THE WATER HEGEMON
Hydro-control turning China into dreaded hydra?
With Beijing controlling the sources of Asia's most important rivers, water has increasingly become a new political divide in China's relations with neighbours like India, Russia, Kazakhstan, Nepal and the Mekong River countries.
- Published: 18/10/2011 at 02:30 AM
- Newspaper section: News
International discussion about China's rise has focused on its increasing trade muscle, growing maritime ambitions, and expanding capacity to project military power. One critical issue, however, usually escapes attention: China's rise as a hydro-hegemon with no modern historical parallel.
The Mekong River, whose water level last March dropped to only 33 centimetres, the lowest in 50 years. People living downriver in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia attributed the fall in water level to newly constructed dams in China.
No other country has ever managed to assume such unchallenged riparian pre-eminence on a continent by controlling the headwaters of multiple international rivers and manipulating their cross-border flows. China, the world's biggest dam builder _ with slightly more than half of the approximately 50,000 large dams on the planet _ is rapidly accumulating leverage against its neighbours by undertaking massive hydro-engineering projects on transnational rivers.
This article is older than 60 days, which we reserve for our premium members only.You can subscribe to our premium member subscription, here.
About the author
- Writer: Brahma Chellaney
- Position: Writer
