Last month, China approved plans to build a dam over the Brahmaputra River called Yarlung Zangbo in Tibet close to the Indian border.
On Monday, China reiterated its plan to build the world’s biggest dam over the Brahmaputra River in Tibet near the Indian border. The project, estimated to cost around USD 137 billion, is located in the ecologically fragile Himalayan region along a tectonic plate boundary where earthquakes occur frequently. It has undergone rigorous scientific verification and will not negatively impact downstream countries, India and Bangladesh.
China’s construction of the hydropower project over in the Yarlung Tsangpo River (the Tibetan name for Brahmaputra River) downstream has gone through rigorous scientific verification and will not have any negative impact on the ecological environment, geology, and water resources of the downstream countries, Chinese Foreign Ministry’s new spokesman Guo Jiakun told a media briefing here.
On the contrary, it will be conducive to downstream disaster prevention and mitigation and response to climate change to a certain extent, he said, replying to a question that India has expressed its concerns over the dam and the issue figured in the Indian officials talks with the visiting and US National Security Advisor Sullivan.
Sullivan, who is visiting Delhi, met with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Monday to review the trajectory of the India-US global strategic partnership over the last four years under the Biden administration.
Sullivan is visiting India two weeks before Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 47th president of the US.
Last month, China approved plans to build a dam over the Brahmaputra River called Yarlung Zangbo in Tibet close to the Indian border.
According to the plan, the massive dam will be built in a gorge in the Himalayan reaches, where the Brahmaputra makes a U-turn to flow into Arunachal Pradesh and then to Bangladesh.
In its first reaction to the proposed dam on Jan 3, India urged China to ensure that activities in upstream areas do not harm the interests of downstream states of the Brahmaputra.
“We will continue to monitor and take necessary measures to protect our interests,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told media in Delhi.
“As a lower riparian state with established user rights to the waters of the river, we have consistently expressed, through expert-level as well as diplomatic channels, our views and concerns to the Chinese side over mega projects on rivers in their territory,” Jaiswal said.
“These have been reiterated, along with the need for transparency and consultation with downstream countries, following the latest report,” he said.
“The Chinese side has been urged to ensure that activities in upstream areas do not harm the interests of downstream states of the Brahmaputra,” he added.
On Dec 27, another Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, defended China’s plan to build the world’s largest dam on the Brahmaputra River in Tibet, saying the project will not negatively affect lower riparian states and that safety issues have been addressed through decades of studies.
She said, “The project will not negatively affect the lower reaches,” addressing concerns in India and Bangladesh, the lower riparian states.
She said China wishes to continue communicating with countries in its inner reaches through existing channels and step up cooperation on disaster prevention and relief to benefit the river.
She said China’s hydropower development in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River aims to speed up the development of clean energy and respond to climate change and extreme hydrological disasters.
