China has tried to reassure India over its plans for a mega dam in the Tibetan Plateau, which has prompted fears it will cause water shortages and damage the environment, by saying it will not try to benefit at the “expense of its neighbours”.
The dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo River is expected to be the world’s largest hydroelectric project, but it has caused serious concern about the impact on the Brahmaputra – as it is known downstream in India – where it is a vital water source for millions of people.
The project also risks escalating the competition for scarce water resources, with India looking to step up its own dam-building projects, and threatens to undermine recent efforts to reduce tensions between the two countries.
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Wang Lei, the charge d’affaires at the Chinese embassy in India, tried to address these concerns last week in a newspaper article where he wrote that critics of the project were wrong to characterise it as a “Chinese weapon”.
“China sticks to the policy of forging friendships and partnerships with its neighbours. It never pursues the maximisation of unilateral interests, let alone benefits for itself at the expense of its neighbours. China does not and will never seek ‘water hegemony’,” Thursday’s article in the Indian Express said.
He added that China had established over 50 water resource management agreements with neighbouring countries and created 10 cross-border institutions to promote cooperative river development and ecological protection.
Relations between the two countries started to thaw last year after years of tensions sparked by their long-running border dispute, which included a deadly clash between soldiers in 2020.
The two sides agreed to work to ease these tensions following a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping in October. In December the first high-level border talks for five years led to a six-point plan to address the border question, which included an agreement on cross-border rivers.
“China adheres to a responsible attitude towards cross-border river development and pursues a policy of balancing utilisation and protection,” Wang wrote.
He said the project had undergone a rigorous assessment and would prioritise biodiversity and the protection of its ecosystem.
He added that it would include a disaster prevention system, and aimed to support global low-carbon development and meet China’s “dual carbon” goals of reaching peak emissions by 2030 and net-zero by 2060.
“As the project progresses, China will release more data and information in due course,” he wrote.
The Yarlung Tsangpo dam, first announced in 2020 as part of the current five-year plan, is part of China’s broader strategy to exploit the hydropower potential of the Tibetan Plateau.
It aims to generate over 300 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually – three times the output of the Three Gorges Dam – powering 300 million homes.
Millions of people in India rely on the Bramaputra River for water. Photo: Reuters alt=Millions of people in India rely on the Bramaputra River for water. Photo: Reuters>
Wang’s article said the project would have “no negative impact on the lower reaches” of the river and “does not consume water”.
He wrote that “Indian scholars”, whom he did not name, “have pointed out that the water volume of the Brahmaputra River is mainly from rainfall and tributaries in the southern slope of the Himalayas”.
In response to the Chinese scheme, the Indian government has accelerated its own hydropower projects on the Brahmaputra in Arunachal Pradesh to assert its rights over water resources.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
