China's dams on the Brahmaputra

• India and China have no water-sharing agreements
• Pressure should be put on China to respect international regulations

May 25, 2010
Rediff News

For many months the fact that China was building a dam in Zangmu was known and photographs were circulating on the Internet. Why did India take up the matter with China so warily? Claude Arpi on the dangers of China's dams on the Brahmaputra in Tibet.

In October 2003, I wrote an article Diverting the Brahmaputra: a Declaration of War. At the time, I was told that it was a cheap journalistic gimmick; there was no 'scientific' proof!

My question then was: "What is the rationale for the project?" My answer was that the two most acute problems faced by China were food and water.

Seven years later, these issues are more acute than ever: Water is a rarer commodity in China and agriculture needs more water to sustain the increasing requirements of a wealthier population.

Twenty years ago, this led Chinese experts to look around for water. The answer was not far: Tibet is the water tower of Asia. About 90 per cent of the Tibetan rivers runoff flows downstream to China, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Thus the idea to use Tibet's waters for Northern China was born.

One of the possibilities was to divert waters from the Great Bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo, north of the McMahon Line, by building a mega structure. There are different versions of the project, but the Shuotian Canal is the most elaborated. It is the brainchild of an engineer, Guo Kai, whose life mission is to save China with Tibet's waters.

Guo not only worked closely with experts from the Chinese ministry of water resources and the academy of sciences, but he also made several on-the-spot investigations and surveys, before coming up with the details of his pharaonic scheme.

From the start the Chinese military have shown a lot of interest in Guo's Great Western Route scheme. In November 2005, the Great Western Route project got a boost with the publication of a book entitled Save China Through Water From Tibet, written by a Li Ling; the writer used Guo's theme and arguments.

In November 2006, Chinese Minister for Water Resources Wang Shucheng categorically stated that the proposal was 'unnecessary, unfeasible and unscientific.' He, however, admitted: 'There may be some retired officials that support the plan, but they are not the experts advising the government.' It was not a point blank denial as he admitted that the project existed. As we know, governments change, so do their advisors.