钱昌照与民国长江三峡的开发

Qian Changzhao and the Three Gorges Development during the 1930s-1940s

以工业救国为职志的钱昌照对有望为近代工业建设提供水能动力的长江三峡开发极为重视,其国防设计委员会及资源委员会主政人的身份更是为推动三峡的开发工作起到了重要作用。20世纪30年代拟就的三峡设计计划囿于政治经济因素被束之高阁后,三峡开发一度中断。抗战后期,钱昌照力邀萨凡奇访华,纵横谋划,助力资源委员会与垦务局达成三峡设计合约,设计工作得以开展。随着南京国民政府财政匮乏、战争失利,设计工作颓势逐渐彰显,钱昌照离职数日,行政院即下中止令。民国长江三峡的开发以失败告终。

Taking the salvation of the nation by industry as his responsibility,Qian Changzhao attached great importance to the development of the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River,which was expected to provide hydro-power for modern industrial development.His title of head of the then National Defense Design Committee and the Resources Committee played an important role in the promotion of the development of the Three Gorges.The project of the Three Gorges development was suspended in the 1930s after the completion of the project design due to political and economic reasons.In the later period of the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression,Qian Changzhao invited John Lucian Savage to China and promoted the contracting of the Three Gorges development planning between the then National Resources Committee and the US Bureau of Reclamation,as a result in later actual design.Due to the financial exhaustion and incompetent resistance against Japanese aggression of the Nanjing National Government,the project design was gradually abandoned and was finally suspended by the Executive Yuan soon after Qian Changzhao's demission.Consequently,the development of the Three Gorges during the Republic of China ended up as a failure.