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<br />002402 <br /> <br />WATER RE'BOUROE' DEVEILOPMENT PROGRAMS <br /> <br />,:,' <br /> <br />:C"-"':' <br /> <br />21 <br /> <br />POTENTIAL HYDRO POWER RESOURCES <br /> <br />China has a less developed and therefore greater potential hydro de- <br />velopment in its mighty rivers chiefly the Yangtze, the Tibetan rivers, <br />the Yellow and the Pearl and also the lesser streams in North Korea <br />and Formosa which all Chinese official literature inevitably lists in the <br />People's Republic totals regardless of others saying otherwise. <br />China's current rulers in a thousand pronouncements have pledged an <br />all-out drive to the full multiple purpose development of these streams <br />as essential to the Republic's economic and survival strength-usually <br />adding the qualification that flood control had :priority possibly because <br />more millions of Chinese fear floods from which they long and griev- <br />ously suffered than they crave kilowatts which many have never expe- <br />rienced. . <br />Some concept of the current Chinese power status can be compre- <br />hended from the following facts collected largely from official Chinese <br />documents filed with this report for the Senate's appraisal. <br />The first hydroelectric station in China was built on the Tang-Iang <br />Chin River near the city of Kumming (Yunnan Province) by the Ger- <br />man Siemens Trust. It went on-stream in 1912 with a name plate <br />capacity of 2,920 kilowatts which were not realized. It remained a <br />lonely hydro station and up to 1937 the capacity of all stations in the <br />then nation, including Formosa, was listed as under 3,000 kilowatts <br />with all hydromechanized and electrical-engineering equipment im- <br />ported. <br /> <br />COMP.ARED WITH SHASTA POWER :PLANT <br /> <br /> <br />During the Japanese occupation some 30 small hydroplants were <br />built by the Japanese with Japanese equipment. The Japanese also <br />built the larger Fungman (within the dam) Station in northeast <br />China, and blew it up in retreat when driven out before it was really <br />completed. The Kuomintang Army also blew up power stations as <br />standard practice when it in turn was retreating. On the establish- <br />ment of the People's Rep,ublic the authorities decided Fungman was <br />no good and "incorrectly' built anyway. They redesigned, raised, and <br />rebuilt it, and it is now the biggest pdwer producer in China-ap- <br />proaching the production of Shasta powerhouse in California. . <br />"The new Fungman is China's first great up-to-date hydroelectric <br />station," Li Jui, China's Assistant Minister of Electric Power wrote <br />in The People's China last year, stating further: <br /> <br />It already plays an iIJ1portant role in supplying power to north China's indus- <br />trial centers. At full capacity it will be able to produce well over 560,000 kilo- <br />watts, double its highest output in the days of Japanese occupation. <br />The FungIJ1an Station was renovated with the help of Soviet experts, and while <br />this was being done a large nUIJ1ber of skilled workers were trained on the job. <br />This has been a great help on later projects. <br />There have been a lot of other Chinese hydrostations started and <br />finished since. Also the Fungman Training School. has been aug- <br />mented by many Government engineering training schools to develop <br />the specialized talents that are prerequisite to hydroelectric construc- <br />tion. <br />Now on the great Yellow River, a notorious silt carrier, two huge <br />hydroelectric plants at Sanmen Gorge and Liuchia Gorge are under <br />construction. They are part of the upstream multiple-purpose de- <br />velopment of the river dovetailed in with irrigation, flood control, <br />