Dr. Arvind Kumar*
The quiet transformation is now unfolding in the looming shadow of the Himalayas. A superlatively large dam of the most gigantic scale is now to be constructed on the Brahmaputra River with China standing on the other side. Resting peacefully, the future of water security in South Asia is in brass balance as billions of lives are threatened to be reshaped. Beyond the geopolitical stakes, the giant dimension of the project also inspires quite alarming concerns for the environment, such as the actual destruction of totally defenceless ecosystems or the artificial change to the natural flow of the river, potentially decimating its biodiversity, thus increasing the already critical problems of the truly river-dependent communities.
The River of Life
Transboundary river management has gained remarkable attention not only because of its ecological and hydrological significance but also its geopolitical and socio-economic implications which altogether lead to different ways of analysing conflicts on prevention and resolution in three types of unresolved transboundary river conflicts. The remarkable ones include integrated water resources management (IWRM), hydro-economic modelling, and mechanisms-of-trade (market) and game theory among others. Innovative approaches for dealing with joint river basin management can bring together the best of both worlds in joint river basin management and still look at individual river basins and the interests contained there without having to work things out like the entire basin was a big unified entity. In some ways, such management of shared basins also tends to overlook the differences in country priorities and stakeholder objectives at a time when each country can take into consideration power symmetries and conflicts of interest in negotiations between neighbouring countries.
From its first course down the Himalaya’s Kailas range, the Brahmaputra River cuts a majestic path through the fiercest stretches of the globe. Named differently while flowing its 2,300-mile route—YarlungZangbo in Tibet, Brahmaputra in India, and Jamuna in Bangladesh—this mighty river system symbolizes far more than merely a tasty water source. Whole civilizations depend on the river, and it often becomes a tipping point between cooperation and harmful competition and, today, a representation of China’s growing hydro-hegemony in Asia.
In the first weeks of January 2025, it was informed by China that until then the largest dam in the world was proposed to be built on the Brahmaputra River, of Tibet where it is known as the YarlungTsangpo. The geopolitical scene over transboundary water management was further complicated by this. This dam will cost $137 billion approximately and will generate 300 bn kilowatt-hours of electricity annually-which is way more than the installed capacity of the extant Three Gorges Dam. The 14th 5-year development plan of China includes this project. It raises broader concerns to countries down the path, such as India and Bangladesh, as the project may lead to large disruption.
The Third Pole: Asia’s Water Tower
The story of the Brahmaputra is very much linked with the Tibetan Plateau which is often referred to as “The Third Pole” due to its rich ice reserves. The third-elevated land is the origin of seven major basins of Asian rivers: the Indus, Brahmaputra, Mekong, Yangtze, Yellow River, Salween, and Ganges. These main rivers of Asia serve the water needs of over two billion people and are shared among eleven countries. Hence, this array of plateau water is essential for the security and prosperity of Asia.
Shared Waters: Shared Challenges
It is recognized that the Brahmaputra River holds much significance for millions of inhabitants living on its banks concerning life and economic stability, especially in India and Bangladesh. Being a potential water source, it flows through multiple countries and originates in China. It has quite vivid geopolitical implications for wide water management in Asia. This is particularly true of the regions where two-thirds of the world’s people live—of whom 37% belong to each country – when taking into account that India and China hold 4% and 7% respectively of global freshwater resources. This scarcity side by side with inefficient water management, significant pollution, and additional consequences of climate change are compounded problems. The global volume of water that China holds amounts to 2.8 trillion cubic meters (tcm), but instead of dividing it among its multiple millions of people, its per capita share is only 2,300 cubic meters – thisis one-third of the world’s average – while about 60% of the groundwater for drinking is polluted. But India, which holds 1.9 tcm of water reserves, is one of the 20 countries with the lowest water availability per capita-1,123 cubic meters. Fifty-four percent of the Indian population suffers from extreme water stress consequent to severe pollution downstream in rivers and groundwater. All this would emphasize the fact that there would be a need for cooperative management strategies, to maintain common water relations and also settle disputes arising out of upstream development by, say, China building dams on the Brahmaputra.
