Xiaonanhai Dam upstream from the Three Gorges Dam. Weng Lida, a former director of the water resources bureau at the Yangtze River Commission, said that senior China Three Gorges executives had succumbed to pressure from the Chongqing authorities. According to the "South China Morning Post", Chongqing's success in overcoming all major obstacles to the dam's construction is attributed to the personal intervention of Bo. The project was strongly opposed by environmentalists, who saw it as a "politically motivated decision". It was highly controversial due to the environmental impact, the high cost-benefit ratio, as well as the secretive decision-making process under Bo. A
Three Gorges neither a galloping horse nor a flight can run faster than a boat. Yuan Shansong () of the Eastern Jin dynasty wrote a "Record of Yichuan's Landscape", which depicts the Three Gorges' grandeur. He wrote, People were always warned literally or orally of the Gorges' swift currents, saying they are horrific, and no one praised the local landscape [as] beautiful. It's [not] till I came to the site that I felt quite gleeful and started to understand seeing is believing. The overlapping cliffs, the elegant peaks and the grotesque structures, they all constitute the scenery far from expression. The lush,