Water wars? Thirsty, energy – short china stirs fears

The wall of water need through narrow Himalayan gorges in northeast India, gather speed as it raked the banks of towring trees and boulders. When the torrent struck their island in the Brahmaputra River, the villagers remember. If took only moments to obliterate their houses, possessions and livestocks. No one knows axactly how the disaster happened, but everyone knows whom to blame: neighbouring China.

We don’t trust the Chinese.”says fisherman Akshay Sarkar at the resettlement site where he has lived since the 2000 flood. They gave us no warning. They may go it again.”
About 800 kilometers east, in northern Thailand, Chamlong Saenghet stands in the Mekong river, in water that comes only up to her shins. She is collecting edible river weeds from dwindling beds. A neighbor has hung up his fisher nets, his catches now too meager.
Using words bordering on curses, they point upstream, toward China.

The blame game, voiced in vulnerable river towns and Asian capitals from Pakistan to Vietnam, is rooted in fears that China’s accelerating program of damming every major river flowing from the Tibetan plateau will trigger natural disasters, degrade fragile ecologies divert vital water supplies.

A few analysts and environmental advocates even speak of water as a future trigger for war or diplomatic strong – arming. Thoughts others strongly doubt it will come to that. Still, the remapping of the water flow in the world’s most heavily populated and thirstiest region is happening on the gigantic scale, with potentially strategic implications. On the eight great Tibetan rivers alone, almost 20 dams have been built or are under construction while some 40 more are planned or proposed.

China is hardly alone in disrupting the region’s water flows. Others are doing, it will potentially even worse consequences. But China’s vast thirst for power and water, its control over the sources of the rivers and its ever growing political color makes it a singular target of criticism and suspicion.

“Whether China intends to use water as a political weapon or not, it is acquiring the capability to turn off the tap if it wants to – a leverage it can use to keep any riparian neighbors on good Behavior.” Says Brahma Chellaney, an analyst at New Delhi‘s Center for policy Research and author of the forthcoming “water Asia’s New Battlefield.” Analyst Neil Padukone calls it “the biggest potential point of continents between the two Asian giants,” China and India. But the stakes may be even higher since those eight Tibetan rivers serve a vast west – east arc of 1.8 billion people stretching from the Pakistan to Vietnam’s Mekong river delta.

Suspicions are heightened by Beijing slacks of transparency and refusal to share most hydrological and other data. Only, China, along with Turkey, has refused to sign a key 1997 UN convention on transnational rivers.

Beijing gave no notice when it began building three dams on the Mekong – the first completed in 1993 – or the $1.2 billion Zangmu dam, the first on the mainstream of the 2,880 – kilometer Brahmaputra which was started last November and hailed in official media as “ a landmark priority project.”

The 2000 flood that hit Sarkar’s Village, is widely believed to have been caused by the burst of an earthen dam well on a Brahmaputra tributary. But China has kept silent.

Until today, The Indian government has no clue about what happened,” Says Ravindranath, who heads the Rural Volunteer Center. He uses only one name,

Tibet spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama has also warned of looming dangers streaming from the Tibetan plateau. Beijing normally counters such censure by pointing that the bulk of water from the Tibetan river springs from downstream tributaries, with only 13-16 percent originating in China. Officials also say that the dams can benigt their neighbors, easing droughts and floods by regulating flow, and that hydroelectric power reduces China’s carbon footprint.

China”will fully consider impacts to downstream countries,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman jaing yu recently said,” we have clarified several times that the dam being built on the Brahmaputra river has a small capacity. It will not have large impact on water flow or the ecological environment of downstream.”

For some of china’s neighbor, the problem is that they too are building controversial dams and may look hydrocritica of they criticize China too loudly.

The four – nation Mekong river commission has expressed concerns not just about the Chinese dams but about a host of others built or planned in downstream countries.

In northeast India, a broad based movement is fighting central government plans to erect more than 160 dams in the region, and Loas and Cambodia have proposed plans for 11 Mekong dams, sparking environmental protest.

India and other governments play down and threats from the Asian colossus.” I was reassured that( the Zangmu dam)was not a project designed to divert water and affect the welfare and availability of water to countries in the lower reaches,” India’s foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said after talks with his Chinese counterpart last year. But at the grass roots, and among activits and even some government technocrats, criticism is expressed more readily.

“Everyone knows what china is doing, but won’t talk about it. China has real power now. If it says something, everyone follows.”Says Somkiat Khueng chaingsa, a Thai environmental advocate.

Neither the Indian nor Chinese government responded to specific questions from the AP about the dams, but Beijing is signaling that it will relaunch mega projects after a break of several years in efforts to meet skyrocketing demands for energy and water, reduce dependence on coal and lift some 300 million people out of poverty.

Official media recently said china was poised to put p dams on the still pristine Nu River, known as the Salween downstream. Seven years ago many as 13 dams were set to go up until Chinese premier Wen Jaibao ordered a moratorium.

That ban is regarded as the first and perhaps biggest victory of china’s nascent green movement.” An improper exploitation of water resources by countries on the upper reaches is going to bring about environmental, social and geological risks,” Yu Xiaogang, director of the Yunnan Green Watershed, said.

“Countries along the rivers have already formed their own way of using water resources. Water shortage could easily ignite extreme nationalist sentiment and escalate into regional war.” But there is little chance the activists will prevail.