Three Gorges Probe | March 10, 2008
Absence of Justice:
Lu Chengming’s Struggle for Compensation
By Liu Bai
Translation by Madeleine Ross and Fang Li
O
n November 18, 2002, the government
of Dachang Zhen (Great Prosperity
Town) in Wushan County, Yangtze
River, sent the following dispatch about
the wharf and the house belonging to Lu
Chengming, who was to be relocated:
In order to accomplish the task of properly
resettling those who are being relocated
from our village, and to ensure the total
success of the clearance from the dam
area, a number of county, town and
village cadres have repeatedly been to Lu
Chengming’s home in Xingsheng Cun
(Abundant Village) to persuade him to
see reason, but comrade Lu Chengming
still refuses to be resettled. Chongqing
City hereby invokes the law pertaining
to the regulations of Article 62, Section 2
of the “Ordinances for Relocation in the
Construction of the Yangtze River Three
Gorges Project,” and has decided to take
coercive measures to evict the two people
in this household.
This was the first example of forcible evictions
from the area to be submerged by the rising
reservoir of the Three Gorges dam—and it
marked the end of the government’s use of
proper procedures to move people away.
The reason Lu Chengming “refused to be
resettled” was that he disagreed with the
government’s assessment of the real value of
his assets—his combined hotel and house, and
his wharf. The amount had been decided on
the basis of a survey conducted by the CWRC
(Changjiang Water Resources Commission).
The survey, as far as the Lu household was
concerned, was in error. Specifically, their
property of 639.34 square metres was assessed
as being only 250 square metres on the
grounds that there was no proof the difference
had been built prior to April 4, 1992—the
official cutoff date for compensation of assets.
Furthermore, the evaluators simply listed the
Bajiao Qiu Matou (Star Anise Hill Wharf),
which so obviously belonged to the Lu family,
as having “no owner” and was therefore
deemed “to be unclaimed.”
It is my opinion, after conducting interviews in
Wushan, that erroneous and corrupt property
assessments were ubiquitous, no household
was compensated promptly for being resettled,
and no household suffered greater losses than
Lu Chengming’s family.
As far as the people to be relocated were
concerned, eviction simply meant the
beginning of their lives as refugees.
***
Great Prosperity Town was a small, ancient
town. It had old trees, an old wall, old streets,
and a history reaching back 1700 years. The
Dongfang Fandian (Orient Hotel), situated
on the bank of the Daning River (Great Peace
River) in the southeast of the old town, right
next to the Star Anise Hill Wharf, was the
tallest building in town. People getting on and
off boats everyday at the wharf had to go past
the dining hall of the hotel. Lu Chengming,
the owner of the hotel and the wharf, could
often be seen standing in front of the hotel
entrance, deferentially welcoming people and
seeing them off.
1
 Three Gorges Probe | March 10, 2008

It was the summer of 2004 when I first met welfare assistance of 100 yuan a month from
Lu Chengming, considered “the eminent the town in March 2006. In 2007, after having
man of Great Prosperity Town.” (There is no been resettled 12 times in the intervening
comparison between the well-off gentleman years, the family was temporarily lodged in
Lu then and the down-and-out old man the new part of town at 166 Dragon Well Street.
he is today.) He came to our meeting at Their home was a 100 square metre apartment
the appointed time dressed in a plain blue in a building constructed especially to house
cotton jacket and pants, wearing an anxious relocated people.
expression and carrying a plastic bag stacked
with documents and evidence about the case. This is Lu Chengming’s story:
The manager of a smaller hotel said, “Lu
Chengming used to have a fantastic business. My name is Lu Chengming. I’m of Han ethnic
There were only these two hotels, and more background, and I was born on May 29, 1950
than half the customers used to stay at his in Da Xingcheng (Great Abundance Village).
hotel. People would be coming and going on As far as my educational background goes, I
the wharf at first light every morning, and it only finished third grade, so I’m semi-literate.
went on like that all day until the last boats My parents passed away one after the other in
departed in the late afternoon.” 1959 and I was really brought up by the village
production team. I was a soldier in section 0187
When the CWRC’s first survey was done in of the 54th Army from 1968 to 1970, ending
1991, Lu Chengming’s family was recorded as up as the deputy squadron leader but I was
consisting of five people—a husband and wife
and three unmarried children. In 2002, before
the dam project’s second stage relocations
happened, the family had expanded to 11
people—a husband and wife, and three young
couples with one child each—all still living
together. They all worked as a family to run
the Orient Hotel. But on September 20, 2002
the hotel was knocked down and the notice
of forcible business deregistration arrived on
November 18th. That was how Lu Chengmings’
entire family ended up becoming unemployed.