China: The Dam-Building Empire
China’s per capita water reserve is only 2,300 cubic meters, the third-lowest in the world. About 60 percent of China’s groundwater is contaminated, the count of poisoned major rivers is 19 percent, and that of the reservoirs is 35 percent. Since hydro engineer Li Peng accelerated the nation’s dam building when he took office in 1987, China has built some 26,000 mega dams in nearly two decades. This number surpasses the total of all other countries, making China the world’s leading dam construction power.
The Great Water Diversion Strategy
As it so turned out, this South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) originally aimed to transfer water from the Yangtze to cover big water deficits in the north. With an official unveiling in 2002 and estimates of around $62 billion cost, there exist 3 basic routes under the Project: Eastern, Central and, soon: Western route.
Of the parts of the project completed up to December 2023, two of the routes have been finished and have facilitated the passage of up to 70 billion cubic meters of water. This has indirectly benefited about 176 million people in northern cities such as Beijing and Tianjin. The Eastern and Central routes have been operational since the opening up to many delays and difficulties originally planned for 2014, while they do well in terms of contributing to urban water supplies and to efforts of ecological restoration, the Western Route planned for the diversion of water from transboundary rivers such as the Brahmaputra remains unfinished. As such, it remains a major threat concerning geopolitics. Yet China by historical practice has been disinclined to agree to full-fledged basin-wide cooperation; not signing the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention is possibly the most acute symptom of its anti-cooperation attitude on transboundary water control. China, in contrast, has tended toward some unilateral measures that erode regional peace, if not exacerbate tensions among water-sharing neighbouring countries.
It would become urgent within such development to demand the open dialogue and cooperative management of strategies not just by India but also by other nations that are dependent on the supply of water drawn from some of the major rivers or could further exacerbate already existing conflicts with China’s rigid water policies given the problems already created by the climate change with the pollution, as well as rising population pressures, affecting all the more resources of water.
India’s Stakes:
Brahmaputra river system, in particular, is a focal point today due to its great importance to India for three reasons:
- Ecological Significance: The river basin of Brahmaputra comes across Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim, and West Bengal as 41.9%, 36.3%, 6.1%, 5.6%, 3.8%, and 6.3% in its respective parts, that is, as one of the Indo- Burma biodiversity hotspots acknowledged as one of twelve global mega biodiversity hotspots by the IUCN. Its unique climatic and geographical conditions provide many different habitats for more than 7233 animal species, including a wide variety of threatened mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, and insects, as well as rich plant biodiversity, thereby… illustrating its ecological importance in India.
- Socio-economic Significance: The Brahmaputra system is one of the most important water management systems. As per population status, the river supports about 90% of the population working in agriculture in India, especially in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. For these ethnic communities, the river is “Aane” or “mother.” The people of the Mising and Adi tribes believe that it is a significant river. The river is sacred to people and has great economic significance as well. It supplies the fertility of the plains, including the Brahmaputra Valley (Siang, in Arunachal Pradesh), which is known as the most fertile area of the region. In terms of natural benefits, the annual floods come loaded with fresh sediments that enrich the river islets, taking care of the livelihood of more than six lakh people settled there. This basin encompasses an area of 573 billion cubic meters of area surface water in the entire Northeast India. Despite problems like flooding and erosion, it ensures human lives and guarantees food security to those living within this basin. The potential in hydropower equals the larger part, as there are potentials of 40% in India, which is expected to total 148,701 MW, with more than two-thirds (67.5) of the Arunachal Pradesh contributing to a cumulative total of 66,065 MW out of the total estimated capacity. Back in 1988, the Brahmaputra was declared National Waterway 2. This river is a line of transport within the entire North East and extends to Bangladesh. However, this potential has not been fully achieved.
- Geo-political significance: The security dimension of the multilateral cooperation over the Brahmaputra River has beefed up as China has stepped toward the project of constructing the Tsangpo Dam, which holds a significant potential of altering the flux of water flowing into India and Bangladesh upsetting potential concerns about hydro-hegemony and flooding risks. It all initiated the souring of already strained India-China relations caused by border disputes, as India tries to respond to what it considers a rising Celestial threat by expanding its Arunachal Pradesh hydropower. Bangladesh finds itself facing even more vulnerabilities along with water availability threats and environmental degradation, creating messy regional dynamics. For these reasons, the need for bilateral agreements and international cooperation is equally pressing so that this transboundary resource is sustainably managed: Conflict should be averted on grounds of rights and usage.
