 "How China’s ‘super dam’ on Tsangpo River can be a strategic tool against India")
China’s race to dam the Himalayas took a new turn on Thursday, December 26, 2024, when the Chinese government, amidst the rising tension between India and China, approved the construction of its latest and the world’s largest dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo River, a hydroelectric project of gigantic proportions in the foothills of the Himalayas, where the ancient Yarlung civilisation established the first Tibetan Empire.
The deleterious impact on the lower riparian nations, India and Bangladesh, of the latest Chinese dam project is multifold, to which I will return a little later in the piece.
The Grand Canyon
The Yarlung Tsangpo River, named Brahmaputra in India, originating in the western Tibet glaciers, reaches the height of 5,000 meters, making it the world’s highest river as it traverses through the zig-zag path in the Himalayas range.
In Tibet, the Yarlung Tsangpo flows 2,700 meters through what is famously called the “Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon,” thereby forming a gorge more than twice the depth of the Grand Canyon of the United States of America.
This makes the Yarlung Tsangpo especially suitable as a source of hydroelectric power of gigantic proportions.
Eclipses Three Gorges Dam
The outlay for building the dam, including the engineering costs, is expected to eclipse the current largest Three Gorges dam, which cost 254.2 billion yuan ($34.83 billion) to construct. According to China’s news agency Xinhua, the newest dam, at an estimated cost of $137 billion, shall be the world’s biggest infrastructure project and the largest dam on the Earth.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsAccording to estimates provided in 2020 by the Power Construction Corporation of China, the dam will have the capacity to generate approximately 300 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. This would be far more than three times the designed capacity of the world’s current record-holder, the Three Gorges Dam in central China, which produces 88.2 billion kWh.
Benefits to China
The latest Brahmaputra dam being built close to the Indian border was part of China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035 adopted by Plenum, a key policy body of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC), in 2020.
The hydroelectric power from the dam is expected to play a leading role in China’s effort to achieve its carbon peaking and carbon neutrality targets of net zero by 2060 while also boosting associated industries such as engineering and creating employment opportunities in Tibet.
China’s Damming: Negative Externalities
China is the home to the world’s largest dams; it has constructed 22,000 dams over 15 meters (49 ft) in height—about half the world’s total—since 1950. This includes the Three Gorges Dam, built on China’s Yangtze River in 2006, the world’s largest and most contentious hydroelectric project. Almost 2 kilometres long and 185 meters tall, it has incredible potential to create clean energy, with 32 main turbines able to produce over 22,500 megawatts of power each year.
Apart from being the gigantic source of electricity generation, the Three Gorges Dam also plays major roles in flood control, navigation enhancement, and water handling in its catchment area.
Nonetheless, Chinese mega-damming, including that of the Three Gorges Dam, has been plagued by serious ecological concerns endangering the biodiversity, the displacement of millions of people, and the environmental concerns. Critics have expressed concern over increasing landslides, sedimentation, and the destruction of downstream habitats.
The Super Dam
The just-approved biggest dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo has been a work in progress for more than a decade. Also, it is one among many. China built its first dam on the Tsangpo River as early as 2010 at Zangmu, and several small- and medium-sized dams have already been built on the river. China is determined to exploit the damming in Tibet, as it holds the promise of more than one-third of hydroelectricity generation in China.
Challenges
The proposed super dam presents enormous engineering challenges, as the project site is located along a tectonic plate boundary known for the frequent occurrence of earthquakes. It also will have associated challenges relating to the ecology and environment. Though the scale of the massive displacement and rehabilitation is not known yet, the Three Gorges Dam, for whose construction 1.3 million people were displaced, provides a ready reckoner.
Nonetheless, an official Chinese statement on Wednesday allayed the concern about earthquakes and seismic tremors, saying that the project is safe. As per Chinese authorities, through extensive geological explorations and technical advancements, a solid foundation has been laid for the science-based, secure, and high-quality development of the project.
India: Concerns and Consequences
It is widely believed that Tibet’s riparian resources, such as the Yarlung Tsangpo and Mekong rivers, were one of the primary factors for Communist China to annex the control of Tibet more than seven decades ago. Of Brahmaputra’s total length of 2,880 kilometres, two-thirds, or about 1,625 kilometres, lies on the Tibetan Plateau with the name Yarlung Tsangpo.
It is estimated that freshwater runoff in Yarlung Tsangpo, coming from the melting of glaciers and numerous mountain springs, flows down through the Himalayan watershed, and it is estimated that it provides drinking water to 1.8 billion people in the countries of China, India, Bangladesh, and Bhutan.
It is reported that as part of the construction of the super dam, at least four 20 km-long tunnels shall be drilled through the Namcha Barwa mountain to divert half of the Yarlung Tsangpo river’s flow to harness its power. It is natural then for India and Bangladesh, the two lower riparian nations of the Brahmaputra basin, to have serious concern about the construction of the world’s largest dam by China in the lower reaches of the Tsangpo River at the Great Bend, where the river turns sharply, takes a U-turn, and enters Arunachal Pradesh.