At the time of the forcible relocations,

the authorities split the family into four
households in order to reduce the subsidies
they were entitled to. Lu Chengming and his
two sons were each registered as the head of a
household, and each of these families was to be
helped to resettle under the procedure of “self-
employment”; the daughter moved to far away
PHOTO: LIU BAI

Guangdong province, but she later returned

because she couldn’t get used to life there. Lu
Chengming began to make appeals to higher
authorities about his situation in 1993, and he
has continued to do so for the last 14 years. He Above: the old street of the Great Prosperity Town
and his wife only began to get the most basic in Wushan County, Chongqing Municipality, before
flooding

2

demobilized in 1970 because I became partially
disabled. This is my disability card: Number
800884. I only became a member of the Party
after leaving the army in 1970. After that, I was
commander of the People’s Militia, director of
Public Security of the village, deputy secretary
and also secretary of the village branch of the
Party. When the economic reforms started
in 1978, I wanted to see more of the outside
world, so I went to work as a labourer in Hubei
Province for eight years, saving money little
by little. Then after returning in 1986, I built
the Orient Hotel in Great Prosperity Town,
and later constructed a wharf. I was often
considered a progressive entrepreneur in
Wushan County because of the enterprising
way I operated and managed the business.
I was also consecutively elected as director
of the Self-Employed Workers Association of
Wushan and the chief cadre of Great Prosperity
Town’s entrepreneurs from 1989 to 2002. In
those days I thought that the reforms and
opening up1 were really beneficial and that the
Three Gorges Project would help create even
more opportunities for the people. Besides
which, my business was doing a roaring trade;
we had 30 beds, a dining room large enough
for ten tables, and we also sold all sorts of
other goods along with rare stones from the
Three Gorges area and cultural artifacts of the
Ba minority group in a little exhibition hall. I
was sure that after the Three Gorges Project
was completed, that business would get even
better.
In 1991, the Changjiang Water Resources
Commission did its first survey. Then, at the
end of 1992, a committee made up of kids who
had barely graduated from high school came
1 The Chinese economic reform (or
socialist market economy) opened China to the
global market in the late 1970s. The reforms were
introduced by Deng Xiaoping who served as the
general secretary of the Communist Party and later
as Chairman of the Central Military Commission.
Three Gorges Probe | March 10, 2008
to my house to do a second survey. They didn’t
measure the area of the house or look at the
certificates of land use or house ownership but
just took very rough measurements to get the
job done as fast as possible. I told them that 80
square metres of the building had been built
in 1994, but that the rest was built before 1992
and was therefore qualified for compensation.
They didn’t take a blind bit of notice. I got
really agitated and began arguing with them
when I saw that they wrote the figures for only
the ground floor, which was 250 square meters,
in their book. I asked them to remeasure the
house but they just sauntered off. As if that
wasn’t enough, they reckoned there were three
wharves in Great Prosperity Town, one of
which—the Star Anise Hill Wharf2—belonged
to me. But under their heading “Owner of the
Wharf” they simply didn’t bother writing that
the Star Anise Hill Wharf was all paid for, built
and operated by me. It really made me furious.
So, I went to see the authorities in Wushan
and Chongqing but they said that though
the house may have been over 600 square
metres in size, I had no proof that it had been
built before April 4, 1992. Heavens! But when
they did the survey, I had the land use and
home ownership certificates; they just didn’t
look at them. So how could the authorities
turn around and say there was no evidence to
prove that the house was built before April 4,
1992? Besides, even if they hadn’t looked at the
certificates then, there was still time to look at
them and remeasure the house, but they didn’t
bother doing anything. Wouldn’t you call that
a clear case of taking advantage of someone?
And then there was Star Anise Hill Wharf,
which also belonged to me. In 1987, Great
Prosperity Town had three boat docks, but as
far as wharves go, only the Star Anise Hill and
2 The survey by the Changjiang Water
Resources Commission even assessed the Star
Anise Hill Wharf at 25 meters long, 15 meters wide,
with 57 concrete steps leading to the top of a steep
embankment.
3

