After shunning disengagement beyond first phase on both banks of Pangong Tso in Eastern Ladakh, China has fired the next shot at India; China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) has cleared the construction of a dam on the Brahmaputra River close to the border of Arunachal Pradesh. Beijing has said there should be no anxiety in lower riparian states (read India and Bangladesh) and that all such projects go through science-based planning and assessment giving full consideration to impact downstream.

 

In December 2020, Chinese state media had revealed plans to build a “super dam” on the Brahmaputra River on the China occupied Tibet (COT) side close to Arunachal Pradesh. The Brahmaputra known as Yarlung Zangbo River in COT is called Siang when it flows into Arunachal Pradesh, and then to Assam as Brahmaputra before flowing into Bangladesh. It covers 2,880 km through Tibet, India and Bangladesh before draining into the Bay of Bengal.

China has built several smaller dams on the Yarlung Zangbo / Brahmaputra River. These include the Zangmu Dam which was operationalised in 2015 and three other dams on the Yarlung Zangbo River that were being built were Dagu, Jiexu and Jiacha. India has been conveying its concerns to Beijing over these dams, as it would for the ‘super dam’ now approved by China’s National People’s Congress. But these concerns are brushed aside by China.

 

The important issue to note is that China’s so called “science-based planning and assessment” is never without strategic aims, be it experiments in the P4 lab at Wuhan to biologically bomb the world or weaponise water. The latter is certainly not a new venture that Beijing has embarked upon as can be surmised from the above. Tibet termed ‘Roof of the World’ is also the ‘Water Tower’ of China. Incredibly, rivers from China flow into 18 lower riparian countries. This has enabled China to establish an extensive dam network to weaponise water for controlling: how water flows; direction of water flow; measure of water released, and; size of reservoirs to cause floods downstream or reduce the flow to a trickle.

Reports in 2016 indicated that China had built some 87,000 dams on the Yangtze River and its tributaries, and about 100 dams were in various stages of construction in 2013. On the Mekong River (called Lancang River in China), which is the world’s longest waterway flowing into Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, China had built more than 11 dams. By building more dams on the Brahmaputra River, China aims to weaponise water against South Asia similar to what it has done against Southeast Asia by controlling the waters of the Mekong River and its tributaries. For South Asia, China has also been pushing to revive the suspended Myitsone hydro dam project on the upper Irrawaddy River in Myanmar or push for new dams on the Thanlwin (Salween) River, which will have far reaching impact, not just geopolitical, but social and environmental.

 

The Lancang River / Mekong River and its tributaries are the economic lifelines of some 60 million people of Southeast Asia. Significantly, satellite imagery exposed how China had weaponised waters of Mekong River and its tributaries in 2019-2020 by manipulating dams: Mekong river began to dry though from May 2019 to April 2020 the reservoir on the dam were full; Nuozhadu Dam on Mekong River didn’t have any water in May 2019 but by April 2020 the reservoir was full because China was storing water; draught was caused with severe impact; inland waterways of the river adversely affected fisheries in the region; Thailand experienced the worst draught in 40 years; Thailand’s sugar output hit a nine-year low, and; 94,000 hectares of rice fields were damaged in Vietnam as water levels also hit a record low in Laos and Cambodia. Notably, there was an abundance of water along the origins of the Mekong River.

China invaded and annexed Tibet not only because Mao Zhedong called it the ‘palm of China’ but also because it constitutes the water tower and 26 per cent landmass of today’s China. There is no denying that China turned rogue years back and China’s Communist Party (CCP) has no compunctions of using water as a weapon as part of asymmetric warfare. Those who argue that drought is a “natural” phenomenon have little idea of China’s Machiavellian strategies that are planned decades in advance. Moreover, Chinese dam-network and excess power production from Mekong River has deprived the river system of its natural flow killing the river and its ecosystem in downstream countries. China aims same for the Brahmaputra River for holding South Asia to ransom.

During the Doklam Standoff in 2017, there was unusual flooding in the Brahmaputra River in Assam but China refused to share hydrological data with India. This was despite an accord between India and China to share such data. In 2018, waters of the Siang River in Arunachal Pradesh turned blackish grey before entering India raising suspicions that China was diverting the river waters possibly through a tunnel to the Xinjiang region. However, China’s claim that the reason was an earthquake was a lie because the water had changed colour much before the earthquake occurred.

It is opined by some that the hydrological threat from China is over-hyped. One suggestion is that afforestation in states like Arunachal Pradesh can give us enough rains contributing required waters to the Brahmaputra River. This is a naïve view which does not acknowledge the power of river waters and how Beijing has weaponised this resource. The 1997 United Nations Convention on Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses establishes two key principles to guide the conduct of nations regarding shared watercourses; equitable and reasonable use, and the obligation not to cause significant harm” to neighbours. But China has scant regard for international conventions and norms.

As it stands today, China’s control of Brahmaputra and Mekong Rivers and their tributaries is a potent threat to South and Southeast Asia, which merits an international tribunal and requisite sanctions. But then China has got away despite millions killed and affected globally with the Wuhan Virus! It is high time the world takes note and acts.

-The author is an Indian Army veteran. The views are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda