At the Three Gorges Dam in Yichang, one can catch a glimpse of the secrets (and troubles) of China’s power

Lin’s smile welcomes me on the southern bank of the Yangtze River. I am the only foreigner in a group of fifty Chinese tourists heading for Xiaoguanshan, a makeshift village recreated by the government to convey a hazy memory of a China that has now vanished. Such sites are not uncommon in the vast municipality of Chongqing, one of the country’s most dynamic regions, with 36 million inhabitants spread across an area the size of Austria. Once considered underdeveloped and rural, Chongqing now pulsates with light and technology and has gone viral on TikTok thanks to its nocturnal atmospheres reminiscent of Blade Runner. There is a specific reason behind this transformation: the Three Gorges Dam. Inaugurated in 2006, the Three Gorges Dam is the most impressive architectural feat of the modern era. Its construction has raised the level of the River Yangtze by about a hundred metres in the area where I am now.

In this way, the Chinese government was able to install 32 turbines inside the dam and build the country’s largest electricity generation system. The construction of the dam was only possible by relocating one million residents from villages that are now submerged. What remains of one of these villages, Xiaoguanshan, is the focus of my journey today. From here, on the opposite bank of the river, the silhouettes of the skyscrapers of Fengdu, a town with a population of 500,000 that has taken in the majority of the people relocated from the submerged areas, are visible. This is where Lin, my guide for today, lives; she appears content – at least in her words – with her life in the area. “Before the dam, my village had only 40 houses and my father worked away from home all week. I’ve got a few photos of myself as a child in the village; I can send them to you via WeChat if you like,” she adds, “Today, Fengdu has roads, hospitals, schools and shops: we want for nothing. The construction of the dam was a great thing.”

For those visiting the Yangtze Valley for the first time, it is difficult to grasp the scale of the project. The dam is over two kilometres long and nearly two hundred metres high. It is the largest hydroelectric power station on the planet and stands as one of the most striking symbols of China’s ambition over the last thirty years. The idea of building a dam at this point on the river first emerged in the 1920s and was revived by Mao in the 1950s, but it was not approved by the Chinese government until 1992. Work began in 1994, the main structure was completed as early as 2006, and the dam became fully operational in 2012. In just a few years, China has laid the foundations for resolving three long-standing problems: the devastating floods of the Yangtze River, the growing demand for energy, and the difficulties of commercial navigation into the interior of the country. “The dam is important for the whole of China; it provides clean energy to over one hundred million people and connects our region with the rest of the country. We are very grateful that the government has built it,” says Lin. In reality, the actual estimates of the number of people served by the dam’s energy are lower, but the plant’s generating capacity remains among the highest in the world. An entire population is completely self-sufficient thanks to clean energy that drives development and wealth. Is this the secret behind China’s power?

The city of Chongqing has reaped the greatest benefits from the dam, transforming from a peripheral location into one of the most important logistics hubs in the whole of Asia. According to Chinese authorities, the dam’s construction has helped mitigate numerous flooding events and reduced CO₂ emissions thanks to hydroelectric power generation. For Beijing, the Three Gorges Dam is a symbol of governmental efficiency: a colossal project, completed in record time, capable of generating enormous economic and strategic benefits. Yet it is here that the Chinese narrative reveals its greatest grey areas. As is often the case in China, however, not all that glitters is gold. Numerous Western studies highlight the project’s geological and environmental risks. As early as 2007, a NASA simulation pointed out that the displacement of such a massive volume of water is sufficient to cause a slight slowdown in the Earth’s rotation. In March this year, the Indian science communicator Sabin Mathew posted a video on his YouTube channel in which he explains, amongst other things, the dam’s major geophysical challenges and the risks they pose. In just a few months, the video has already racked up over two million views. Also on YouTube, several videos simulate the possible consequences should the dam collapse, depicting catastrophic flood scenarios for millions of Chinese people. It is a highly topical issue, particularly in the wake of the tragic events in Nepal and Tibet. There is, however, a problem: in China, YouTube is blocked by the digital Great Firewall, meaning these videos have virtually no influence on public opinion within the country.

Then there is the human impact of the project. To build the dam, over a million people had to be relocated and entire villages were demolished. Towns, archaeological sites, farmland and monuments have been submerged. Lin herself bears witness to one of the consequences most difficult for us Westerners to comprehend: people giving up the places of their memories in the name of collective happiness. At one point during my visit, I tried to explain to her that in Italy we have been debating for over twenty years whether or not it is appropriate to build a bridge linking Sicily to the mainland, and that for thirty years we have been waiting for the completion of a high-speed rail project to link Italy and France. I do not think my arguments convinced her. On the other hand, the Three Gorges Dam was built with virtually no internal public debate. The most authoritative voice opposing the dam’s construction, that of the journalist and activist Dai Qing, was immediately silenced, including through her detention. It is remarkable that Dai Qing is the daughter of a hero of the Communist Revolution who died in battle, adopted by one of Mao’s defence ministers and thus raised at the very heart of today’s Chinese power structure.

Building on this political and economic success, China is now preparing to go even further than the Three Gorges Dam. On 25 December 2025, the Beijing government approved the allocation of 160 billion dollars to begin construction of the Motuo Dam, a colossal hydroelectric project on the Yarlung Tsangpo River in the Tibetan Himalayas. The dam will be built in one of the highest and most inaccessible areas of the Tibetan Himalayas, harnessing the flow of one of the world’s most powerful rivers and, once fully operational, generating as much as 300 TWh of energy per year. India and Bangladesh, through whose territories the Yarlung Tsangpo flows, have raised their voices on the international stage to highlight the geological risks and the potential for water-related blackmail that China could inflict upon them by exploiting this new dam. However, Beijing has no cross-border agreements with these two neighbours and therefore intends to press ahead, in order to strengthen its political grip on the region and further consolidate its energy capacity. And so, whilst China is planning its next dam, designed to generate hundreds of billions of kilowatt-hours a year, Europe continues to debate how to coordinate its national energy policies. It is not necessarily the case that the Chinese model is better, but it is hard to deny that the speed with which a major power decides to produce energy is becoming one of the key factors in global competition.