Above: Lu Chengming (left) and the author (right)
Xiaonanmen (Little South Gate) wharves were
deserving of the name. That year I’d opened
the hotel and had a few savings. I could see
that the slope down to the wharf was so steep
that it made getting onto and off of it very
difficult in wet weather, so I decided to build
a decent wharf for my fellow townsfolk, after
discussing it with my wife. She urged me to
wait a while, as after so many years of financial
struggle, we were only just in the position of
being able to loosen the reins a little. But in
September the following year, an old lady from
Guanyang (district) got into a panic as she was
going down the steep slope to the boat and she
tumbled into the river. As luck would have it,
I was there at the time and was able to rescue
her by jumping into the water and pulling her
out. Then we helped her up to our house and
gave her some clothes to change into. That
evening I brought up the subject of building
the wharf again with my wife and this time
she agreed. So during the winter that year
when it was dry and the water level was low, I
invested 20,000 yuan (US$2,500) in the project.
We worked night and day to build 57 concrete
steps out of mixed stone and cement and also
Three Gorges Probe | March 10, 2008
installed some anchorage points on the new
wharf. The cost of building all of this and
the 2000 yuan (US$250) it takes to maintain
it annually have amounted to around 50,000
yuan (US$6,250) over the years.
Although some people said that we were
adding to our worries by building the wharf, to
be frank, it wasn’t an issue. But what happened
afterward has been so hurtful that now I’m
always miserable and can’t sleep at night.
According to the requirements in the
document “Regulations for Demolishing
Houses and Relocating People,” demolition
compensation should be paid for all of the
houses built before April 4, 1992. The Star
Anise Hill Wharf was built in 19883. If you
don’t believe me, take a look at this Wanxian
Ribao (Wanxian Daily) in which one of the
3 It seems that a rudimentary version of the
Star Anise Hill Wharf existed when Lu Chengming
built the hotel and wharf, but that he subsequently
constructed proper steps to it and reinforced it to
make it the largest, safest and most serviceable
wharf in Great Prosperity Town.
4

