas Sarkozy said he would be the Far more important than Sarkozy’s French Margaret Thatcher. He would peccadilloes is what he represents so- force through fundamental changes, re- EDITORS cially. He is the point man for what the Alexander Cockburn ducing the power of the political left and sociologists Michel Pinçon and Monique Jeffrey St. Clair “modernizing” France by dismantling Pinçon-Charlot call the French oligarchy. state-financed social programs. During In September 2010, one month ago, these ASSISTANT EDITOR his campaign, he declared, “In this elec- authors published Le president des riches. Alevtina Rea tion, the question is to know whether the Enquête sur l’oligarchie dans la France BUSINESS legacy of May ’68 is to be perpetuated or de Nicolas Sarkozy (tr. The President of Becky Grant if it must be liquidated once and for all.” the Rich: Investigation of the Oligarchy With his careful efforts to dissimulate in Nicolas Sarkozy’s France). The book Deva Wheeler his allegiance to powerful industrial and establishes incontrovertibly that Sarkozy DESIGN financial interests, Sarkozy impressed does the bidding of the powerful employ- Tiffany Wardle much of the electorate. He assured the ers association (MEDEF – Movement young that he would provide jobs and of French Enterprises) and the financial COUNSELOR increase purchasing power. He pledged elites. His personal power base, in the ex- Ben Sonnenberg to the seniors that he would crack down clusive western suburb of Paris of Neuilly 1937-2010 on crime and provide security for all. By and the business center of La Défense, is CounterPunch recruiting members of the Socialist Party a center of rampant political corruption P.O. Box 228 and carefully selected individuals from and nepotism. Petrolia, CA 95558 ethnic minorities to his new government, What distinguishes Sarkozy is his un- Sarkozy posed as a leader above political adulterated contempt for people in gen- 1-800-840-3683 parties – neither right nor left. After sev- eral and poor people in particular. It took [email protected] eral months in office, he divorced his wife French people (or, at least the 71 per cent www.counterpunch.org and quickly married a former top model of the French population supportive of All rights reserved. and pop-idol-groupie turned singer (with the present mobilization in the streets) portis cont. on Page 7 col. 3 2 oct. 16-31, 2010 watkins continued from page 1 teaching subsidies be cut by over 70 per Galloway, hailed Ed Miliband’s elec- for a decade. With welfare spending, cent; students pay commercial rates on tion as “a significant shift beyond New higher education and local council serv- their loans; universities be free to hike Labour politics” – “that he represents ices (community care, libraries, swim- fees at will, or compete like businesses a real change is not in question” – and ming pools) the main target, the social in price-cutting against each other to “an unmistakeable breach in the stifling pain of unemployment will be intensi- attract students, with inevitable college neoliberal consensus that has dominat- fied. Small businesses, already starved of bankruptcies and closures – will now ed British politics.” Miliband’s maiden credit, will be hit by falling demand; the be implemented by the LDP minister speech as Opposition leader – pledg- insolvency firm R3 estimates that 150,000 for business, Vince Cable. The Liberal ing to stand with the Cameron-Clegg small firms may close. In the Financial Democrats, who promised to abolish tui- government on Afghanistan – and his Times, Martin Wolf – one of many estab- tion fees altogether in their 2010 mani- Blairite shadow cabinet should have ban- lishment economists to oppose the scale festo, have been bought off, as cheaply ished such delusions. of the cuts – estimates that the four-year as Labour’s “left” under Blair and Brown, The obvious candidate for shad- plan may see the economy contract by up with low-level – but well-salaried – par- ow chancellor was Ed Balls, a former to 2 per cent of GDP per year. liamentary appointments. Financial Times editorial writer and Though British commentators have • Health: since New Labour had al- tough-minded pugilist, who has de- been smugly congratulating the coun- ready insisted the National Health nounced the cuts program as a monu- try on the lack of Greek- or French- mental economic blunder on a par with style protests, struggles of some sort are The Thatcherization Churchill’s disastrous return to the gold bound to erupt. But even more, per- of the Labour Party, standard in 1925 or John Major joining haps, than in Greece and France, their the European Exchange Rate Mechanism effects will be blunted by