Power to the People

They gathered by a grave tucked into fields of yellow rape flowers high in the Himalayan foothills. There, a dozen-odd guardians of China's last free-flowing rivers unveiled a memorial to a fallen comrade, an activist who had died of a heart attack in January. But their mission had another motive. Following the ceremony, they traveled into remote regions of Yunnan province to gauge opposition to a spate of new dam projects and offer assistance to vulnerable peasants trying to stop them from being built. This wasn't a secret trip. Plainclothes police videotaped everything. Undeterred, the outsiders met with peasants in the prosperous village of Chezhou and found many unwilling to sacrifice their homes to the waters behind a proposed dam. "We eat fish, chicken and pork," an old woman told them, indicating her good fortune. "We don't want to move."

If the activists succeed, they might not have to. The visitors at the graveside included leaders of Beijing environmental groups, reporters from national newspapers and a film crew. Together they make up a loose network opposed to what they consider the devastation of natural resources in a part of the country where snowmelt from the Himalayas irrigates rivers throughout China and Southeast Asia. Already the network has helped delay approval of two impoundments on the upper Yangtze and Salween rivers. Yet in taking on state-run companies and political interests, the environmentalists face daunting odds. Says activist Xue Ye of the Beijing-based Friends of Nature: "We are weak, but we have a chance."

Since the massacre in Tiananmen Square in 1989, many have seen China's government as nothing but repressive. But groups like these environmentalists have become drivers of social and political change. They don't directly challenge the Communist Party's power but instead focus on issues like AIDS education, legal reform and, above all, environmental protection--endeavors the government professes to support. What unifies the new generation is a commitment to individual rights. The cover of the influential Beijing magazine Economics last year called the anti-dam movement a "New Social Power in China." "They're promoting the rights of ordinary people," says Elizabeth Economy of the New York--based Council on Foreign Relations, author of The River Runs Black, about China's environment. "Although it's dangerous for them to say so, that means political reform."

Until recently, Beijing saw those affected by dams as little more than obstacles to a bigger goal--powering the world's most eye-popping economy. Beijing's planners want hydropower to help ease their reliance on imported oil. Especially enticing is a swath of Yunnan province where three of Asia's great rivers--the Salween, Mekong and Yangtze--descend through valleys that account for nearly a quarter of China's hydropower potential. Developers have proposed 27 dams on those three rivers.

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