China farmers washed away as Beijing taps water from south

China farmers washed away as Beijing taps water from south

China farmers washed away as Beijing taps water from south 35 minutes ago by Tom Hancock A partially-submerged factory is pictured near ... 02:13

China farmers washed away as
Beijing taps water from south
35 minutes ago by Tom Hancock
A partially-submerged factory is pictured near
Jianying village in China's central Henan province
on November 3, 2014
Before their villages were submerged beneath a
gargantuan scheme to move water hundreds of
kilometres to China's arid north, government
officials promised farmers better lives far from
their ancestral homes.
Water is due to start flowing this month along the
central route of the South-North Water Diversion
project, a monumental $81 billion design to salve
the thirst of Beijing and surrounding regions.
But many of the more than 300,000 people who
made way for it have been left unemployed in
leaking, shoddy houses, while few say they have
been given the compensation they were pledged.
The grand scheme was suggested by Communist
China's founding father Mao Zedong more than 60
years ago, and analysts say the migrants ' plight
shows how little megaproject management has
changed since his era.
Jia Xinlong remembers pounding rain soaking the
ground as an entire village loaded their
possessions—generations' worth of furniture and
agricultural tools—onto lorries which would take
them more than 300 kilometres away.
When they arrived three years ago at their new
home—a clump of dozens of identical white
houses rising out of surrounding fields called
Yaojia New Migrant Village—some burst into
tears.
"We felt uneasy. The houses were badly built, the
ceilings were already cracking," Jia said, pointing
out gaps in the plastered roofing of a shop.
"We made a sacrifice for the country," said his
friend Jia Zhangjun, "and we lost out."
'The country asked us'
The Chinese government says the project will
solve a chronic shortage in the cities of the
country's north, supplying Beijing with a billion
cubic metres of water every year.
Northern China supports nearly half the country's
population and economy but has just a fifth of the
national water supply, according to the World
Bank.
Recent statistics show that Beijing's water levels
have fallen to just 120 cubic metres per person—
less than Algeria and roughly on par with Yemen
and Israel, all three of them largely desert.
People visit the Danjiangkou dam in Danjiankou,
China's central Hubei province, on November 2,
2014
The South-North Water Diversion project is an
attempt to address the shortfall by reshaping the
very geography of China, and according to state
media its middle route has required at least
330,000 people in the central provinces of Henan
and Hubei to move.
Migrants in four villages visited by AFP had their
homes submerged under the newly expanded
Danjiangkou reservoir, from where water flows to
the capital through 1,264 kilometres of pipes.
"The country asked us to move. So we had no
choice," said Xu Zhenyan, an elderly man who
was transplanted 150 kilometres to
Liangzhuangdong New Village.
Huang Jianchao, 50, said that transport was better
in their new home, "but there's no work to do,
and we have less land than before"—a regularly
echoed complaint. "My income was higher before
we moved".
The relocation office of Nanyang city, where the
four villages are located, told AFP that all
migrants received at least 700 square metres of
"productive" land, and a 600 yuan annual
payment for 20 years.
It admitted that "embezzlement" of relocation
funds was a problem but said the number of
cases "was not too many to be checked".
Nonetheless more than a dozen migrants
interviewed by AFP said that they had not
received their payments, blaming corruption.
"We haven't received anything," said Liang
Qingfeng, 40, in Liangzhuangdong. "The central
policies are good, but they aren't enforced."
'Satisfaction doesn't matter'
The displaced are among millions of Chinese
relocated in recent decades by vast engineering
experiments that have fuelled the country's
economic boom.
A woman stands among apartments built for
villagers relocated to make way for the expansion
of the Danjiangkou reservoir, at Liangzhuang East
village in China's central Henan province on
November 3, 2014
More than a million people were moved to make
way for the massive Three Gorges dam—the
world's largest by generating capacity—before it
opened around a decade ago.
Thousands remain in poverty, and China's
government in 2012 made a rare admission that
the treatment of migrants relocated for the dam
was still an "urgent problem".
In the 1950s, more 400,000 people were forced to
relocate to make way for the Sanmenxia dam in
northern China. A senior official later described
the dam as "a stupid mistake" after it clogged
with silt.
Those forced to move for the latest megaproject
are victims of China's centralised politics, said
academics who have studied it.
"The cities and communities around the
Danjiangkou reservoir are politically and
economically less important than China's capital
region," said Britt-Crow Miller, assistant professor
of geography at the University of California, adding
the migrants were left "without choice in the
matter".
A home-made raft is seen beside an expanded
section of the Danjiangkou reservoir near Jianying
village in China's central Henan province on
November 3, 2014
Scott Moore at Harvard University's Kennedy
School of Government said the project planning
showed that "not much has changed since Mao in
terms of public consultation".
But despite their disappointments, some migrants
spoke with pride of "making a contribution" to
China's development.
In a rare migrant village constructed within sight
of its original location, a 71-year-old woman
surnamed Liu pointed towards her house, now
submerged under an enormous blue reservoir.
"We all miss home because our ancestors are
buried there. On important festivals we need to
return there to burn offerings," she said.
"Whether we are satisfied doesn't matter. It's a
national policy. When we are called, satisfaction
doesn't come into it."