Atiq Durrani
Pakistan Kakhudahafiz
March 24, 2013
Water covers 70% of the Earth’s surface and is essential for all known forms of life. 97% water on earth is found in oceans; only 3% of all water on Earth is fresh-water. The interesting fact is that 98.8% of this 3% fresh water is in glaciers and ice caps (1.7%) of Antarctica/Greenland and under the ground (1.7%). After other subtractions like the water in the form of vapors, clouds and precipitation, only 0.3% of all freshwater is in rivers and lakes.
Rivers’ sources can be different, it may have its source in a spring, a lake or glacial melted water; water can even be recruited to a river from ground-water sources or simply from rain flowing off impermeable rocks or man-made surfaces. These rivers are the arteries of our planet and are joined by other rivers and streams.
These rivers played an important role in human societies; we use them as a source of water, for food, for transport, for recreation, as defenses and most importantly as a source of power to drive machinery. Dams or weirs are built to control the flow, store water, or extract energy.
China has tremendous water resources of fresh water. Almost half of the world’s population lives in the watersheds of the rivers whose sources lie in China on the Tibetan Plateau. The Mekong, the Yellow river, the Yangthze, the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra), the Indus and the Karnali, all originate on the Tibetan plateau and support hundreds of millions of people downstream. Chinese authorities have long had plans for Tibet’s water resources. They have proposed building dams for hydropower and for spending billions of dollars to build a system of canals to tap water from the Himalayan snow melt and glaciers and transport it hundreds of miles north and east to the country’s farms and industrial regions.
China and India both face shortage of water to meet the requirements of the growing population. Though India irrigates 165 million hectares of land and China irrigates only 137.1 million hectares, the resources of the water of both the countries are originating in Tibet, located in China. Although a number of nations, stretching from Afghanistan to Vietnam, receive waters from the Tibetan plateau; but India’s dependence on Tibetan waters is greater than that of any other country. Therefore, Tibet is of high importance for India also.
With the growth of industry and population of China, the demand of electricity is also increasing every year. China needs energy for its industrial heartland and to develop the Tibetan plateau. Before China joined the WTO, most international prognosticators, including the IEA (International Energy Agency), predicted energy demand would increase at an annual rate of 3% to 4% from 2000 to 2010. Demand wound up growing four times faster than they predicted. In 2010, China consumed 20% of the world’s primary energy supplies, overtaking the US to become the world’s largest energy consumer. With its installed hydropower capacity reportedly having reached 213,000 MW by the end of 2010, it was by far the world’s leading producer of hydroelectricity. China aims to have 430,000 MW of hydropower capacity till 2020.
For this purpose China is now planning to build hydropower plants on Brahmaputra. China is already the world’s largest producer of hydropower, and is planning to increase its hydropower capacity – which is 200 million KW currently – to 300 million KW by 2015, which is 50% more than the current. China has already constructed 10 dams on tributaries of the upper Brahmaputra, 3 dams are under construction, 7 more under consideration, and yet 8 more proposed. Recently Chinese State Council Cabinet approved construction of three new hydropower dams under a new energy development plan for 2015.
China also plans a ‘Great Bend’ in the Brahmaputra for promising hydropower dam sites in Tibet. This bend is another nightmare scenario for India. It was reported in May 2010 that China is likely to construct a 38,000 MW hydropower plant and large storage dam near Motua. Officially China denied any such plans to divert the Brahmaputra’s water, but if this dam is built, china will gain significant capacity to control the Brahmaputra’s flow which will make India dependent on China for the flow of Brahmaputra River.
The three riparian states sharing the Brahmaputra are China, India, and Bangladesh. Simultaneously they are the world’s first, second, and seventh most populous countries. All three face severe problems of water scarcity. All three also face a steeply rising demand for power generation.
This scenario is more alarming for India than the other states like Bangladesh or Nepal. India is already illegally using the water of Bangladesh and Pakistan, in spite of having written agreements and clear distribution of water. The 24 projects in the River Chenab, 52 projects in the River Jhelum and 18 projects on the River Indus are being implemented on different levels without the consent of Pakistan, which is a violation of the bilateral treaty of 1960.
On the other side, China had never made any agreement with India or any other neighbor country, more likely because it is not reliant on its neighbors for water supplies, in the same way that many of its neighbors are. Beijing rejects the concept of a water-sharing arrangement. It is one of only three countries that voted against the 1997 UN convention laying down rules on the shared resources of international watercourses.
It seems that Arabian/Indian Ocean region is indeed becoming a new global center of trade, energy flows and geopolitics. With the handing over of Gawadar Port in Baluchistan, the geopolitical sands appear to be shifting on many fronts for India. India is now completely surrounded by China in the Arabian/Indian Ocean. China is already having presence on ports of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar; and now with Gawadar port, China has completed the circle around India.
China and India already fought a war in 1962 over a territorial dispute when India was defeated by China, who took control of Askai Chin.
With the recent developments, China seems to be signaling that its real rivalry is not so much with the US as with India, because India aligned itself with America to contain China and India is the only state in the region helping the US to accomplish its ambitions against China.
With the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in 2014, India’s hopes that US will help it to become a regional power and to contain China and Pakistan will die. With the withdrawal of US from Afghanistan, India will be once again left behind to deal with its neighbors. India’s great power ambitions deeply depend upon its relations with neighbors like China and Pakistan. India’s problems can only be solved when India stops behaving like ‘Big Brother’, threatening all its neighbors equally and trying to solve its disputes with them through bilateral discussions, but on its own terms.
Some scholars and analysts have predicted that water shortage will be the cause of the 3rd world war. If it’s true, then it means that this war will be fought in South Asia, as the tensions among the countries in South Asia are already high and increasing every day. If there are treaties between different countries, they are not being followed properly, and in turn become the cause of tensions; and where treaties are not made, those areas can trigger a war anytime. These problems need immediate attention, especially in the nuclear triangle (China, India, Pakistan) zone, because any tensions between these three countries can turn into a nuclear conflict.
As a single human community sharing a single planet, we need to look beyond our national borders to work out ways of sustaining the ecological systems on which human progress depends. Although, hydropower is the cheapest source of energy; but we should stop treating water as an infinitely available source. It’s the responsibility of the nuclear triangle and other countries of the region to focus on the other sources of energy where we are not dependent on each other like Solar, Nuclear, Wind and Biomass. By doing so, not only the demand of energy for the industries can be obtained, but it will also help to reduce the tensions among the countries of the region.
Atiq Durrani is an IT professional and student of Mass Communication.
