{"id":61553,"date":"2020-12-23T11:00:35","date_gmt":"2020-12-23T00:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=61553"},"modified":"2020-12-23T10:41:00","modified_gmt":"2020-12-22T23:41:00","slug":"will-china-turn-off-asias-tap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/will-china-turn-off-asias-tap\/","title":{"rendered":"Will China turn off Asia\u2019s tap?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Even after Asia\u2019s economies climb out of the Covid-19 recession, China\u2019s strategy of frenetically building dams<\/a> and reservoirs on transnational rivers will confront them with a more permanent barrier to long-term economic prosperity: water scarcity. China\u2019s recently unveiled plan<\/a> to construct a mega-dam on the Yarlung Zangbo River, better known as the Brahmaputra, may be the biggest threat yet.<\/p>\n

China dominates<\/a> Asia\u2019s water map, owing to its annexation of ethnic-minority homelands, such as the water-rich Tibetan Plateau and Xinjiang. China\u2019s territorial aggrandisement in the South China Sea and the Himalayas, where it has targeted even tiny Bhutan, has been accompanied by stealthier efforts to appropriate water resources in transnational river basins\u2014a strategy that hasn\u2019t spared even friendly or pliant neighbours, such as Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Nepal, Kazakhstan and North Korea. Indeed, China hasn\u2019t hesitated to use its hydro-hegemony against its 18 downstream neighbours<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

The consequences have been serious. For example, China\u2019s 11 mega-dams on the Mekong River, Southeast Asia\u2019s arterial waterway, have led to recurrent drought<\/a> downriver, and turned the Mekong Basin into a security and environmental hotspot<\/a>. Meanwhile, in largely arid Central Asia, China has diverted waters from the Illy and Irtysh rivers, which originate in China-annexed Xinjiang. Its diversion of water from the Illy threatens<\/a> to turn Kazakhstan\u2019s Lake Balkhash into another Aral Sea, which has all but dried up<\/a> in less than four decades.<\/p>\n

Against this background, China\u2019s plan to dam the Brahmaputra near its disputed\u2014and heavily militarised\u2014border with India should be no surprise. The Chinese communist publication Huanqiu Shibao<\/em>, citing an article<\/a> that appeared in Australia, recently urged<\/a> India\u2019s government to assess how China could \u2018weaponise\u2019 its control over transboundary waters and potentially \u2018choke\u2019 the Indian economy. With the Brahmaputra megaproject, China has provided an answer.<\/p>\n

The planned 60-gigawatts project, which will be integrated<\/a> into China\u2019s next Five-Year Plan starting in January, will reportedly dwarf China\u2019s Three Gorges Dam\u2014currently the world\u2019s largest\u2014on the Yangtze River, generating almost three times as much electricity. China will achieve this by harnessing the power of a 2,800-metre drop just before the river crosses into India.<\/p>\n

What the chairman of China\u2019s state-run Power Construction Corporation, Yan Zhiyong, calls a \u2018historic opportunity\u2019 for his country will be devastating for India. Just before crossing into India, the Brahmaputra curves sharply around the Himalayas, forming the world\u2019s longest and steepest canyon\u2014twice as deep as America\u2019s Grand Canyon\u2014and holding Asia\u2019s largest untapped<\/a> water resources.<\/p>\n

Experience suggests that the proposed megaproject threatens those resources\u2014and China\u2019s downstream neighbours. China\u2019s past upstream activities have triggered flash floods in the Indian states of Arunachal and Himachal. More recently, such activity turned<\/a> the water in the once-pristine Siang\u2014the Brahmaputra\u2019s main artery\u2014dirty and grey as it entered India.<\/p>\n

