China, a country whose penchant for mega-structures is well-known, has reportedly approved the construction of the world’s largest dam — stated to be the planet’s biggest infrastructure project costing USD 137 billion — on the river Brahmaputra in Tibet, close to the Sino-Indian border. The news has raised concerns in the riparian nations of India and Bangladesh, according to the Press Trust of India.
This Brahmaputra river dam project, if executed, is likely to surpass the famed Three Gorges Dam on the river Yangtze in China.
The Brahmaputra, one of the most important river systems in South-East Asia, originates in the Tibetan plateau and flows through several geographical regions. The waters of the Brahmaputra sustain millions of people and large swathes of biodiversity zones, such as the Kaziranga National Park in Assam, northeastern India.
Once the Brahmaputra enters Bangladesh, its name changes to Jamuna, and then it eventually meets the ocean at the Bay of Bengal.
In this context, the news of the Chinese dam project on the Brahmaputra is bound to raise concerns. Any unilateral restriction on the Brahmaputra waters by China will severely affect life in India and Bangladesh.
The Chinese government has approved the construction of a hydropower project in the lower reaches of the “Yarlung Zangbo (or Tsangpo)” river, the Tibetan name for the Brahmaputra, according to an official statement quoted by state-run Xinhua news agency on Wednesday.
The dam is to be built at a huge gorge in the Himalayan reaches where the Brahmaputra river makes a huge U-turn to flow into Arunachal Pradesh and then to Bangladesh.
The total investment in the dam could exceed 1 trillion yuan (USD 137 billion), which would dwarf any other single infrastructure project on the planet, including China’s own Three Gorges Dam, regarded as the largest in the world, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Thursday.
China has already operationalised the USD 1.5 billion Zam Hydropower Station, the largest in Tibet, in 2015.
The Brahmaputra dam was part of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) and ‘National Economic and Social Development 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.
Concerns arose in India as the size and scale of the dam, besides empowering China to control the water flow, could also enable Beijing to release large amounts of water, flooding border areas in times of hostilities.
India, too, is building a dam over the Brahmaputra in Arunachal Pradesh. India and China established the Expert Level Mechanism (ELM) in 2006 to discuss various issues related to trans-border rivers. Under this ELM, China provides India with hydrological information on the Brahmaputra river and Sutlej river during the flood seasons.
Data sharing of trans-border rivers figured in the talks between the Indian and Chinese Special Representatives (SRs) for border question, NSA Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, held in Beijing on December 18.
The SRs “provided positive directions for cross-border cooperation and exchanges”, including data sharing on trans-border rivers, said a statement by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.
The Brahmaputra dam project presents enormous engineering challenges, as the project site is located along a tectonic plate boundary where earthquakes occur. The Tibetan plateau, regarded as the roof of the world, frequently experiences earthquakes as it is located over the tectonic plates.
The official Chinese statement on Wednesday sought to allay concerns about earthquakes, saying that the hydropower project was safe and prioritised ecological protection.
Through extensive geological explorations and technical advancements, a solid foundation had been laid for the science-based, secure, and high-quality development of the project, it said.
The Brahmaputra flows across the Tibetan Plateau, carving out the deepest canyon on Earth and covering a staggering vertical difference of 25,154 feet before reaching India, said the South China Morning Post report.
The dam will be built in one of the rainiest parts of mainland China, bringing bountiful flows of water.
According to a 2023 report, the hydropower station is expected to generate more than 300 billion kWh of electricity each year, enough to meet the annual needs of over 300 million people.
In 2020, Yan Zhiyong, then chairman of the state-owned Power Construction Corporation of China, was quoted in the media as saying the location on the Yarlung Tsangpo was one of the most hydropower-rich areas in the world.
“The lower reaches area features a vertical drop of 2,000 metres over a 50km distance, representing nearly 70 million kilowatts of resources that could be developed — that is more than three Three Gorges Dams with an installed capacity of 22.5 million kilowatts,” the Post quoted him as saying.
To harness the hydropower potential of the Brahmaputra, four to six 20km-long tunnels must be drilled through the Namcha Barwa mountain to divert half of the river’s flow at about 2,000 cubic metres per second, according to the report.
Yan said that the hydropower exploitation of the Yarlung Tsangpo river downstream was more than a hydropower project; it was also meaningful for the environment, national security, living standards, energy and international cooperation.
“It is a project for [Chinese] national security, including water resources and domestic security,” he said, noting that the project would also smoothen cooperation with South Asia.
The hydropower station could generate income of 20 billion yuan (USD 3 billion) annually for the Tibet Autonomous Region, he said.
An official statement on Wednesday defended the Brahmaputra dam project, saying it would play a positive role in accelerating the country’s efforts to create a new development pattern and pursue high-quality development.
It was also of great importance to advancing the Chinese strategy for carbon peaking and carbon neutrality and to coping with global climate change, it said.
The hydropower project, as China claimed, was a green project aimed at promoting low-carbon development. By harnessing the abundant hydropower resources of the Yarlung Tsangpo river, the project would also spur the development of solar and wind energy resources in surrounding areas, thus creating a clean energy base, featuring a complementary mix of hydro, wind and solar power, it said.
—With inputs by CtoI News Desk
