NEW DELHI: After concerns raised by India about the possible impact of China’s construction of a mega hydropower dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet on the lower riparian states, Beijing said Saturday the project has been studied in detail for decades and it will protect the ecological environment, while ensuring it has no negative impact on the lower reaches.
India had said a day earlier it had raised the issue with China and asked it to be mindful of the interests of the lower states while pursuing any construction work.
Reports from Washington earlier on Saturday said US NSA Jake Sullivan is expected to discuss the dam issue with Indian counterparts during his visit to India on Jan 5-6. Sullivan will meet his counterpart Ajit Doval and foreign minister S Jaishankar and also address an event in which he is expected to list significant takeaways from bilateral cooperation during the Biden administration, including the initiative on critical and emerging technology.
“We’ve certainly seen in many places in the Indo-Pacific that upstream dams that the Chinese have created, including in the Mekong region, can have really potentially damaging environmental but also climate impacts on downstream countries,” a senior US official said ahead of Sullivan’s visit that was officially announced by the White House on Friday night.
In India, the Chinese embassy said Saturday China has always been “responsible for the development of cross-border rivers” and its hydropower development in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River aims to speed up developing clean energy, and respond to climate change and extreme hydrological disasters.
“The hydropower development there has been studied in an in-depth way for decades, and safeguard measures have been taken for the security of the project and ecological environment protection. “The project has no negative impact on the lower reaches,” said spokesperson Yu Jing. “China will continue to maintain communication with countries at the lower reaches through existing channels, and step up cooperation on disaster prevention and relief for the benefit of the people by the river.”
Xinhua reported last month that China had approved construction of the world’s largest dam, apparently costing $137 billion, on the river India calls Brahmaputra River Tibet, close to the Indian border, raising concerns in lower riparian states India and Bangladesh. The dam is to be built at a massive gorge in the Himalayan reaches where the Brahmaputra river makes a huge U-turn to flow into Arunachal Pradesh and then to Bangladesh.