articles is entitled “Lu Chengming donates
resources to build wharf.” It reads as follows:
“A wharf comprised of 57 steps made of
concrete now rises above Star Anise Hill on
Daning He (Great Peace River) in the Lesser
Three Gorges area. Every day more than 200
people are now able to get on and off boats
safely on the wharf there.”
Here also is a report from the Sanxia Dushi
Bao (Three Gorges Municipal News) of
September 2, 1999, “Ten thousand yuan
donated to build the wharf and he’s never
charged a cent.” It reads: “There is a concrete
platform for people to get on and off boats,
concrete steps and male and female toilets …
and for the past 11 years not a cent has been
charged.” In what way could anyone be unclear
about the ownership and construction date of
the wharf?
However, when it was time to pay
compensation, those responsible in the town
and county government departments seemed
all at once to have something wrong with
them. One day they’d all say that the wharf was
just a temporary berthing spot, the next that I
was trying to reap a huge profit from it, then
that I was a just a nuisance trying to provoke
trouble—when I heard this, tears started
flowing—even though they kept embarking
and disembarking at Star Anise Hill Wharf
as always, and even though I had presented
submission after submission entreating them
to verify the ownership of the wharf through
“Examination of the Documents.”4 No matter
how much I urged them again and again, they
took no notice. The townsfolk wrote many
testimonials for me, but the officials said
that all of the people who had done so were
connected to me in some way and what they
4 “Examination of the Documents” is a legal
procedure used in China to confirm somebody’s
identity. Lu Chengming uses it ironically here to
entreat the officials to “examine the documents”
in order to verify his legitimate ownership and
investment in the wharf.
Three Gorges Probe | March 10, 2008
had written wasn’t admissible as evidence. So,
Star Anise Hill Wharf was built and demolished
all for nothing. How can it be right that under
the Communist Party you have to suffer
misfortune and slander when you’ve done a
good deed?
Following the strict letter of the law in regard
to estimating demolition compensation, the
Three Gorges authorities would have to pay
me 100,000 yuan (US$12,500). But as I’m a
Party member and made allowances for the
government, I said that it would be enough
if they gave me the original capital cost of
20,000 yuan (US$2,500). But now, I not only get
nothing but I’m slandered in the bargain, so why
shouldn’t I file a complaint about it?
You might ask if any good will come of
lodging a complaint. Well, I’ll explain. A memo
came from the County Government Party
Committee on August 27, 2001, stating that, “The
Navigational Affairs Office of Wushan County’s
Bureau of Transport and Communications would
handle the matter of Lu Chengming’s wharf.”
I was in Great Prosperity Town when I got this
news and was delighted, as I imagined that there
was some hope. So I quickly jumped onto a boat
which took half the day, in order to go to the
very imposing county government building in
Wushan where I knocked at the director’s door
in the Navigational Affairs Office, trembling at
the knees.
“Is Director Liang in?”
“What have you come about?”
“I’m Lu Chengming from Great Prosperity
Town. I’ve come to talk about the situation of
my wharf.”
“Your wharf? Humph, in your dreams!”
“Well, if it isn’t mine then whose is it?”
I never expected that the conversation would
become so explosive right from the start.
“Who has confirmed that the wharf is yours?
What are the exact day, month and year of the
5

county document that states that you, Lu
Chengming, have a wharf? It’s obvious that
what you have is just a temporary dock. If you
want to discuss wharves with me, you might as
well save your breath.” spat Director Liang.
“You say it’s just a temporary dock, but in
the survey report done by the head of the
committee, it says there are three wharves—
well, which three are they? And which of them
is bigger or has better facilities than mine? Just
a moment ago, according to you, my wharf
was a temporary dock, but now you want to
demolish it, so isn’t there some compensation
that should be paid in accordance with the
regulations for relocation?” I replied.
“What are you shouting about? If you want to
shout, get out!”
“I’m talking with you reasonably, I haven’t
been shouting!”
I had just finished speaking when Director
Liang came right up to me and putting his
face in my face, lunged at my head, shouting,
Below: Dongfang Fandian (Orient Hotel)
Three Gorges Probe | March 10, 2008
“I’ll teach you some manners, I’ll teach you
some manners!”
Liu Xuepei, the head of Wushan’s Civil Culture
Office who was right there while he was
punching me, grabbed me tightly by the waist,
thus enabling Director Liang to hit me better.
The blood poured from my head down my
face.
I had taken the boat at dawn the hundred or
so kilometers to Wushan, so you can imagine
how bitter I felt being beaten like that. I
covered my bloodstained face and went to
see the county party secretary, but couldn’t
find him. I tried to see the county chief
administrator but I couldn’t find him either.
Finally I managed to see the head of the Office
of the County Party Committee, Tan Guanyin.
I said, “Cadres trained by the Communist Party
have beaten me up, can you do anything about
it?”
Tan Guanyin asked about the circumstances
then immediately wrote a note for me, saying
I should go to the legal medical expert to get
PHOTO: LIU BAI
6