the absence f o l l o w e d b y t h e in 1990. As shadow chancellor, Balls of any effective political spearhead. The Blairization of the would have provided legitimation for Thatcherization of the Labour Party, fol- workers, students and pensioners fight- lowed by the Blairization of the Tories Tories and now by the ing the cuts – demolishing the Lib-Tory and by the Cameronization of the Liberal Cameronization of the claim that austerity is “in the national in- Democrats, has created a monstrously terest.” This was the appointment Clegg homogenized electoral monolith. The Liberal Democrats, and Cameron dreaded. Miliband duly tri-partisan consensus is evident in every has created a mon- aspect of government policy. Thus: Watkins continued on page 8 • Welfare benefits and pensions: in strously homogenized 2007, investment banker David (now electoral monolith. Subscription Information Lord) Freud, appointed by New Labour Subscription information can be found to reduce the benefits bill, recommended Service (NHS) find £20 billion savings at www.counterpunch.org or call replacing the various crumbs – housing within its current budget to cope with toll-free inside the U.S. benefit, incapacity benefit, disability al- the expanding number of elderly pa- 1-800-840-3683 lowance – with a single, means-tested tients and drug price rises over the next payment linked to harsh “incentives four years, the Coalition could claim to Published twice monthly to work.” Tory Welfare Minister Iain be ring-fencing health expenditure. But except July and August, Duncan-Smith is enthusiastically driv- Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has 22 issues a year. ing the plan forward, implementing at already broken the Coalition pledge to 1 - year hardcopy edition $45 the same time an £18 billion reduction in put an end to New Labour’s permanent 2 - year hardcopy edition $80 payments and the downgrading of infla- revolution in top-down administrative 1 - year email edition $35 tion-linked benefit increases. restructuring, which has brought a vast 2 - year email edition $65 • Higher education: in 1998, Blair’s increase in form-filling, to the detriment 1 - year email & hardcopy edition $50 government imposed fairly nominal tui- of patient care, as medical personnel are 1 - year institutions/supporters $100 tion fees on students (a policy resisted forced to spend their time managing the 1 - year student/low income $35 by then Conservative PM John Major) NHS’s “internal market.” as the thin end of the wedge; in 2004, it • Defense: famously, New Labour’s Renew by telephone, mail or on our hiked the fees substantially, claiming that two brand-new aircraft carriers will be website. For mailed orders please “those who benefited” from higher edu- spared from Osborne’s cuts, at a cost of include name, address and email cation should fund it themselves, and set some £5 billion, since it would be “too ex- address with payment, or call 1-800- up low-interest student loans to pay for pensive” to break the contracts. 840-3683 or 1-707-629 3683. Add them – fresh fields for the financial sec- Staggeringly, the younger Miliband’s $17.50 per year for subscriptions mailed tor. Responsibility for universities was victory over his brother in September’s outside the U.S.A. duly shifted from the Department of Labour leadership contest was greeted Make checks or money orders payable to: Education to the Ministry for Business. by some on the British left as a sign of CounterPunch In 2009, New Labour appointed the ex- hope. Seumas Milne, erstwhile Guardian Business Office CEO of BP, Lord Browne, to “reform” comment editor and long-time comrade- PO Box 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 higher education. His proposals – that in-arms of ex-Respect Party MP George

3 oct. 16-31, 2010

Defeat on the struggle with the Chinese Communist Party, the West and Chang’s The Debacle of the San Men Xia Dam (KMT), government hurried to repair the one-kilometer breach at ZhengChou, and the damage it had inflicted on the KMT’s By Peter Lee credibility as a legitimate and responsible he Yellow River is the second flood plains in the shadow of the river. ruler. In her book, The Chinese People longest river in China (after the The Yellow River, obeying its own laws at War: Human Suffering and Social Yangtze), running 3,395 miles of hydrological necessity, has left its bed Transformation, 1937-1945 (Cambridge Tfrom the Bayan Har Mountains in west- and changed its course on an average of University Press, 2010), Diana Lary of the ern China through nine provinces before twice a century for the last one thousand University of British Columbia writes: emptying into the Bohai Sea. Its