For TIME Magazine

Over the past few years, China has begun turning the world’s 12th-longest river into a highway for regional commerce and a source of hydroelectric power.

Constructed by the Huaneng Group, China’s biggest power producer, Xiaowan dam is the nation’s second-largest power project after the Three gorges.

Two have already been completed without any environmental impact study realized beforehand.

Xiaowan’s giant , 4200 megawatt, is the largest dam in China after the Three Gorges.

Farther down the river, the peasants of Thailand, Laos or Cambodia are being deprived of water, silt, fish and rice…