Sina Delenda Est

China Is Weaponizing Water
By Eugene K. Chow

Hidden in plain sight is an intimidating Chinese weapon that allows it to hold a quarter of the world’s population hostage without firing a single shot. 

While much attention has been given to the nation’s fearsome new military hardware, a formidable component in its arsenal has largely escaped notice: dams.
With more than 87,000 dams and control of the Tibetan plateau, the source of ten major rivers which 2 billion people depend on, China possesses a weapon of mass destruction. 

With the flip of a switch, the Middle Kingdom can release hundreds of millions of gallons of water from its mega dams, causing catastrophic floods that would reshape entire ecosystems in countries downstream.
China knows first-hand the destructive power of water. 

In an attempt to halt advancing Japanese troops during World War II, Chang Kai-Shek, commander of the Chinese Nationalist Army, destroyed a dike along the Yellow River flooding thousands of miles of farmland, killing an estimated 800,000 Chinese, and displacing nearly 4 million.
It is highly unlikely that China would ever deliberately unleash such a destructive act upon its neighbors, but the fact remains that it wields enormous leverage as an upstream nation by its ability to control life’s most essential resource.
High in the Himalayan Mountains are what has been dubbed the “Water Towers of Asia.” 

Seven of the continent’s greatest rivers start life here including the Mekong, Ganges, Yangtze, Indus and Irrawaddy. 

What begins as dribble from snow melt in the Tibetan plateau builds into mighty rivers that flow across China’s borders before eventually reaching South Asia.
To satisfy its insatiable demand for electricity and as part of its shift away from coal, China has gone on a dam building spree. 

In 1949, China had less than forty small hydroelectric dams, but now it has more dams than the United States, Brazil and Canada combined.
On the upper Mekong alone, China has erected seven mega dams with plans to build an additional twenty-one. 

Just one of its latest dams is capable of producing more hydropower than all of Vietnam and Thailand’s dams on the Mekong.
This dramatic increase in dam building activity has had an outsized environmental impact and stoked fears in downstream nations.
“Beside having environmental issues those dams in Tibet can be disastrous for [India]. They can unleash their fury during earthquake, accidents or by intentional destruction can easily be used against India during war,” said Milap Chandra Sharma, a glaciologist at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.
China’s southern neighbors are not worried without reason. 

In the past, India has blamed sudden discharges from Chinese dams for several flash floods including one that caused an estimated $30 million in damage and left 50,000 homeless in northeast India.
Each year, during China’s rainy season, downstream nations are on high alert as Chinese dams release water to ease pressure with little warning.
“A discharge by a dam will have a domino effect on the whole system, which can cause huge damages,” explained Le Anh Tuan, deputy director of the Research Institute for Climate Change in Vietnam.
In addition to floods, Chinese dams are responsible for worsening droughts. 

Last year, Vietnam pleaded with China to release water from the Yunnan dam on the Mekong River to ease severe water shortages downstream. 

China agreed and waters flowed into Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
These two extremes not only highlight the environmental impact of Chinese dams, but also serve as a stark reminder of China’s influence over its southern neighbors. 

These rivers are foundational to life in South Asia, providing drinking water, irrigation for farming, habitats for fisheries and transportation for commerce.
By controlling the flow of the lifeblood of the region, China has gained enormous power, which has led to accusations of abuse.
“When it comes to diplomacy, China uses rivers as a bargain chip,” said Tanasak Phosrikun, a Mekong river activist from Thailand.
China has denied these charges. 

Last year, in response to rising anger in India over Chinese dams, the state-run Global Times published an op-ed stating, “China-India relations should not be affected by an imaginary ‘water war.’”
While China denies that a “water war” exists, it has refused to share hydrological data with India this year, despite signing an agreement. 

The data is critical during monsoon season as it helps India more accurately forecast floods and warn its residents, ultimately saving lives and minimizing damage.
Water has become a weapon providing China with significant political leverage over its southern neighbors. 

As water scarcity worsens with climate change and population increases, the need for this precious resource will grow, amplifying China’s power and intensifying conflict.
Despite the best efforts of regional partnerships South Asian nations have had little success in encouraging sustainable and responsible development of rivers. 

With control of the Tibetan plateau by dint of its geography, China is king of the hill when it comes to water in Asia and there is little downstream nations can do to change the whims of this monarch.

Chinese Calamity

China's Huge Dam Projects Will Threaten Southeast Asia As Water Scarcity Builds Downstream
By Daniel Rechtschaffen

BEN TRE, VIETNAM - APRIL 28

A river is born high in the Tibetan Plateau, before snaking its way 3,000 miles south and emptying itself into the South China Sea. 

