After Beijing granted authorization in December, construction on what would be the world’s largest hydropower dam has now begun. The site is located along the Yarlung Tsangpo River in southeastern Tibet, and it has drawn criticism from Tibetan rights groups concerned about social and ecological impacts, and downstream countries concerned about the potential weaponization of water flows. Helen Davidson at The Guardian summarized the massive scale of the proposed project:
Construction of the world’s biggest hydropower megadam has begun, China’s premier has said, calling it the “project of the century”.
[…] Li Qiang made the comments on Saturday, at a ceremony in the region to mark the start of the build, leading Chinese markets to rise on the expectation of the long-planned megaproject, first announced in 2020 as part of China’s 14th five-year plan.
[…] The project announced by Li is planned for the lower reaches of the river, according to the official state news outlet, Xinhua. Xinhua reported that the project would consist of five cascade hydropower stations, producing an estimated 300 million megawatt hours of electricity annually at a cost of about 1.2tn yuan (£124bn).
In comparison [with the world’s current largest dam], the Three Gorges dam cost 254.2bn yuan and generates 88.2m MWh.
[…] The Yarlung Tsangpo megadam will reportedly harness the power created by the river dropping 2km in about 50km as it winds through a canyon on a U-shaped bend. [Source]
Xinhua reported that the hydropower dam’s electricity would be mostly transmitted out of Tibet towards other provinces, fitting with Xi Jinping’s policy of “sending western electricity eastwards.” This is made possible in large part by China’s technical advances, such as its ability to efficiently transmit energy across long distances, as Eliot Chen noted in The Wire China, where he described the domestic and economic drivers of the megadam. He also reported that compared to Sichuan and Yunnan, Tibet’s rivers remain relatively untapped by companies that build and operate hydroelectric projects, adding another incentive to pursue the project:
“The Chinese strategy has been to build more of everything,” says Belinda Schäpe, a China policy analyst with the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a Helsinki-based think tank. “And this project ticks a lot of boxes. Its economic contribution will drive investment into the region…along with roads and railways at a time when there is a lot of pressure on heavy industry to find a market for its products.”
[…] The dam project’s launch also reflects Beijing’s continuing penchant for big infrastructure projects to support the Chinese economy. The cost of the project works out to an average annual investment of RMB 120 billion ($16.7 billion) out to 2035 – equivalent to nearly half of Tibet’s entire 2024 gross domestic product (GDP). On those figures, it could add 0.15 percentage points on average to China’s GDP growth over the next decade, Zhou Junzhi of brokerage China Securities estimates.
[…] Yarlung Zangpo has already proved a boon for China’s construction and heavy industry firms, hit hard by the slowdown in China’s real estate market. Shares in Shanghai-listed Power Construction Corp, a state-owned enterprise that specializes in hydropower projects, rose by their daily limit of 10 percent on Monday after the groundbreaking — it closed up 32 percent for the week on Friday. Huaxin Cement, one of China’s oldest cement companies, is up 15 percent this week. Chinese iron ore and steel rebar futures have also soared.
“The way the project is being framed domestically is definitely more as an investment opportunity, given the economic challenges China faces at the moment,” says Schäpe. [Source]
The dam has raised social and ecological concerns. Past reports have shown that the construction of almost 200 dams in Tibet is causing “irreparable damage” to Tibetan communities, downstream countries, and the environment. Government authorities have used forced displacement and violent reprisals against protesters to impose many of these state-sponsored hydropower projects. (Roughly 1.4 million Tibetans were displaced by the Three Gorges Dam, which is less than a third the size of the planned Yarlung Tsangpo project.) In an interview with CDT, the International Tibet Network’s Programme and Environment Coordinator Lobsang Yangtso said, “For [the Chinese government], economic development is more important than environmental protection in Tibet. […] Everything is all about gaining and extracting the resources from Tibet and then neglecting the respect for the whole nature and ecosystem.” Underlining the geological risks of major infrastructure projects in the region, a massive earthquake in Tibet killed over a hundred people and destroyed thousands of homes in January.
Protesters against these projects have faced harsh repression. Authorities reportedly arrested over 100 Tibetan Buddhist monks and other residents of largely Tibetan Dege County in Sichuan Province, following protests against a dam project that would destroy six Buddhist monasteries and force villages within two townships to relocate. Free Tibet reported that Gonpo Tsering, the head of the Yena Monastery in Shiba Village near Dege and a participant in the protests, is in critical condition after being tortured while in detention. The Tibetan Review reported last week on the release of a Tibetan environmental rights protester who was detained for eight months for “disrupting social order” after posting a video to social media criticizing the environmental damage caused by a Chinese construction company in his local area. This month, Tibet Watch reported on another planned hydropower dam for which authorities mobilized “ideological work” teams to pacify local opposition:
Twenty villages in the eastern Tibetan region of Amdo face displacement to make way for a major new hydropower dam on the upper reaches of the Machu River, according to a new notice issued by the Qinghai provincial government and Tibet Watch sources.
[…] The Tsiha Gorge (茨哈峡, Cihaxia) hydropower dam will be constructed upriver from the massive 180-metre (590 ft) high Yangchu hydropower dam, which began operations last year, and […] led to the devastation of an entire community centred around the religious heart of Atsok monastery in Palkha village.
[…] A further official notice issued last month by the People’s Government of Drongthu Township, Drakkar County – home to five of the twenty villages facing inundation – stated that team members have been organised to publicise policy and carry out “ideological work” to Tibetan villagers and nomads in connection with the dam construction, indicating that the authorities acknowledge that displacement and resettlement are unlikely to be welcomed by the local community. [Source]
Another issue related to the Yarlung Tsangpo dam is its impact on countries near Tibet. The river flows south into India and Bangladesh, where it feeds into the Siang, Brahmaputra, and Jamuna rivers, which support the livelihood of millions of people. Indian officials have expressed concerns about China potentially withholding water, or releasing it suddenly in a “water bomb,” as leverage during geopolitical conflict. The Chinese government has insisted that it will not use the dam “at the expense of its neighbors” nor seek “water hegemony.” An editorial from the South China Morning Post this week stated, “To mitigate transborder disputes, it won’t be enough to just say there will be ‘no negative impact’ downstream. China can build confidence through engagement and transparency,” including through sharing environmental assessments and data on dam conditions and water levels. Nonetheless, the intensifying and long-standing geopolitical competition over water resources continues to endanger Himalayan ecology.
