“China’s plans and intentions are very different from its actual operations,” says Uttam Sinha, of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis. “If you look at the project itself it remains rather vague, not that the Chinese are going to give us any blueprint.”
Sinha was on The Gist answering questions about China’s plans to build a massive $137 billion dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet, which flows into India as the Brahmaputra.
“It’s in a very remote part of the world,” he pointed out, “steep mountains and gorges that make accessibility hugely difficult. That would add to the cost of the project.”
Unstated was the point that at a time of economic downturn, despite the trillion dollar trade surplus of last year, would China risk spending so much money. That apart, the recent earthquake in Tibet underscored issues of seismic sensitivity.
This is also a very biodiverse area, he said and China has been the champion of biodiversity, the founding father of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
In his view, “where they find that the risks are more, I think they will quietly withdraw,” but this is a hope.
China has always seen water and waterways in strategic terms and they might well believe that by controlling waters they could have the upper hand during negotiations with India on the border dispute.
“Border areas are going to be sensitive, are going to be vulnerable … and the Chinese are quite predatory when it come to water and land and they are the upper riparian state when it comes to as many as 16 transboundary rivers.”
Sinha does not believe any mass movement against such dam building is likely but acknowledges that there “is a robust environmental constituency in China … with activists, scientists and journalists sensitising local people and the authorities.”
Tune in for more in this conversation with Uttam Sinha from the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis.