About a dozen<\/a> small or medium-sized Chinese dams are already operational in the Brahmaputra\u2019s upper reaches. But the megaproject in the Brahmaputra Canyon region will enable the country to manipulate transboundary flows far more effectively. Such manipulation could leverage China\u2019s claim to the adjacent Indian state of Arunachal, which is almost three times the size of Taiwan. Given that China and India are already locked in a tense, months-long military standoff<\/a>, which began with Chinese territorial encroachments, the risks are acute.<\/p>\n

And yet the country that will suffer the most as a result of China\u2019s Brahmaputra dam project is not India at all; it is densely populated and China-friendly Bangladesh, for which the Brahmaputra is the single largest freshwater source. Intensifying pressure on its water supply will likely trigger an exodus of refugees to India, already home to millions<\/a> of illegally settled Bangladeshis.<\/p>\n

The Brahmaputra megaproject also amounts to a slap in the face of Tibet, which is among the world\u2019s most biodiverse<\/a> regions and has a deeply rooted culture of reverence for nature. In fact, the canyon region is sacred territory for Tibetans: its major mountains, cliffs and caves represent the body of their guardian deity, the goddess Dorje Pagmo, and the Brahmaputra represents her spine.<\/p>\n

If none of this deters China, the damage it is doing to its own people and prospects should. China\u2019s over-damming<\/a> of internal rivers has severely harmed ecosystems, including by causing river fragmentation and disrupting the annual flooding cycle, which helps to refertilise farmland naturally by spreading silt. In August, some 400 million Chinese were put at risk after record flooding<\/a> endangered the Three Gorges Dam. If the Brahmaputra mega-dam collapses\u2014hardly implausible, given that it will be built in a seismically active area\u2014millions downstream could die.<\/p>\n

The Great Himalayan Watershed is home to thousands of glaciers and the source of Asia\u2019s greatest river systems, which are the lifeblood of nearly half the global population. If glacial attrition<\/a> is allowed to continue\u2014let alone to be accelerated by China\u2019s environmentally catastrophic activities\u2014China will not be spared.<\/p>\n

For its own sake\u2014and the sake of Asia as a whole\u2014China must accept institutionalised cooperation on transnational riparian flows, including measures to protect ecologically fragile zones and agreement not to dam relatively free-flowing rivers (which play a critical role<\/a> in moderating the effects of climate change). This would require China to rein in its dam frenzy<\/a>, be transparent about its projects, accept multilateral dispute-settlement mechanisms and negotiate water-sharing treaties with neighbours.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, there is little reason to believe this will happen. On the contrary, as long as the Chinese Communist Party remains in power, the country will most likely continue to wage stealthy water wars that no one can win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even after Asia\u2019s economies climb out of the Covid-19 recession, China\u2019s strategy of frenetically building dams and reservoirs on transnational rivers will confront them with a more permanent barrier to long-term economic prosperity: water scarcity. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":482,"featured_media":61555,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[354,52,74,282],"class_list":["post-61553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-asia","tag-china","tag-resources","tag-water"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWill China turn off Asia\u2019s tap? | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/will-china-turn-off-asias-tap\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Will China turn off Asia\u2019s tap? | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Even after Asia\u2019s economies climb out of the Covid-19 recession, China\u2019s strategy of frenetically building dams and reservoirs on transnational rivers will confront them with a more permanent barrier to long-term economic prosperity: water scarcity. ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/will-china-turn-off-asias-tap\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-12-23T00:00:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-12-22T23:41:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/GettyImages-1227712972.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"683\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brahma Chellaney\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Brahma Chellaney\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/will-china-turn-off-asias-tap\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/GettyImages-1227712972.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/GettyImages-1227712972.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":683,\"caption\":\"TOPSHOT - This photo taken on July 19, 2020 shows a security guard looking at his smartphone while water is released from the Three Gorges Dam, a gigantic hydropower project on the Yangtze river, to relieve flood pressure in Yichang, central China's Hubei province. - Rising waters across central and eastern China have left over 140 people dead or missing, and floods have affected almost 24 million since the start of July, according to the ministry of emergency management. 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