myself examined. I took the note to the legal
medical clinic. In the appraisal they wrote that
I had a purple swelling on my upper right
eyelid of 3 cm by 3 cm, one in front of my left
ear of 2 cm by 2 cm and another of 3 cm by 3
cm on my left temple. The conclusion was that
they were minor injuries.
According to the law, the assailant (Director
Liang) should have faced 15 days of criminal
detention or three months of short periods
of detention for inflicting minor injuries.
When he read the conclusion of the physical
examination that I had undergone at the
request of the Office of the County Party
Committee, Director Liang stood in front
of me pretending to be sorry and asked for
forgiveness. I know that one can’t afford to
get on the wrong side of officials so I agreed to
accept his apology.
We arrived together at the number two
police station in Wuxia Town for the so-called
“reconciliation.” I spoke first about how I had
undergone the beating by Director Liang and
he listened without a word, as if he agreed
with what I said. His friends who were there
all made conciliatory comments, and I was
compensated 800 yuan for medical expenses.
The “reconciliation” seemed to go very
smoothly.
I took the “reconciliation” document back
with me, but only when I got back to Great
Prosperity Town did I find out that it contained
the following information: that I had insulted
and abused Liang in order to resolve the
situation of the wharf and had ended up
getting in a fight with him where both of us
had grabbed and hit each other. I had to accept
a fifth of the blame for this and pay Liang
200 yuan—they had taken advantage of my
illiteracy to write sheer nonsense!
Is there anywhere that the ordinary people
can get justice? What they had said to me
at the police station was wrong and without
substance. As a Party member, had anyone
Three Gorges Probe | March 10, 2008
ever seen me abusing anyone in the streets
of Great Prosperity Town, much less in a
government office? They had turned the truth
upside down, but all the power was in their
hands and the ordinary man in the street just
didn’t have a chance!
You have a look for yourself, according to
the regulations of the CWRC, “Any building
with legal certification constructed before
April 4, 1992 can receive compensation.” In
addition there is also the CWRC’s survey,
“Questionnaire Regarding the Submersion of
Wharves in the Three Gorges Dam Project”
of December 21, 1991. Have a look at what
it says in writing about Great Prosperity’s
three wharves, which the CWRC describes
as “fixed,” “mixed stone,” and “passengers
and goods.” It also says that Star Anise Hill
Wharf had several anchorage points, “the
highest anchorage capacity being 200 tons,”
and the original value of the unmovable fixed
assets was acknowledged to be 80,000 yuan
(US$10,000).
Wushan County’s Resettlement Bureau and
Transport and Communications Bureau both
have a copy of that survey questionnaire.
According to the regulations of Article
4, Section 22 of the “Ordinances for the
Compensation of Relocated Migrants in
the Construction of Large and Middle-sized
Hydraulic and Electric Engineering Projects,”
compensation should be paid according to the
original size, standard or capacity of the fixed
buildings on the reclaimed land. Is there no
justice under the Party?
I continually made written reports and
phoned relevant government departments and
leaders all over the country: the Chongqing
Resettlement Bureau, the Municipal
Government, the Three Gorges Construction
Project Committee, the State Council, and
the National People’s Congress. They all said
I was in the right, and said I should wait for
the case to be dealt with. So I did wait, but I
never thought they would deal me such an
7
 Three Gorges Probe | March 10, 2008

underhanded blow! I was totally unprepared

for what happened next.

It was September 20, 2002. At dawn, the

wrecking team came with their bulldozers.
Workmen, cadres, security police, altogether
more than 200 people were present, including
the local chief of Armed Forces, Ma Zhenglun,
who was also in charge of the demolition
organization. All the while the town’s mayor,
Wang Zuqian, ran the operation by remote
control from inside the government building
compound. First a huge crowd, roused to
action, moved everything out of the hotel, the
shop and the house. Then the bulldozers were
brought in, and in a little over half an hour
they totally flattened my home and hotel.

