Was China’s ‘largest dam’ announcement a trial balloon to test India’s reactions?

A study of the Chinese media over the years indicates that the construction of a single mega dam was abandoned well before the latest announcement in favour of a more elaborate project: a series of smaller hydropower projects

On December 25, China’s Xinhua News Agency reported Beijing’s approval for the construction of a hydropower project (HPP) in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet. This is the river whose lower course is known as the Siang in Arunachal Pradesh and, after a confluence with two other major tributaries, as the Brahmaputra in Assam.

Since then, Indian and global media have produced hundreds of experts elaborating on the issue of a ‘dam’, though the Chinese report did not specify what type of hydropower plant (or plants) will be built or when construction will start. 

It has generally been assumed that this will be a single dam, the largest in the world, which could produce three times more energy than the 22,500 MegaWatt Three Gorges Dam.

A study of the Chinese media over the years, however, indicates that the construction of a single mega dam was abandoned well before this announcement in favour of a more elaborate project: a series of smaller HPPs from Deyang, a remote location near Pai town in Nyingchi City, Southern Tibet, to an area close to the Indian border in Arunachal Pradesh.

For the mega project to materialise, many factors are involved.

First and foremost, it must be a political decision, taking into account the reaction of neighbouring countries downstream, as well as the environmental and economic consequences for Tibet itself. 

It is possible or even likely that Xinhua’s press release of December 25 was just a trial balloon to test India’s reactions including the official response from the Ministry of External Affairs. This would explain the vagueness of the communiqué.

Remember 2004

In April 2004, The New York Times announced that Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao “unexpectedly suspended plans for a massive dam system on the Nu (Salween) River in western China that scientists had warned could ruin one of the country's last unspoiled places.”

The newspaper added: “Mr. Wen's intervention signals that China's top leaders have not approved a plan that most dam opponents had considered a fait accompli. His personal involvement is a rare and surprising response in a non-democratic government that in the past has shown little concern about the environmental effect of major public works projects.”

In a written instruction, Wen ordered officials to conduct a major review of many hydropower projects: “Environmentalists consider the Nu, which rises in Tibet and flows 1,750 miles through Yunnan Province between the Mekong and Yangtze, one of the last pristine rivers in Asia.”

But in 2012, once Wen was no longer at the helm of the government, the projects were again back on the cards. Reuters noted: “The number of new hydropower projects in China could surge as the country's populist premier Wen Jiabao retires and a new leadership team races to meet ambitious 2020 energy goals,” adding that “Dam building slowed considerably under Wen, who personally intervened to block hydropower projects and avoid the potential for protest from local populations. Projects such as the $59 billion Three Gorges Dam have been the focus of criticism over the social and environmental costs China is paying for development.”

A decision to build HPPs on the Yarlung Tsangpo will be taken at the highest level, and while the scientific lobby is usually not in favour of these unsustainable mega structures, the dam lobby (which is motivated by the potential financial gains from massive contracts), is pushing hard for Beijing to ‘invest’.

Incidentally, when Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Delhi in 2006, he gave New Delhi the assurance that the ‘dam’ would not be built. Instead, according to the joint communiqué: “The two sides will set up an expert-level mechanism to discuss interaction and cooperation on the provision of flood season hydrological data, emergency management, and other issues regarding trans-border rivers as agreed between them.”

The current project

There are other factors to be taken into consideration, mainly technical issues.

Though it is true that the development of hydropower “has undergone several decades of in-depth research,” as Mao Ning, the spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, put it, one can seriously doubt that the new development, if it happens, will have no implications for the areas downstream.

The project has been in the pipeline for decades. In November 2020, Beijing included the survey of the Great Bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo in China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), for this purpose.

Four years ago, it was clear that the idea of a single dam had been abandoned in favour of a series of nine or 10 large run-of-the-river HPPs with minimum reservoirs.

An important factor is the opening in July 2021 of the Pai-Metok (Pai-Mo) Highway, linking Nyingchi to Metok, north of Upper Siang District in Arunachal Pradesh. After the completion of the highway, the length of the road from Nyingchi City to Metok County was shortened from 346 kilometres to 180 kilometres, and the driving time was reduced from 11 hours to 4.5 hours. 

Technically, in strategic terms, a 67-kilometre long highway and a tunnel under the Doshung-la mountain will be a game-changer. This could help to pave the way for the hydroelectric power projects.

Taking out the electricity produced

Another question is how to evacuate the electricity produced to the mainland.

An January 26 article from the People’s Daily partially answers the question. It informs us of a technological breakthrough: the commissioning of “one of China's ‘power highways’, the 800 kV ultra-high-voltage direct current (UHVDC) transmission project from the upper reaches of the Jinsha (Yangtze) River to central China's Hubei province, the highest UHVDC transmission project in the world.”

The Communist newspaper explains: “With a total length of 1,901 kilometres, the transmission project passes through northwest China's Xizang (Tibet) Autonomous Region, southwest China's Sichuan Province, southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, and Hubei.”

Something that has been an issue for decades seems to have been solved on the Yangtze River. Similar technology could be used on the Yarlung Tsangpo.

The seismicity of the Himalayan belt

The seismicity of the Great Bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo and the Himalayas in general has been one of the main objections to any mega or even large projects in the area. This is indeed a serious issue.

On August 15, 1950, the Assam-Tibet Earthquake, measuring 8.7 on the Richter scale, took place in what is today’s Lohit and Anjaw districts of Arunachal Pradesh. The Dalai Lama, who was 15 at the time, noted in his memoirs: “It was like an artillery barrage – which is what we assumed to be the cause of both the tremors and the noise: a test of some sort being carried out by the Tibetan army… Some people reported seeing a strange red glow in the skies in the direction from which the noise came…”

The 1950 quake happened not far from the Great Bend (and Upper Siang); it changed the course of the rivers in the area. Such an earthquake is a real danger even for a cascade of HPPs.

All these factors will have to be taken into consideration by Beijing before it undertakes such a hazardous project. 

Finally, does Beijing want a water war with India? This is another question that only the future can answer.

(Claude Arpi is a Distinguished Fellow at The Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, Delhi-NCR)

(This article was first published under Creative Commons by 360info.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.