With an aim to taking control over the waters of the Brahmaputra, China has decided to construct the biggest dam in the world on the river. Reports say that it will be a 60-gigawatt mega-dam in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR).
China is planning to construct the mega-dam on the Yarlung Zangbao River (known as the Brahmaputra in India), which flows through Tibet, Bangladesh and eventually becomes the Brahmaputra when it enters India, without discussing or entering into water-sharing agreements with downstream India or Bangladesh.
With the proposed mega-dam sited just 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Indian border, Tempa Gyaltsen Zamlha, the head of Environment and Development at the Tibetan Policy Institute believes the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will “definitely try to use it as a political tool”.
In response to the development, a spokesperson for India’s ministry in charge of managing its water resources said the country would construct a 10-gigawatt project on another tributary of the Brahmaputra.
Further, experts have warned that the record-breaking dam is likely to have political and environmental consequences. The geopolitical factors were brought into sharp focus when China clashed with India in Ladakh in June last year and a 2017 border stand-off near the border with Bhutan, which has angered both nations over China’s unilaterally decided hydroelectric power scheme.