Amid simmering border tension with India along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Eastern Ladakh, China is planning to build a major hydropower project in Tibet’s part of the Brahmaputra River.
According to reports, China is planning to build the dam as part of the proposal for the country’s 14th Five-Year Plan that will be implemented next year. It is learnt that Chinese government has already finalised a company to construct this dam.
China’s ruling Communist Party of China (CPC), which is led by President Xi Jingping, has already been formulating the five-year plan for the communist nation, as well as long-term goals through 2035.
Yan Zhiyong, chairman of the Power Construction Corp of China, said China will “implement hydropower exploitation in the downstream of the Yarlung Zangbo River” (the Tibetan name for Brahmaputra River).
The project could serve to maintain water resources and domestic security, the Global Times reported, quoting an article on the WeChat account of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China on Sunday.
China has indicated that it is going ahead with building mega-dams on the lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo, which flows from Tibet into northeast India. The main objective of this “Liquid Bomb” is to cripple the Indian economy.
Beijing’s control over the key rivers flowing into India gives it a chokehold on India’s economy, effectively crippling India’s interests in the North East region.
The country’s occupation of Tibet, which is often called the “Third Pole”, owing to its vast freshwater and glacial resources, gives it a strategic stranglehold to dominate the bilateral discourse with India.
