The failure of local governments and the China Three Gorges Corporation, the powerful dam developer, to deal adequately with mounting public grievances over their resettlement is not a new problem.
In one of the biggest scandals, in late 2005, more than 2,000 people living near the Xiluodu dam site in Yongshan, in Yunnan province, were evicted and escorted by thousands of soldiers and armed police to a town in Puer, on the border with Myanmar, more than 1,300 kilometres away. Most of them returned within a year after fleeing the harsh living conditions in their new home, prompting apologies from provincial officials.
Grass-roots officials and environmentalists have also questioned why construction work on mega-dams, including the Jinsha River dams, has always been allowed to go ahead months or even years before the launch of resettlement schemes.
National Audit Office reports released in 2009 and 2010 say preliminary construction work on the Xiluodu and Xiangjiaba dams began more than 2 1/2 years before Beijing gave the projects final approval.
The audit watchdog also attributed the slow progress in resettlement schemes for both dams to policy delays and massive budgetary and quality control flaws, including the mismanagement of more than 1.4 billion yuan (HK$1.7 billion) earmarked for resettlement for the Xiluodu project.
'With nonsensical norms of giving dam construction a head start before planning evictions, the government and the people have in effect been kidnapped by power companies that have vested interests in building dams,' said Yang Yong, a Sichuan-based geologist who conducts independent surveys of major rivers in China's southwest.
Local officials admit they have no magic recipe for addressing spiralling problems that have yet to be tackled, and complain they are caught in the middle between the powerful China Three Gorges Corporation and thousands of residents.