Word: yunnan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...uncertainty is widely shared. The Nu - its name means "angry" - flows through one of China?s most remote corners, down from the Tibetan highlands through western Yunnan province, a few miles from Burma. It is one of China's last two rivers to not be blocked by dams - the other is Tibet's Yaluzangbu - and environmentalists want to keep it that way. But China is hungry for energy, and with the country choking on its addiction to highly polluting coal, Beijing has mandated that more power should come from renewable sources. The fast-flowing Nu offers vast potential for hydropower...
...Xiaogang, director of the Yunnan-based environmental NGO Green Watershed, says he's not opposed to dams, but believes they can do more harm than good if they aren?t planned carefully. "If it contradicts scientific development and harms society, if it's a quick and dirty and even foolish decision, then that will be a pity," he says. And once the farmers' fields are inundated by the once-wild Nu, they will be left asking what happens next...
...both sides. One consistent condition made by negotiators for the Dalai Lama's Dharamsala-based government in exile, for example, has been that the new autonomous region would include so-called "greater" Tibet, that is, all the traditionally ethnic-Tibetan areas now parts of the provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu and Qinghai. In total, that would compromise around a quarter of China's current territory. No government in Beijing could ever contemplate such a giveaway, which would almost certainly unleash a nationalist backlash of frightening proportions...
...That sense of helplessness extends to many in Yunnan as well. The Xiaowan project has forced 35,000 people from their homes, often with minimal compensation. Wang Zhengjun was uprooted in 2004 from his farmland on the banks of the Mekong with only six months' notice. Although he was provided a new house by Huaneng, the 42-year-old says it's much smaller than his old one - and it doesn't come with the fertile soil that supported his family for generations. Villagers were told the dam would be a financial boon to local residents. But Wang and others...
...been quietly changing the facts on the ground. More and more of Burma's economy is being linked north and east, with new roads, bridges and railways, and now plans for a multibillion-dollar oil pipeline extending from the Bay of Bengal across the Irrawaddy Valley to China's Yunnan Province and beyond. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese have already settled in Burma in recent years and more will likely follow...