On its journey, it passes through six countries, sustaining their ecosystems and local economies, its fisheries providing a lifeline for 60 million people in its lower basin.
The Mekong changes names as it ventures southward through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and finally Vietnam. 

Its English title, from the Lao-Thai Me Khoong, or “Mother River,” emphasizes its life-giving nature. It has had a profound influence on the cultural traditions of the 95 ethnic groups who make their homes along its shores, and its basin is second in biodiversity only to the Amazon.
Water is the world’s most important resource, providing economic, agricultural and transportation benefits. 

This is especially true for the developing countries of Southeast Asia, who rely on rivers like the Mekong to spur economic growth and support local industries. 

But although the Mekong was the lifeblood of Southeast Asia long before modern-day borders were delimited, it has been at the root of acute political turmoil in recent years. 

As the supply of water fit for irrigation and maintaining ecologies becomes increasingly scarce in the region, upstream countries that control vital transboundary resources, like China, wield an enormous amount of power. 

Although all of the Mekong’s riparian countries harness or plan to harness its waters for hydropower, extensive damming in China’s section has had the severest effects on downstream states.
The Mekong River is divided into upper and the lower basins. 

The upper basin falls mainly within China’s borders and its upstream location effectively allows for a chokehold on the river’s lower riparian states. 

China’s effects on the river are most evident in its extensive dam projects—hydropower is second only to coal as the country’s largest energy source. 

This represents a larger shift by the government toward renewable energy in the wake of rapid environmental decline and social unrest due to air pollution in recent years. 

Luckily for China, authoritarian governments have a much easier time than democracies commissioning dams, which often cause mass displacement of populations and destruction of local ecosystems. 

China currently has seven dams completed in the upper basin, with another 20 set to be finished in the near future.
Chinese dam-builders are incentivized by the fact that the vast majority of the Mekong’s drop in elevation occurs within China’s borders in the southwestern province of Yunnan, creating a powerful downstream flow ideally suited for hydropower. 

However, this region is also famous for being one of China’s most biodiverse, and this damming comes at great harm to local ecosystems. 

Not surprisingly, hydropower projects in Yunnan have been met with fierce resistance, sometimes violent, by local environmental organizations.

GUANLEI, CHINA: A man brushes his teeth on the banks of the Mekong River. Environmentalists have warned that China's aggressive dam building and development plans threaten fish stocks and add to the pollution of Southeast Asia's strategically important Mekong River, which connects Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. 

But perhaps the gravest concern surrounding Chinese dams is their potential for an international crisis—studies in recent years have increasingly shown that China’s many dams are having serious effects on the countries in the lower basin who share the Mekong. 

By changing water temperatures and altering sediment loads that are carried along the river, China’s dams pose a serious threat to fisheries downstream, the yields of which provide the major source of protein to the region’s inhabitants. 

More noticeable are the severe droughts and floods brought by a change in water flow caused by the dams. 

In March last year, China was approached by a desperate Vietnam asking that the Jinghong hydropower floodgates be opened to quench a downstream water shortage.
Mitigating a water crisis in the region is an issue the international community has sought to address for decades. 

In 1997, China was one of three countries that voted against the United Nations Watercourses Convention, an agreement establishing the non-navigational uses of transboundary waterways. 

Since the 1960s, China’s per capita renewable internal freshwater resources have diminished by half thanks in no small part to explosive population growth and rapid industrialization; the country’s available water per person in 2017 is one-third of the world’s average. 

And this water crisis, compounded most recently by pollution, is likely a major factor in China’s close guarding of water resources within its boundaries. 

Although Beijing has sought out less comprehensive regional initiatives with Southeast Asian countries to moderate the Mekong, these are difficult to enforce without the backing of the international community.
And unfortunately, the potential for crisis isn’t limited to the Mekong. 

China controls the “Water Towers of Asia”—the lofty sobriquet given to the Tibetan glacial plateau. 

The Mekong, Irrawaddy, Brahmaputra and the Salween all begin as trickles in these mountains before spilling across China’s borders to eager downstream riparian states. 

Getting first call on how these waterways are manipulated means that China poses a severe security risk to its neighbors.

This photo taken on March 18, 2015 shows a small hydro-electric power station above the Nu river near Gongshan, in southwest China's Yunnan province. Many smaller hydro power stations already generate electricity from water running off the mountains into the Nu river. 

China controls the life essence of eastern Asia: The towers within its domain provide water to 1.3 billion people. 

Up until now China has been compliant in releasing water when requested by downstream states, but the country’s water supplies are drying up. 

And as they do, assertions by recent scholars that 21st-century wars will be fought over water are becoming increasingly convincing.