basin years. For China’s rulers, controlling the “The Yellow River is one of the most has been the cradle of northern Chinese Yellow River and assuring the safety and potent symbols in Chinese history; fail- civilizations. Every year it picks up a bur- prosperity of the hundreds of millions ure to control it is a sign that a govern- den of hundreds of millions of tons of silt, of people living in its basin have been a ment is about to lose the mandate of as it courses through the loess plateaus of benchmark of achievement, virtue, and heaven… After the Japanese had with- western China. As the river enters the regime legitimacy ever since the mythical drawn, it was essential for the GMD plains of central China and slows, much emperor Yao was credited with master- [Guomindang, or KMT] to heal the of that silt drops out. The silt sinks to the ing the river in the second millennium breach at Huayuankou… Closure of the bottom of the river, building up the bed, B.C.E. breach was identified as an urgent task… decreasing the distance from the bed to In 1938, Chiang Kai-shek took the op- it was named one of the major projects in the top of the riverbank, and reducing posite tack, with disastrous consequenc- China for the United Nations Relief and the volume of water the watercourse can Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA).” handle. “The Yellow River is one The breach was buttoned up in 1947 When nature takes its course, some- at a stated cost of 592 billion yuan (an where the riverbank is overtopped by of the most potent sym- indication of the inflation problems be- some combination of silt buildup and bols in Chinese history; deviling Chiang Kai-shek’s government). floodwaters; the overflow chews through In a recapitulation of the blithe indiffer- the riverbank in some inopportunely failure to control it is a ence of the original flooding – and a fore- low-lying area, and the waters gush out sign that a government shadowing of the problems at San Men into the surrounding countryside search- Xia reservoir – no provision was made ing for a new path to the sea. is about to lose the for relocating the 400,000 peasants who However, nature hasn’t taken its course mandate of heaven…” had poured into the abandoned river bed on the Yellow River – without deter- over the previous nine years. The calcu- mined human intervention, in any case es. He breached the dike at Zhengchou lation appears to have been that these – for over two thousand years. Massive city in Henan, a key rail link on the peasants were headed into the arms of earthworks, raised by Chinese govern- Yellow River threatened by the Japanese the Chinese Communists – who already ments, local gentry, and peasants over advance. The river roared southeast into controlled the area north of the Yellow the centuries, have sought to confine the one of its old channels, spreading out to River – anyway. Yellow River to its channel. As silt has inundate 21,000 square miles of land in a After their triumph in 1949, China’s built up on the riverbed for centuries, the tobacco-leaf shaped area more than 250 Communist rulers eagerly took up levees got higher and higher, the bed got miles long and over 100 miles wide in the the challenge to control the Yellow higher and higher. Today, at many places process. River. Today, sixty-one years after the on the central plain the Yellow River is a The Japanese armies approaching Communists took power, it is still by no “hanging river,” its riverbed as much as Zhengchou from the east were seriously means clear that they can claim a victo- 25 meters higher than the surrounding if temporarily discommoded as a result. ry. And they have already acknowledged countryside. However, because Chiang Kai-shek had one major defeat – the debacle of the In the case of a “hanging river,” the wished to preserve the element of sur- San Men Xia Dam. The story – an epic of earthen structures are properly called prise, no warning was given to the peo- suffering, cruelty, incompetence, and in- dikes, not levees, because they confine ple in the flood zone; and because of the difference – is told in an unprecedented the river to its course during times of government’s dire straits, few effective piece of reporting by the journalist Xie normal flow and not just during periods relief efforts were taken afterward. Over Chaoping in his Chinese-language book, of flood. To keep it in its bed, the dikes 500,000 peasants – and, perhaps, as The Great Relocation. The book came and levees have to be raised every ten many as one million – died as a result, ei- out in August in the face of determined years. In modern China, construction ther directly from the inundation or from efforts to block its publication, and has and maintenance of the dikes and levees starvation and disease in the subsequent circulated in China and on the Internet costs an average of $300 million per year. famine. in virtually samizdat form. It also earned If a dike is breached, the entire river The Yellow River ran south for nine Xie a month of extralegal detention by a escapes. Approximately one hundred years. After World War II, even as local government he had sorely offended million people live and work on the- Chiang Kai-shek was locked in a mortal with the aggressive accuracy of his re-

