We were going for a four-day cruise along the Yangtze River. This sounded great. I had visions of lounging around on deck with my camera, capturing river life as we drifted past. First, however, was another bullet train. The routine was familiar. Early start. Security to get into the station. Wait an hour. Queue to get onto the platform. Passport check. Find seat. Find somewhere for the luggage. Settle into small uncomfortable seat as best you can. Nearly seven hours this trip. I would have slowly crawled out when we arrived except that we were told the train would only be stopping for four minutes. As the train pulled into the station, we were ready. The luggage was ready. The doors opened and everyone in our group helped getting luggage and people off the train. This did not stop people on the platform from trying to get on. They are like that in China. Absolute experts at being crowds, pushing and shoving. They were working to the same four-minute deadline and did not care much about anything else. For a few minutes there was a glorious chaos. I suspect some bags may have been lifted off, then back on and finally off again, or visa-versa. We prevailed. They prevailed. The train doors shut and the Japanese looking Chinese bullet train slid away. Rather remarkably, everyone and everything was in its correct place.
We made our way to a coach. The coach made its way to the docks. We began our cruise, in the manner of most cruises, by queuing for ages to get onto the boat. There was a steep drop down to the river. We rode a strange funicular type of carriage to get there. After the obligatory introductory safety talk, we found our cabin. It was rather nice. A decent size with a balcony and a big, comfy bed. Our home for four nights. Lovely.
The Yangtze River is one of the world’s great waterways. This 6,300 km river has its origins high up in the snow-covered mountain of Tanggula, Tibet. It empties into the East China Sea near Shanghai. Known as China’s “lifeline,” its basin supports roughly one-third of the country’s population. The river produces a massive share of China’s rice and freshwater fish. In this way it drives nearly half of the national economy. The Yangtze is also home to the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydroelectric power station. This was to be our first excursion of the cruise.
China invaded and annexed Tibet in 1950–1951 to secure its strategic southwestern borders, claim vital natural resources, and assert historical claims of sovereignty. The People’s Republic of China (PRC), led by Mao Zedong, maintained that Tibet had been an integral part of China since the Qing dynasty and viewed the military action as a “peaceful liberation” to restore internal order and reclaim lost territory. Beijing framed Tibet’s traditional theocratic system as a backward feudal society that needed to be modernized and freed from elite rule. China presented themselves as the good guys liberating a repressed Tibet.
Of course, there were a few other considerations. Securing the high-altitude Himalayan frontier gave China a dominant military and geographical buffer against South Asia, particularly India. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) feared an independent Tibet might align with Western powers or India during the Cold War. Most importantly, Tibet contains the headwaters of major Asian rivers (such as the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers), which are vital for irrigating and sustaining eastern China’s population centres. Which is why the Three Gorges Dam started me thinking about this. Finally, control of the region offered access to abundant mineral wealth, raw materials, and vast land reserves.
Following the military defeat of the Tibetan army at Chamdo in October 1950, the Tibetan government was pressured into signing the Seventeen Point Agreement in 1951. Tensions eventually erupted into the 1959 Tibetan uprising, forcing the 14th Dalai Lama into exile in India and leading to direct Chinese rule. This whole period was rather nasty. Many Tibetans were imprisoned and tortured. Others fled to neighbouring countries. Temples and important historic and religious artifacts across the country were wrecked. The people suffered, the culture was destroyed and Chinese rule was enforced. Unfortunately for Tibet, it is not connected with the west, it has no resources of interest to the west and so nobody was there to help. In 1960, the International Court of Justice received a report accusing the Chinese government of genocide against Tibetans as a religious group. Other Tibetans have offered accounts of massacres, tortures and killings, bombardment of monasteries, extermination of whole nomad camps, and the use of military equipment provided by the Soviet Union for Chinese punitive operations. Over 6,000 monasteries in Tibet were destroyed.
The Cultural Revolution launched in 1966 (that gave rise to the Tiananmen Square massacre) was a catastrophe for Tibet. Large numbers of Tibetans died violent deaths and the number of intact monasteries in Tibet was reduced from thousands to less than ten. The Central Tibetan Administration claimed that the number that have died of starvation, violence, or other indirect causes since 1950 is approximately 1.2 million. The situation is still far from being resolved. The Dali Lama is still in exile, Tibet is still mostly closed off, Tibetan culture is suppressed. Since the 2000s, China has invested heavily in the region but generated controversies due to the sinicization of Tibet. Human rights abuses remain a concern especially where it comes to freedom of religion and political prisoners.
Since we were moored in sight of the dam, it was not a long drive to the viewing area. We did however need to pass through several security checks to get there. The weather was still very warm but it was overcast and raining. China is enormously proud of its dam and it appears to be a big tourist attraction. At one side of the dam is a large lock system so that river boats can pass. The Yangtze plays a very important role as a transport corridor. The locks are impressive. Up there on the Panama scale. We drove across the locks so I could only take photographs through the window of the coach – never very satisfactory.
From the car park we needed to queue (obviously) and then pass through security and the usual checks. After this came a series of long elevators up the hillside. Outside elevators, packed with people, in the drizzle. This felt rather strange, riding on an elevator in the rain. Eventually, we arrived at the top where the large, crowded viewing area was. Unfortunately, there was not a lot to be seen because of the rain and the mist. We walked back down a different way. Took us past some food stalls where you could buy shrimps and little crabs. The crabs were sufficiently small that, I think, the only way you could eat them would be to crunch them whole. Never saw anyone do this though so my views are just conjecture. Eventually, we walked through a small park area right next to the dam. Despite the rathe gloomy day, the dam was resplendent with Chinese flags.
Back at the boat, we settled down for our second night of the cruise. The food was reasonable. Certainly better, for us, than the previous few days. There was also plenty of red wine. In the bar there was a cabaret. We watched it for a few minutes and then opted for the TV in our cabin. Second night of the cruise and the boat had not left its moorings yet.