A New Form of Warfare: The Water Weapon?
China’s control over Brahmaputra headwaters has strategic leverage in China’s favour. The country does not sign any international treaties binding upon it, related to the waters, and this is in furtherance of the doctrine of absolute sovereignty. This has helped Beijing take unilateral actions on its resources. In July 2017, when tensions were high, China did not share the vital hydrological data it was providing Bangladesh with.
The recent earthquake that occurred in the Tibet region of China close to the country’s proposed mega-dam on the YarlungTsangpo River brings forward a complex problem with a wide array of links. It immediately triggers human relief alarms, but most of all long-term implications relating to China’s large-scale hydropower developments. Ambitious development in hydropower, therefore, aligns with geological instability and spells bad news for countries downstream. The construction of mega dams will soon disrupt critical seasonal flooding cycles important for agriculture and ecosystems downstream. Assam Chief Minister has reminded that any alternation to natural flow in the Brahmaputra River could destroy its fragile ecological equilibrium, impacting millions of dwellers who depend directly on the water system.
Unveiling the Questions: Ecological Risks and Geopolitical Challenges of China’s Hydro-Hegemony
China’s proposals of mega-hydro-engineering constructions along the Brahmaputra River cannot but rather raise a whole range of relevant questions relating to their technical, ecological, and geopolitical implications. To what extent can China marshal the capability, resources, and political will to execute such a complex water diversion blueprint and justify it with thorough cost-benefit analyses, availing long-term ecological impacts? How will Beijing exert itself on the internal fronts of resistance from within the region in South Tibet, with people being dependent on river water for their livelihood, with diplomatically managing responses downstream, especially towards these two downstream neighbours like India and Bangladesh? Would diverting just 10-15 percent of the total remaining flow from the river precipitate a catastrophic scenario in the lower riparian states or is the whole debate on all this blown out of proportion altogether? Does building so many dams in such sensitive seismic areas significantly increase the possibility that downstream nations may have severe flooding and earthquakes in case of any malfunctions? Or, does China harbour mechanisms that could assist in transboundary cooperation over the technological innovation of modern conservation, mitigation of ecological concerns, and how stable or unstable is stability with the region’s ambitious dreams for hydro-hegemony? That is what calls for a sustainable and inclusive form of water governance in the fragile geopolitical landscape of South Asia.
The Future of Water Security in South Asia
The crisis escalation of the Brahmaputra River will portray a new stage in water security and diplomacy that will be addressed by India, from being aggressive to being diplomatic and manoeuvring such care through balance: India should adopt a three-pronged approach:
- First, robust independent monitors and data collection infrastructure along the Indian-controlled stretches of the Brahmaputra and offer an independent judgment about activities and their results on the upstream side.
- Second, launch a coordinated diplomatic offensive: a “Brahmaputra Basin Coalition” against Bangladesh and other affected states and simultaneously involve China through multilateral forums and bilateral ties.
- Third, speed up the pace of infrastructure development by the continued lifting of the abandoned projects in the northeast; Arunachal Pradesh and Assam are among the states with hugely underdeveloped projects, but not yet include much aid and investment.
The path forward is likely to need institutional innovation through the formation of an autonomous Brahmaputra Basin Management Authority structured with extensive training in the fields of hydro-diplomacy and water security, backed by informed negotiations and real work with the communities and civil society actors for ensuring inclusive and sustainable water governance. Central to this would be India’s use of international law and multilateral organizations to create alternative dispute resolution opportunities to prevent water-sharing conflicts from transforming into broader geopolitical disputes. As the Doklam standoff showed, because China may attempt to use this resource to gain inroads at the international political level, such contingency planning is warranted. Like all such conflicts, India will be required to invest in this preparedness and have regional consensus forged around such issues. The problem does not just exist in the component of technology and diplomacy but fundamentally requires a rethinking in the understanding of water security architecture in South Asia with India standing in the forefront to set up both sustainable and equitable solutions for the future in that region.
Conclusion
It is not only a battle for water resources in the Brahmaputra but a symbolic representation of how the play of power, politics, and survival stretches into an increasingly water-stressed future. Further massive infrastructure projects by China will expose the need for blanket international agreements and cooperation.
*Editor, Focus Global Reporter