4 oct. 16-31, 2010 porting. on scientific thought were necessary and trapped behind the dam, gave the San The Great Relocation exhaustively sufficient conditions for achieving the Men Xia reservoir an expected life of less chronicles the suffering of the 285,000 goal that had eluded China’s feudal rulers than a decade. The only practical way peasants who voluntarily relocated to and the KMT – “making the Yellow River to extend the life of the reservoir would make way for the San Men Xia Dam res- run clear.” Because there was no consid- be to reduce the amount of silt reaching ervoir and have endured 50 years of pov- eration for maintaining a rapid, silt-clear- San Men Xia by building silt-entrapping erty, misrule, and financial and political ing flow through the dam, there was no dams upstream and by reducing erosion exploitation as a result. At the same time, theoretical obstacle to raising the dam, in the watershed. The Chinese Ministry Xie draws on published sources and his making the reservoir higher as well as of Hydrology proposed a series of five own reporting to offer an unprecedented bigger, and generating immense amounts small and five large dams that, combined perspective on the reign of folly that led of electricity. Therefore, the dominant with improved agricultural and refor- to the construction of the dam. Xie writes “high dam” faction in the Ministry of estation practices, were to reduce the that a prophecy was eagerly recounted in Hydrology promoted a gigantic proj- amount of silt in the upper reaches of the China in the 1950s, “When the sage ap- ect: a dam 360 meters high, backed by a Yellow River by 50 per cent by 1967, and pears, the Yellow River will run clear.” reservoir 350 meters high, which would by 100 per cent in fifty years. The Soviet Enter Chairman Mao. The Chairman displace nearly one million people; and a engineers considered these numbers – visited the great dikes at ZhengChou, power plant equipped with 1.2 megawatts apparently pulled from thin air, without site of Chiang Kai’shek’s debacle, in 1952, of generating capacity – roughly equiva- benefit of any models or statistics – ludi- and was briefed on “China’s Sorrow” by lent to the generating capacity of the en- crous. Thereupon, the Chinese hydrolo- Wang Huayun, in charge of Yellow River tire country in 1949. gists, in a measure that will be instantly conservancy. “You say, ‘When a sage recognizable to any capitalist who has During the rule of Chiang Kai-shek, tweaked the future earnings assumptions a team of American hydrologists led by appears, the Yellow on a spreadsheet in a spirit of groundless the chief engineer of the Army Corps River will run clear.’ I optimism, simply cut the ludicrous num- of Engineers had surveyed the river and bers in half, assuming that somehow the evaluated the three choke points in west- say, the Yellow River influx would be reduced by 25 per cent by ern Henan, at which a dam could be con- cannot run clear. If the 1967 and 50 per cent afterward. structed: San Men Xia; where the river The Russians, not terribly interested first emerged from the highlands and en- Yellow River runs clear, in the minutiae or reality of upstream silt tered the province; or downstream at Bali it is not an achieve- control and eager to start work on the Hutong or Xiaolangdi. The U.S. team rec- gigantic project, accepted the Chinese ommended that first priority in dam lo- ment; it is a crime.” numbers and cleared the way for con- cation and design should be flood control struction of the dam with Russian fund- – building a dam with sufficient surge The financial and technical means ing, equipment, and technical assistance. capacity in its reservoir to hold back for this historic project were to be pro- In June 1957, Chou En-lai arranged a sign- floodwaters that would otherwise over- vided by the Soviet Union, as part of its off meeting for 70 Chinese experts at the top the dikes and flood the countryside program of economic assistance to the Hotel. One expert, Wanli, downstream. The dam would be designed People’s Republic of China in the 1950s. refused