Three Gorges Probe Oral Histories

On November 18, 2002, the government of Dachang Zhen (Great Prosperity Town) in Wushan County, Yangtze River, sent the following dispatch about the wharf and the house belonging to Lu Chengming, who was to be relocated:

In order to accomplish the task of properly resettling those who are being relocated from our village, and to ensure the total success of the clearance from the dam area, a number of county, town and village cadres have repeatedly been to Lu Chengming’s home in Xingsheng Cun (Abundant Village) to persuade him to see reason, but comrade Lu Chengming still refuses to be resettled...  read more »

Since 1993, a year after the Three Gorges dam was approved by the National People’s Congress, two kinds of population resettlement in the Three Gorges area were officially sanctioned.² Either the local government could take responsibility for relocating people in nearby areas, on higher slopes or “in areas that needed to be developed,” under a policy known as “resettlement with development,” or individuals destined to be displaced by the dam could arrange their own resettlement, outside of the reservoir area, known as “relocating oneself.”...  read more »

The Three Gorges Project approved by the National Peoples’ Congress in 1992 included a policy to settle all affected people on higher ground in the area nearby. These people were categorized as those resettling locally, and included those who resettled higher up on the slopes above the Yangtze, those who relocated to work for a local enterprise, and those who looked for friends and relatives nearby who they could move in with...  read more »