Amendments to the Draft Plan for the Yangtze River Basin [I]
(March 1958)
Considering both the nation’s long-term economic development and its technological capabilities, the Three Gorges Water Control Project is both necessary and feasible. However, the final decision on whether to proceed with construction and when to begin should be made only after the preparatory work in all key areas has been substantially completed.
[I]
The draft also addresses, under item five, the need to properly handle six sets of relationships in the planning of the Yangtze River Basin: “long-range versus short-range goals; the main stream versus tributaries; the upper, middle, and lower reaches; large, medium, and small-scale projects; flood control, power generation, irrigation, and navigation; and hydropower versus thermal power.” Upon reviewing the document, Mao Zedong further added “power generation and power consumption (i.e., market demand)” as another critical relationship. [2]
On April 3, 1992, the Fifth Session of the Seventh National People’s Congress adopted a resolution stating: “It is decided to approve the inclusion of the Three Gorges Project on the Yangtze River in the Ten-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development, to be organized and implemented by the State Council at an appropriate time based on the actual conditions of national economic development and the country’s financial and material resources.”