to go along, and his dissent as- with proper measures to flush sediment The Soviet Union has subsequently sumed legendary proportions. Huang downstream to prevent the silting of its served as a convenient scapegoat for was a professor at Qinghua University reservoir. Chinese Communist apparatchiks and at the time of the debate. However, he Since a dam at San Men Xia would Chinese patriots. The Russians have been was intimately familiar with the charac- flood some of China’s most productive accused of insufficient experience with teristics of the Yellow River upstream of farmland, it was recommended that the silt-laden rivers, an obsession with the the dam thanks to a stint as the head of dam be built at Bali Hutong, whose reser- engineering challenge of dam building the Gansu Province Hydrology Bureau. voir would then flood a relatively unpro- over the critical hydrology of reservoir An opinionated, straightforward man, ductive and unpopulated area of gorges. construction, general intellectual lazi- he was also given to gnomic utterances However, Wang had a different idea. He ness, and a disregard of their obligation such as “Rivers have their own intrinsic told Mao of his ambitious plan to solve to provide technical guidance to their value; so, they have their own rights.” He the silting problem at its root with a dam untutored and compliant Chinese coun- told Chou En-lai, “You say, ‘When a sage design that would both control flooding terparts. appears, the Yellow River will run clear.’ and entrap silt. The most logical place to However, the detailed account pre- I say, the Yellow River cannot run clear. build such a dam appeared to be at the sented in Xie Chaoping’s book indicates If the Yellow River runs clear, it is not an furthest upstream point, San Men Xia. that the Soviet engineers possessed a achievement; it is a crime.” He was the In the frothy exuberance and hubris healthy and practical appreciation of only expert to oppose the dam on prin- of the early People’s Republic, it was the dangers of silting. A simple calcula- cipal, presciently predicting that the dam believed that the political will of the tion of the colossal silt load of the Yellow would not stop floods; it would merely Communist Party, an overwhelming River and the volume of the reservoir, shift their locus to behind the dam, on commitment to the people’s livelihood, combined with the design assumption the upper reaches of the Yellow River. In and the liberating influence of socialism that virtually all of the silt would be en- addition, four experts took issue with the

5 oct. 16-31, 2010 height of the dam in light of the immense ing to judicial murder that Mao inflicted enough. Over the next year and a half, an burden of relocating upward of 890,000 on his other high-profile enemies such astounding 1.5 billion tons of silt poured peasants to make way for the reservoir. as Peng and Liu Shaoqi. Huang’s father into the reservoir and stayed there. Not However, the central government’s en- was an important political figure in the only was the reservoir well on its way to thusiasm for the dam was not to be gain- National People’s Consultative Congress, disappearing completely in a few years – said, and the State Council approved the the post-Revolution united front organ, and turning the dam into “Asia’s largest project and notified the ministries and and Mao also genuinely appreciated waterfall,” in the words of one observer localities accordingly. Huang Wanli’s literary attainments. – the slowed-down river flow was knock- Huang Wanli did not fare well in the At one time, Huang had the chance to ing silt out of the water in the tributaries aftermath of the conference. He was dis- be de-capped, but he defiantly refused that fed the Yellow River behind the dam satisfied with the unscientific tenor of the and spent the Cultural Revolution clean- as well. Upstream riverbeds lurched up proceedings, and also not happy with the ing privies at the San Men Xia Dam. He as much as 4.5 meters, and an immense progress of Chairman Mao’s Hundred survived and became publicly identified sandbar formed at the mouth of the Flowers movement. Shortly after the as the leading technical voice against Yellow River’s most important tributary, meeting, Huang published a short novel China’s other enormous dam project, the the Wei, which cuts through the heart- in a Qinghua University magazine. A Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze, be- land of Shaanxi. A finger of silt crept up passage vigorously criticized the incom- fore he died in 2001. While Huang was the Wei toward Shaanxi’s provincial capi- petence of Beijing Municipality’s road going through his travails, the