Now Reading: China plans mega dam on Brahmaputra, India worried
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China plans mega dam on Brahmaputra, India worried
China has announced plans to build what could be its largest hydropower project on the Yarlung Zangbo river, known as the Brahmaputra in India. The project could generate three times the energy…
China has announced plans to build what could be its largest hydropower project on the Yarlung Zangbo river, known as the Brahmaputra in India. The project could generate three times the energy of the Three Gorges dam, the current largest in the world. The exact location has not been disclosed, but Chinese state media has indicated it could be near the Great Bend, where the river turns south into Arunachal Pradesh.
India has voiced concerns over the impact on water and food security, and the potential for Beijing to weaponise water flow to cause floods or droughts. The announcement comes amid a seven-month border standoff and growing economic decoupling between the two neighbours. The project is being built by the Power Construction Corporation of China.
Indian Opinion Analysis
India has no bilateral water-sharing treaty with China, leaving it with no formal recourse when Beijing builds upstream on transboundary rivers. Under the Indus Waters Treaty, India has a mechanism with Pakistan, but no equivalent exists with China. The Brahmaputra carries about 30% of India's surface water resources, and its flow is critical for irrigation in Assam and downstream states. India's own dam-building on the river has been slow, partly due to ecological and seismic concerns. New Delhi's options are limited to diplomatic pressure and building storage capacity of its own. The 11th meeting of the India-China Expert Level Mechanism on transboundary rivers was held in 2020, no fresh talks have been announced.
The project's scale is unprecedented: 70 million kilowatt-hours of annual generation would dwarf the Three Gorges' 22.5 million.
Source: scmp.com
This brief was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
