bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sponsorType

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Mark O'Neill

On a mountain side high above the Yangtze River, giant concrete pipes are sleeping in a sea of red mud. Half a dozen office buildings and a clump of apartment blocks have risen out of the ground, incongruous in such a desolate spot.

 'This is the new Fengdu,' said deputy county chief Li Zhengzhong, standing on a rock.

 'This will be its Chang An, the main street 40 metres wide. There will be the People's Bank of China building,' he said, pointing to an office building.

 'It must all be finished before 2003. We have to work fast.

 'This is costing 700 million yuan (about HK$649 million), all from the central government.'  Most of the county seat of Fengdu, like dozens of other towns along the Yangtze, will disappear under a 600 kilometre reservoir to be created by the Three Gorges dam, the world's biggest hydro-electric project.

 Fengdu is building a new town high on the opposite bank, several kilometres above the river and linked to it by one road over a bridge that opened earlier this year.

 Of Fengdu's 70,000 people, 50,000 will have to move.

 They regard their relocation with a mixture of resignation, hope and anxiety.

 'We plan to open a shop in the new town and hope it will be the same size as this one,' said a lady running a shoe shop in the commercial heart of the old city that will be submerged.

 'We have been promised compensation but do not know how much. Many things are unclear.

 'We would like to buy our own house there but do not know if we will have enough money.

 'My parents are sad to move but there is no alternative.'  Her sister said: 'The question of whether or not we want to move does not arise. This is China. The Three Gorges is a national project and you have to move. We have to accept it.'  The bustling street is full of evening shoppers and tourists who have come to see Fengdus' famous Buddhist temple.

 Vendors hawk fruit, noodles and exotic fish. You can buy cameras, medicine, CDs, Playboy-brand clothes and souvenirs.

 It is hard to believe that in six years all the goods will be gone, the buildings systematically demolished and the sound and laughter replaced by the silence of a giant lake.

 'Psst . . . do you want your hair cut?' whispers a woman in her early 20s in a red dress and too much face powder.

 'Yes, we are happy to move. We will get a new and bigger shop in the new town and a new apartment,' she said.

 'We expect to pay about 20,000 yuan for each. We can afford that.'  The man in the grocery shop is not so optimistic. 'I have been working for 30 years and earn just 300 yuan a month, including bonuses,' he said.

 'That is the average here, except for the leaders and the officials. The rich people are happy about moving because they will be able to buy nice places.

 'As for the ordinary people, I am not so optimistic. It is a matter of money. If you buy an apartment, you will have to pay. The compensation will not be enough, so you will have to make up the difference.

 'That is how it is in China - a project that is good for the nation but not for the people involved.'  Down the road, the manager of a hardware shop has similar doubts.

  'To be honest, most people would prefer not to move,' he said.

 'Despite the compensation paid by the government, the cost in the end will fall on the common people who will have to pay to be relocated.

 'We are concerned the money allocated by Beijing will be diverted by local cadres for other purposes, to run businesses.'  Not so, insist officials of Chongqing Migration Bureau responsible for the Fengdu area.

 A special bureau is in charge of allocation of such migration money and will ensure the funds will be properly spent.

 It will be a different feeling in the new town. Like other settlements along the river, the old town is built round the Yangtze, for centuries its lifeblood, bringing in an incessant flow of goods and people.

 In some years, the rivers floods brought death and destruction.

 The mountains behind the town mean road transport was negligible and the river was its most important link with the outside world.

 The new town is on the side of a mountain. The Yangtze can be seen but not heard.

 The music you hear before going to sleep will be the wind blowing off the peaks and no longer the lapping of the great river.



Making way for Three Gorges, people of Fengdu ready to uproot amid grumpiness