Gorges plan 'protest due'
DISSIDENT journalist Dai Qing expects more people will speak out against the Three Gorges project after the death of Deng Xiaoping.
Critics of the controversial scheme have remained reticent because many of them, especially those who are high-ranking officials, dare not offend the paramount leader, Ms Dai said yesterday.
An opponent of the Three Gorges, Ms Dai noted that once Mr Deng died and particularly if there were engineering and other problems, people would speak out against it.
She said many people in Sichuan province were against the project.
The go-ahead for the Three Gorges project was one of the examples that demonstrated the stubbornness of the paramount leader, Ms Dai said.
The journalist, formerly a reporter with the Guangming Daily in Beijing is currently a visiting scholar at Chinese University's New Asia College in Hong Kong.
Ms Dai arrived here on Tuesday from Australia where she was a research fellow at the Australian National University.
Ms Dai said she planned to go to Guangdong in March for a month to carry out research for her planned book on intellectuals in China before returning to Beijing.
