Looking down the treacherously steep canyons to the roiling water more than a vertical kilometer below, it is not difficult to see how such ambivalence has developed. The Lancang’s northern stretches are too difficult to access and too dangerous to navigate to provide much in the way of direct benefits for the hardy mountain people who populate the area.

Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that China has decided the best way to turn the Lancang into a productive resource for national development is to dam it extensively. But though the impacts of such actions might go unnoticed by Cili Dingzhu and his neighbors, further downstream in the village of Xialuoga locals tell a different story.

China is now the world’s biggest financier and builder of hydropower dams, with more than 300 projects undertaken in 74 countries since the turn of the century. Southeast Asia and Africa have been the most heavily affected by this global Chinese-backed hydropower boom, but dam building is not only an export. Within China’s borders, millions of farmers and villagers have been impacted in the same way as their Southeast Asian or African counterparts.

“The whole village will flood and we will have to move higher up the mountain,” said 78-year-old Chao Yunsheng who has farmed the hillsides of Xialuoga his entire life. He has lived through virtually every important moment that has defined modern China – the Communist Revolution, the invasion of Tibet, the death of Mao, and the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Throughout this tumultuous period, he has seen life in this part of Yunnan change repeatedly and drastically. The forced displacements caused by China’s widespread dam building projects are just the most recent in a long line of tumultuous times he has lived through. “When I was a boy there was not enough food to eat,” Chao remembered. “Things are much easier now.”

Far from wealthy, when Chao says things are easier he is referring to the fact that his family can generally meet their basic caloric needs. He is one of the 800 million people who have been lifted out of poverty in the fastest major economic turnaround in history, something for which the Communist government deserves credit.

But ultimately, the majority of the tangible improvements in Chao’s life are the result of the decades of backbreaking labor he put into carving out farmable land from the pine-covered valley walls that overlooked Xialuoga. Over the course of his life Chao has expanded his family’s land holdings to a respectable 20 Mu (about 3.2 acres or 8 acres). “I have a lot of land now, and I have given it to my three sons,” Chao said.

Yet, despite having survived one of the most turbulent periods in Chinese history, and after dedicating almost eight decades to working the land, nearly everything he has worked for is slated for inundation by the soon-to-be-completed 900-megawatt Tuboa dam.

“Out of the 20 mu we have, all but two will be lost,” said Chao. “We will be able to keep grazing our goats, but there will only be a small area left for farming.” Considering that his crops account for roughly half the family’s income, the loss of 90 percent of his cultivatable land would be a serious financial blow.

It is not only farmers who will be affected by such developments. Across the Lancang in the community of Baijixunxiang, urban residents face the same uncertain future as Chao. “I don’t know what’s happening,” said 75-year-old shop owner Li Ruqi. “This dam has been talked about for a long time, but there have been many delays and I have no idea when it will be finished. But if the government says I have to move, then I will have to move.” Selling cigarettes and other basic sundries like instant coffee and soap, his business overlooks the river which, he said, plays little practical role in the everyday lives of Baijixunxiang residents.

Despite the fact that people such as Li Ruqi and Chao Yunsheng stand to lose nearly everything when dams such as Tuboa are completed, they exhibit a distinct lack of animosity towards the national government, at least when speaking to a foreign journalist. “The new president (Xi Jinping) is very good!” Chao said emphatically of the current General Secretary of the Communist Party. “He gave out bags of rice to people with disabilities, which is very nice and the old presidents did not do.”

Li Ruqi expressed even more faith in the national government saying, “I have no concerns for the future of my six children. The government will look after them.” Yet when conversation turned to local officials, Chao’s tone turned bitter: “The president is good … but the lower ranking officials are corrupt. No matter what our compensation is, it will most likely be pocketed bit by bit by the corrupt officials.”

This certainty over corruption exists despite the fact that no one yet seems to know how they will be compensated for the loss of property — though Chao Yunsheng said he has heard rumors they will be paid around 1200 Yuan ($185 USD) per ancestral grave lost — or even when they will be required to abandon their land. What is certain, however, is that once a dam is built the ecology of the surrounding area is changed forever. For such an example, one need look roughly 1,000 kilometers (660 miles) to the South, to the town of Jinglin River Bridge.