When the job of bulldozing was finished, all

PHOTO: LIU BAI

that was left of my household possessions was
piled up in the open air. Ma Zhenglun asked
what he should do about them. Ordinary
people who had come to have a look were
standing around him. Wang Zuqian called him
on the mobile phone from his position in the
government compound and angrily ordered
him, “Take everything 175 metres up the hill
and away from here and set fire to it all!” At
the time I was still waiting for the next level
of government to proceed with checking and
confirming the status of my wharf and house,
but if they acted like this, it was tantamount
to killing one person to warn the rest, to show
that they could just lord it over everyone.
But life had to go on. I built a temporary
place in which to live on the original site.
The whole family tenaciously put up with the
difficulties of living outdoors. It was probably
when the authorities realized it made them
look bad, that they came to conduct a second
demolition on March 13, 2003. This time they
took all of our belongings to a village on the
river about five or six kilometres away from
the wharf, where there was an abandoned
cement warehouse with dust everywhere. What
else could I do but just put up with it, but my
wife couldn’t bear it, she felt too ashamed to
Above: Displaced villagers as they leave for resettlement
sites
raise her head in public. I was a Party member
and I’d never even dreamt that we could be
bullied to such an extent. In order to tear
down the wharf and house, the government
of Great Prosperity Town had had a special
document written up, the one I mentioned at
the beginning. After the wharf had been totally
dismantled, the mayor of the town, Wang
Zuqian went to the wharf to inspect everything.
Looking at it he said, “From now on this will
be the fate of anyone like Lu Chengming who
wants to take advantage of the demolitions to
make a profit!”
My wife and I were evicted by force from
our business. They reckoned that after what
happened to us, others in the same position
would be docile and willing to do what they
were told, but they were far too simplistic
in their thinking. I support the necessary
demolition and relocations so that our country
can build the dam, but it has to be done
equitably and lawfully. Of course I want to

8

fight to obtain the compensation I am entitled
to! I’ll definitely fight for justice under the law!
The newly arrived secretary of Great
Prosperity Town, Tang Xingjian got me to
leave the warehouse and move into temporary
accommodation in the new part of town
in 2004, just to encourage new business
enterprises. But then just before the Spring
Festival in 2006, the latest secretary of the
town, Huang Zonglin moved us out of that
apartment to a different area—this time a 91.75
square metre apartment on the sixth floor of
a building. How could the 11 of us manage to
live there? Between September 2002 and now
we have moved 12 times altogether. We’ve
suffered the loss of many of our possessions
because of all the moving from one place to
another; the electrical appliances we used
in the hotel and also the beds, bedding and
especially our rare stones have been lost or
badly damaged. Two of our precious stones,
“Yi kong chi chi gui” and “Xian ren ting,”
that once received prizes in the “China and
International Stone Appreciation Exhibition”
have been knocked and bumped about so
much that they have lost their value.
Great Prosperity Town is now just an expanse
of water. Despite the fact that the water level
has gone up so much, the wharf at Star Anise
Hill is still there. Now it is a coal storage area,
there are no visitors or people using it. I just
don’t want to talk about how bitter I feel every
time I go past it.
***
Lu Chengming has been back and forth from
Great Prosperity Town to Wushan over a
hundred times since September 2002, in an
effort to get properly reimbursed so he could
begin life again. But each time was a torment
to him. Those in authority always had their
“reasons” for rejecting his claims. When I saw
him again in April of 2007, five different town
mayors and secretaries had been in office in
the intervening years and his case was still
unresolved.
Three Gorges Probe | March 10, 2008
In 2006, two very decent and upstanding
counselors from the Chongqing Municipal
Government, Lei Hengshun and Zhao
Zelong found out about the circumstances
of Lu Chengming’s situation, accepted his
submissions and promised to find a way to
make representations to the higher authorities
on his behalf.
So Lu Chengming continues to live in hope
that one day fair government policies will
trickle down to him. He says, “I once had a
dream that came true. When the demolitions
and relocations started I was still living the
dream; I had a hotel, a restaurant and a
little exhibition hall of rare stones from the
Three Gorges area. But now? Now I just have
nightmares. For about 20 years I sweated out
my lifeblood for nothing. I’ve totally wasted
my life trying to get justice, with no result. I’m
nearly 60 and my son, who is a casual laborer
in Chongqing has a really tough life. I really
don’t know how I can face the future!”
“Absence of Justice” is the second in a series
of oral histories from China’s Three Gorges
region.
Banned and famed Chinese environmentalist
and journalist Dai Qing has organized a team
of journalists to record a remarkable collection
of oral histories from the riverside towns and
villages affected by the Three Gorges dam on
China’s Yangtze River.  Three Gorges Probe is
proud to bring you these uncensored, touching
and often shocking stories. Those forcibly
displaced by the world’s largest hydroelectric
project have been denied a voice for too long.
This collection gives it back.
Translation, editing and online publication
of the series by Chinese author Dai Qing and
Probe International has been made possible
by funding from the Foundation Open Society
Institute (Zug).