BBC Information, Singapore
Getty PicturesChinese language authorities have begun establishing what would be the world’s largest hydropower dam in Tibetan territory, in a challenge that has sparked issues from India and Bangladesh.
Chinese language Premier Li Qiang presided over a ceremony marking the beginning of development on the Yarlung Tsangpo river on Saturday, based on native media.
The river flows by means of the Tibetan plateau. The challenge has attracted criticism for its potential influence on hundreds of thousands of Indians and Bangladeshis dwelling downriver, in addition to the encompassing atmosphere and native Tibetans.
Beijing says the scheme, costing an estimated 1.2tn yuan ($167bn; £125bn), will prioritise ecological safety and increase native prosperity.
When accomplished, the challenge – often known as the Motuo Hydropower Station – will overtake the Three Gorges dam because the world’s largest, and will generate 3 times extra power.
Consultants and officers have flagged issues that the brand new dam would empower China to regulate or divert the trans-border Yarlung Tsangpo, which flows south into India’s Arunachal Pradesh and Assam states in addition to Bangladesh, the place it feeds into the Siang, Brahmaputra and Jamuna rivers.
A 2020 report printed by the Lowy Institute, an Australian-based assume tank, famous that “management over these rivers [in the Tibetan Plateau] successfully offers China a chokehold on India’s economic system”.
In an interview with news agency PTI earlier this month, Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Pema Khandu expressed concern that the Siang and Brahmaputra may “dry up significantly” as soon as the dam was accomplished.
He added that the dam was “going to trigger an existential menace to our tribes and our livelihoods. It’s fairly critical as a result of China may even use this as a type of ‘water bomb'”.
“Suppose the dam is constructed they usually all of the sudden launch water, our complete Siang belt can be destroyed,” he mentioned. “Specifically, the Adi tribe and related teams… would see all their property, land, and particularly human life, endure devastating results.”
In January a spokesperson for India’s ministry of exterior affairs mentioned they’d expressed issues to China in regards to the influence of mega-dams and had urged Beijing to “make sure the pursuits of downstream states” weren’t harmed. That they had additionally emphasised the “want for transparency and session with downstream international locations”.
India plans to construct a hydropower dam on the Siang river, which might act as a buffer towards sudden water releases from China’s dam and stop flooding of their areas.
China’s international ministry has beforehand responded to India, saying in 2020 that China has a “respectable proper” to dam the river and has thought-about downstream impacts.
Bangladesh additionally expressed issues to China in regards to the challenge, with officers in February sending a letter to Beijing requesting extra data on the dam.
Getty PicturesChinese language authorities have lengthy eyed the hydropower potential of the dam’s location within the Tibet Autonomous Area.
It is in an enormous canyon that’s mentioned to be the world’s deepest and longest on land, alongside a bit the place the Yarlung Tsangpo – Tibet’s longest river – makes a pointy U-turn across the Namcha Barwa mountain.
Within the course of of creating this flip – which has been termed “the Nice Bend” – the river drops a whole lot of metres in its elevation.
Earlier stories indicated that authorities deliberate to drill a number of 20km-long tunnels by means of the Namcha Barwa mountain, by way of which they’d divert a part of the river.
Over the weekend a Xinhua report on Li Qiang’s go to mentioned that engineers would conduct “straightening” work and “divert water by means of tunnels” to construct 5 cascading energy stations.
Xinhua additionally reported that the hydropower dam’s electrical energy can be primarily transmitted out of the area for use elsewhere, whereas accommodating for Tibet’s wants.
China has been eyeing the steep valleys and mighty rivers within the rural west – the place Tibetan territories are situated – to construct mega-dams and hydropower stations that may maintain the nation’s electricity-hungry japanese metropolises. President Xi Jinping has personally pushed for this in a coverage known as “xidiandongsong”, or “sending western electrical energy eastwards”.
The Chinese language authorities and state media have offered these dams as a win-win answer that cuts air pollution and generates clear power whereas uplifting rural Tibetans.
However activists say the dams are the newest instance of Beijing’s exploitation of Tibetans and their land – and previous protests have been crushed.
Final yr, the Chinese language authorities rounded up a whole lot of Tibetans who had been protesting towards one other hydropower dam. It resulted in arrests and beatings, with some folks critically injured, the BBC learned through sources and verified footage.
There are additionally environmental issues over the flooding of Tibetan valleys famend for his or her biodiversity, and the potential risks of constructing dams in a area rife with earthquake fault traces.
CORRECTION 21 July 2025: An earlier model of this story incorrectly acknowledged that the estimated price of the dam was $1.67bn.