province tal, Xian, cutting the carrying capacity of building efforts (apparently, improper of Shaanxi was working energetically to the riverbed in half and bringing with it construction techniques had caused big modify, if not stop, the San Men Xia proj- the threat of inundation of one of China’s potholes and cracking of road surfaces in ect. The dam was in Henan, but the res- major industrial centers at the next flood. the capital). Huang, who had advanced ervoir, with its problems, was in Shaanxi. In 1962, only two years after commis- degrees in engineering from two U.S. Shaanxi would lose thousands of hectares sioning the dam, its reservoir held 1.8 universities, asserted that similar fail- of its richest farmland and hundreds of billion tons of silt (having been able to ures in the United States would have led thousands of its peasants would have to discharge only 110 million tons down- to a taxpayer revolt and the defeat of the be relocated. The province was stubborn stream). The State Council approved mayor at the next elections, but in China Chairman Mao contrib- modification of the dam’s operating “we’re good at talking.” As a prologue to method to “flood prevention and silt dis- the novel, Huang added an allusive poem uted his two-fen worth, charge,” and the experts were convened referring regretfully to early chills blight- telling Zhou Enlai, “If to try to find a way to do this. Chairman ing the spring blooms. Huang’s excursion Mao contributed his two-fen worth, tell- into analogy, metaphor, and symbolism San Men Xia isn’t work- ing Chou En-lai, “If San Men Xia isn’t did not escape Chairman Mao, who an- ing out, then blow it up.” working out, then blow it up.” Through notated Huang’s production with the in- this exhibition of imperial insouciance, dignant and disgusted remark, “What is in its opposition to the dam. Mao essentially washed his hands of the this?” Chou En-lai journeyed to the dam project, leaving Chou with the headache Thereupon, Huang became one of construction site and convened another of solving the problem and responsibility the main targets of Mao’s anti-Rightist meeting. Shaanxi’s outcries had an ef- for whatever consequences his solution campaign, and a column dedicated to fect. It was promised that the reservoir entailed. denouncing rightists entitled “What height would not exceed 340 meters, With the reservoir problems, it was Is This?” became a regular feature in instead of the original 350 meters; and clear that the “high dam” operating con- People’s Daily. Huang’s position at the elevation of some relief tunnels was dition was untenable, and the operating Qinghua was downgraded. He was lowered, so more silt could be carried out height was lowered from 340 meters to capped as a rightist (grumbling, “Galileo of the reservoir. Construction proceeded 315 meters. Chou stated, “It should be was tossed into jail, but the Earth still re- and relocation continued, albeit on a re- publicly announced that Wen Shanzhang volves around the Sun!”), and sent off to duced scale. Relocation of 285,000 peas- {the leading “low dam” advocate) was labor reform at the Miyun Reservoir in ants from some of the most fertile land right, we were wrong, and his reputa- the outskirts of Beijing. in China to wastelands in Ningxia and tion should be rehabilitated.” However, In 1959, in the Lushan Plenum that saw northern Shaanxi turned into the degrad- even with the lowered dam height and Mao’s savage counterattack on critics ing and immiserating botch chronicled in permanently opened discharge tunnels, of the Great Leap Forward and marked Xie Chaoping’s book. by October 1964 the reservoir was still the true beginning of the Cultural As to the vital issue of upstream silt capturing 45 per cent of the silt coming Revolution, Mao menacingly lumped control, apparently no serious efforts in, and had accumulated 4.7 billion tons Huang together with archfoe Peng were made, possibly because of the dis- of silt. In 1964, Premier Chou approved Dehuai as “Chinese who think everything ruptions of the Great Leap Forward an emergency plan to remove four of the is better in America, even the moonlight campaign and possibly because of a gen- eight turbines in the power plant, so that is better…” Remarkably, Huang Wanli – erally reactive ethos: build the dam and their penstocks and tailraces could be though he and his family were subjected see what happens. The San Men Xia used to channel and discharge sediment. to extremely rough handling – was not Dam was commissioned with great fan- In addition, two new sediment discharge subjected to the ferocious abuse amount- fare in 1960. Problems emerged quickly tunnels were built at the side of the dam.

