[ KJM Varma ]
BEIJING, 27 Dec: China on Friday defended its plan to build the world’s largest dam on the Yarlung Zangbo river in Tibet, saying that the project will not affect riparian states and safety issues have been addressed through decades of studies.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning played down apprehensions over the massive project,estimated to cost around USD 137 billion, being built in the ecologically fragile Himalayan region located along a tectonic plate boundary where earthquakes occur frequently.
She said China has carried out in-depth studies for decades and taken safeguard measures.
China has always been responsible for the development of cross-border rivers, Ning told a media briefing here a question on the concerns related to the dam.
She said that the hydropower development in Tibet has been studied in an in-depth way for decades and safeguard measures have been taken for the security of the project and ecological and environmental protection.
The project will not affect lower reaches, she said.
China will continue to maintain communication with countries in the lower reaches through existing channels and step up international cooperation on disaster prevention and relief for the benefit of the people by the river, she said.
China on Wednesday approved the construction of the world’s largest dam, stated to be the planet’s biggest infra project, on the Brahmaputra river in Tibet, close to the Indian border, raising concerns in riparian states India and Bangladesh.
The hydropower project is to be built in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo tiver, the Tibetan name for the Brahmaputra, an official statement here said.
The dam is to be built at a huge gorge in the Himalayan reaches where the Brahmaputra river makes a huge U-turn to flows into Arunachal Pradesh and then to Bangladesh.
Ning 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.
The total investment in the dam could exceed one trillion yuan (USD 137 billion), which would dwarf any other single infrastructure project on the planet,including China’s own Three Gorges Dam, regarded as the largest in the world, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Thursday.
China has already operationalised the USD 1.5 billion Zam hydropower station, the largest in Tibet in 2015.
The Brahmaputra dam was part of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) and the national economic and social development and the long-range objectives through the year 2035 adopted by Plenum, a key policy body of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2020.
Concerns arose in India as the dam, besides empowering China to control the water flow, the size and scale of it could also enable Beijing to release large amounts of water, flooding border areas in times of hostilities.
India too is building a dam over the Brahmaputra in Arunachal.
India and China established the expert level mechanism (ELM) in 2006 to discuss various issues related to trans-border rivers under which China provides India with hydrological information on the Brahmaputra river and the Sutlej river during the flood seasons.
Data sharing of trans-border rivers figured in the talks between India, China special representatives (SR) for border questions, NSA Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, held here on 18 December.
The SRs provided positive directions for cross-border cooperation and exchanges, including data sharing on trans-border rivers, a statement by the ministry of external affairs said.
The Brahmaputra dam presents enormous engineering challenges as the project site is located along a tectonic plate boundary where earthquakes occur.
The Tibetan plateau, regarded as the roof of the world, frequently experiences earthquakes as it is located over the tectonic plates. (PTI)