Apprehensions are manifold; the more prominent ones are described below:
One, choke off the water flow—the biggest fear is that with the construction of the super dam, China can and shall ‘choke off’ the flow of the water in Brahmaputra, resulting in a severe shortage of water in the lower riparian states.
Experts concur that the super dam shall substantially reduce water flow downstream, especially during the dry season. A recent BBC report quotes a 2020 report published by the Lowy Institute, an Australian-based think tank, which noted, “Control over these rivers [in the Tibetan Plateau] effectively gives China a chokehold on India’s economy”.
Two, water as a strategic weapon—India also has a legitimate fear that the dam that empowers China to control the water flow, the size and scale of it, could also endanger India’s strategic interest as it would enable Beijing to release disproportionately large amounts of water, flooding the border areas wantonly during the time of hostilities.
India is worried about the release of water from the dam during the monsoons, when northeastern states such as Assam experience floods. If China released water from the dam, it could be disastrous for an already inundated Assam.
Three, ecological and environmental damage risk—even in the absence of a deliberate hostile act by China, India faces serious challenges due to the proximity of the super dam site, with the super dam site being just 30 km away from the Indian border in the earthquake-prone, ecologically sensitive zone.
With a dam site along an earthquake-prone tectonic plate boundary, it is prone to frequent earthquakes. Chinese researchers have frequently flagged concerns that such extensive excavation and construction in the steep and narrow gorge would increase the potential of earthquakes and the frequency of landslides, and earthquake-induced landslides and mud-rock flows are more often uncontrollable.
Four, the downside of the hydropeaking—a serious negative externality of the super dam—is the significant alteration of the downstream flow due to “hydropeaking”, the discontinuous release of the turbine water to meet the needs of peaks in electricity demand that will be prone to intra-diurnal fluctuation. Hydropeaking is known for creating abrupt artificial fluctuation in downstream flow, often resulting in adverse impact on riverine water temperature, sediment composition, and the rate of sediment transport in the river.
Five, dam burst and flash flood fear—even without the dam in question, in its lower course, the Brahmaputra, one of the longest perennial rivers in the world, is both an advantage and a disadvantage for its lower riparian states, India and Bangladesh. On the one hand, it deposits huge quantities of fertile alluvial soil suitable for agriculture, but on the other, due to geographical and climatic conditions, it causes periodical, disastrous floods in Assam and Bangladesh.
Adding to the misery, the super dam being constructed in areas prone to avalanches and landslides can cause frequent flash floods and other ecologically hazardous events like dam-burst with the resultant serious impact to the Indian states and parts of Bangladesh.
Unholy Gameplan
There exists no bilateral water treaty between India and China. China is not ready to even discuss the issue with India. Also, China follows its own rule and refuses to abide by any international convention, rule, or law of equitable water use. Its long-term plan is cast in iron—not only to build multiple dams on the river Yarlung Tsangpo indiscriminately with impunity but also to divert substantial waters of the river to its parched northeast.
Eye Opener
Way back in 2016, an Assam NGO, Jan Jagriti, claimed China was building twenty-six hydropower dams on the upper reaches of the river in Tibet, which would result in massive “South to North Water Diversion Projects”. The NGO claimed that on completion of dams, Assam would receive 64 per cent less water during the monsoon, and in the non-monsoon season, 85 per cent less water would accrue to India from China.
China Defends
China on Friday, December 27, 2024, defended its plan to build the world’s largest dam on the Brahmaputra River in Tibet, saying the project will not “negatively affect” lower riparian states India and Bangladesh and that safety issues have been addressed through decades of studies.
China Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning also added, “China will continue to maintain communication with countries at the lower reaches through existing channels and step up cooperation on disaster prevention and relief for the benefit of the people by the river.”
Reality Check: Action Time for India
India and China have an agreement as per which China must share hydrological data of Yarlung Tsangpo between May and October so that India can alert the downstream areas in the event of floods. But in 2017, at the time of the Doklam border standoff, China stopped sharing the data.
Though data sharing resumed in 2018, India has reasons to believe that China may withhold data when it suits it strategically.
It is time for India to take measures to protect its interests and bonafide rights as a lower riparian state, both through bilateral negotiation with China and more strategically as part of an international agreement to make China behave.
The biggest concern for India is the complete lack of transparency and accountability of the Chinese process of planning. Developing and operating dams. Power-guzzling China is getting hungrier by the day, and according to the Interfax news agency, Brahmaputra (known locally as the Yarlung Tsangpo) has a generating capacity of 67,000 megawatts, second only to the Yangtze.
This is irresistible for energy-hungry China.
The author is a multi-disciplinary thought leader with Action Bias and an India based impact consultant. He is a keen watcher of changing national and international scenarios. He works as President Advisory Services of Consulting Company BARSYL. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
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