6 oct. 16-31, 2010

Although the accumulation of silt in 2000, China completed the Xiaolangdi sibly ameliorate conditions downriver. the reservoir slowed after completion Dam, constructed on one of the three However, the Yellow River is a unique of the project in 1968, it continued un- sites reviewed by the Army Corps of river, and the Xiaolangdi is an unprec- abated upstream on the Yellow and Wei Engineers team in the 1940s. It performs edented hydrological experiment. rivers. In 1969, as the Cultural Revolution the flood control function that the San Chinadialogue.net, interviewed pro- raged, it was agreed that there was no Men Xia Dam could have – and should fessor Wang Guangqian, an expert in hy- choice but to take the final possible mea- have – performed, but could not because drology: sure short of decommissioning the dam: its reservoir silted up. “Wang Guangqian maintains that, adopting Huang Wanli’s recommen- This behemoth cost $3.5 billion to con- despite this reduction, silt in the Yellow dation to unplug the eight temporary struct and was built with World Bank River has dropped from 800 million tons diversion tunnels that had carried the assistance. Most people outside China to 600 million tons in recent years – due, Yellow River under the dam site during have never even heard of Xiaolangi. For he says, to soil conservation measures, a construction and use them for sediment a Chinese dam, this is probably a good reduction in rainfall, and the dams built discharge. They were unblocked at a cost thing. Unlike China’s other big hydrology to remove silt. But he also admits that of 80 billion yuan. The dam’s operating projects, such as the Three Gorges Dam silt regulation suffers from technical height was once again lowered, this time on the Yangtze and the South-to-North limitations and the results of the pro- to 310 meters. The San Men Xia facil- water diversion projects, Xiaolangdi – cess are not ideal. The silt deposits in the ity survived as a minor provincial power possibly because of its intrinsic merits Xiaolangdi Reservoir are hard to shift plant, contributing little to downstream and also possibly because it offered the and, over the next 20 years, some way of flood control and still a source of trouble West a slice of the pie through the World dealing with the accumulated sediment to the upstream river and tributaries. Bank – has not attracted the vociferous will need to be found. Wang is not wor- For Shaanxi, the San Men Xia bill opposition of anti-dam activists. The ried, ‘At that point the silt will be higher came due in 2003. A relatively minor dam is constructed according to silt-con- and therefore easier to move, though flood – rainfall at the once-in-fifty-years trol and discharge principles. The reser- control of water flow will be harder.’” level – caused the worst flooding in the voir is designed to hold 10 billion tons of History will judge if China has finally region since the year 1556. It inundated silt – perhaps 20 years’ worth. Every year, found a solution to its Yellow River prob- five counties, affected 560,000 people, the dam stores up water and unleashes it lem – or if Xiaolangdi is simply a slow- forcing 200,000 to flee, destroyed the in a violent 10-day burst that is meant to motion San Men Xia Dam. CP homes of 129,000, and caused damages sweep accumulated silt all the way down Peter Lee is a businessman who has of 2.3 billion yuan. In the aftermath of the river to the Bohai Gulf, scouring the spent 30 years observing, analyzing, the flood, the Ministry of Hydrology ad- riverbed of additional silt along the way. and writing on Asian affairs. Lee can be mitted that the Wei – which had never The spectacular cataract is something of reached at peterrlee-2000@yahoo needed levees or dikes in the past – had a tourist attraction. It is not, however, a now become a “hanging river,” and the panacea. Flow into the Xiaolangdi Dam portis continue from Page 2 San Men Xia reservoir bore the primary has decreased, bringing a welcome re- responsibility. Zhang Guangdou, at one duction in silt but not providing suffi- three years to become fed up with his time the responsible technician for the cient water for prolonged sediment dis- attempts to gut social services in the project, admitted frankly the San Men charge and scouring downstream. country. The current protests focus on Xia reservoir was a mistake and power Downstream, the Yellow River is a the regressive “reform” of the state retire- generation and water storage should be mess. Owing to a cycle of drought and ment programs, but they go far beyond. halted immediately; his call was echoed intensive and growing water use for in- We learned just a few days ago, thanks to by the retired Minister of Hydrology dustry and agriculture in the lower wa- the online newspaper Mediapart, that a Qian Zhengying. tercourse, the Yellow River’s water flow financial group was recently created to However, as of 2010, to the intense has been reduced by almost half. In one offer “complementary retirement ser- resentment of Shaanxi, the operators of year in the 1990s, flow of the river into vices” based on “capitalization” to those the power station at the dam (a business the Bohai Gulf was zero for 200 days. who find the present (or reformed) sys- venture controlled by the downstream That translated into zero silt carried into tem inadequate. A certain Guillaume province, Henan) still maintain the water the ocean, and further siltation-forming Sarkozy, brother of the president, directs level behind the dam in order to drive “double hanging rivers” – a new riverbed the group and was a former number two the generators (which bring in upward inside an old hanging river – in some lo- of the MEDEF employers association. of 200 million yuan of revenue to the calities. Downstream, the flood-carrying Thanks to Nicolas Sarkozy, French province). Meanwhile, Shaanxi province capacity of the Yellow River is less than people have learned much about the gov- is frantically building dikes and levees on half of what it was a century ago. ernance of their country. This is why they the Wei and its tributaries with central The first line of defense in flood con- are now on the streets. CP government assistance, so it can survive trol is the reservoir of the Xiaolangdi Larry Portis is the author of books on the next major rainstorm without a his- Dam. The optimists believe that, over France, including Georges Sorel, Les tory-making catastrophe. The conditions the next 20 years, enough water will Classes sociales en France, and French now apparently exist for decommission- flow through the reservoir to keep its Frenzies: A Social History of French ing the San Men Xia Dam and ending silt under control and sustain flushing Popular Music. He can be reached at its reign of error on the Yellow River. In operations sufficient to stabilize and pos- [email protected]

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Watkins continued from page 3 low Frank Field and John Hutton into to London. With a falling pound, infla- sidelined Balls as Shadow home secre- lucrative government appointments. tion is higher than in any other OECD tary, with a brief to attack the Coalition There is, after all, no reason in principle country; household debt is also at record for being soft on crime, and appointed why Miliband’s party should not join the levels. The cuts will indubitably make the a mild-mannered trade union negotia- Coalition. The last thing the European situation worse; but there are no grounds tor, Alan Johnson, as shadow chancel- left needs is the perpetuation of any fur- for thinking that, without them, growth lor. Johnson, who – like most of the ther illusions in New Labour. would ignite. shadow cabinet – had voted for the Where are we now, on the path from The national economic model – elder Miliband, had already aligned him- Thatcher’s answer to Britain’s decline, self with the Brown government’s plan S t a g g e r i n g l y, t h e nurtured by Blair and Brown – of an to halve the deficit within four years, younger Miliband’s overblown City of London and financial little different in substance from the services sector, spinning off crumbs for Coalition’s program. In the parliamen- victory over his broth- the former industrial regions, has now tary debate on the Spending Review, he er in September’s crashed. The working population, pen- was reduced to weightless claims that the sioners and students will be wrung out cuts were “ideological,” at the same time Labour leadership con- over the next decade to keep the City saying Labour would support the benefit test was greeted by afloat; nothing will be flowing the other changes. Miliband himself has weakly way. It will take a huge upheaval – going called the cuts “a gamble.” some on the British beyond the courage and determination In other words, cowardice is in com- left as a sign of hope. of the 1926 General Strike – to break the mand. The lightest touch of the media tri-partisan electoral monolith dedicated lash – “Red Ed in hock to the unions” – September 2008? Two years of unprec- to shoring up this broken model. CP was enough to get the leader of the oppo- edented stimulus – zero interest rates, a Susan Watkins is the editor of New sition squealing denials and denouncing bank bailout of over £100 billion backed Left Review. For earlier pieces on “irresponsible” trade union action against by a further government guarantee of £1 British politics, see “A Weightless the cuts. The only possible advantage of trillion, £200 billion of quantitative eas- Hegemony: New Labour’s Role in the the younger Miliband is that politics may ing poured into government bonds – has Neoliberal Order,”NLR 25, and “Blue be messier. More New Labourites may brought no more than a flicker of growth Labour?”, NLR 63. She can be reached at: despair of the party’s prospects and fol- to the U.K. economy, mainly confined [email protected]

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