{"id":111104,"date":"2025-03-18T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-18T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/le-projet-de-megabarrage-chinois-sur-le-brahmapoutre\/"},"modified":"2025-06-13T15:28:27","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T13:28:27","slug":"le-projet-de-megabarrage-chinois-sur-le-brahmapoutre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/le-projet-de-megabarrage-chinois-sur-le-brahmapoutre\/","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s Brahmaputra mega-dam project"},"content":{"rendered":"
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China\u2019s announcement on 25 December 2024 of its intention to build a huge dam on the Brahmaputra River, close to the Indian border, has raised fears in the downstream countries of India and Bangladesh.<\/h6>\n\n\n
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\n Proposed site for the dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra)\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n

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The location is marked with a green circle \u00a9 Peter Hermes Furian \/ Shutterstock<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n

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For China, the dam will significantly increase its electricity production. For India, the important thing is to have enough water flowing from the Brahmaputra to supply a dam that it is planning to build on this river downstream, in Arunachal Pradesh, but also to be able to ensure irrigation in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. For Bangladesh, the challenge is to ensure that the Brahmaputra has sufficient flow for navigation and irrigation.<\/p>\n

The dam, called Motuoven <\/em>in Chinese or Medog <\/em>in Tibetan, is to be built just before the entrance to the Brahmaputra in the Indian province of Arunachal Pradesh, in the impressive gorges that form the deepest canyon in the world, with a drop of 2,000 metres over a distance of 50 kilometres. It will be the largest dam in the world, three times bigger than the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze (blue river). According to current estimates, it will cost 137 billion US dollars to build.<\/p>\n

This decision comes after years of China claiming that it had no intention of damming the river. In doing so, it is not contradicting any international water-sharing agreement, since it has not signed one with any of the countries downstream of the rivers that flow through its territory. It is not a party to the United Nations treaty on the non-navigational uses of international watercourses, which was signed in 1997 and came into force in 2014.<\/p>\n

Thanks to such a dam, China will be able to regulate the flow of the Brahmaputra upstream, and thus possibly cause gigantic, highly destructive releases of water from its territory, in the event of tensions with India and a fortiori <\/em>in the event of war. The dam is to be used only to generate electricity, so the risks must be minimised. The Indian provinces in the north-east where the river and some of its tributaries flow are watered by the monsoon, which is generally abundant south of the Himalayas. But if massive transfers of water to northern China were to take place\u2014which is not envisaged at the moment\u2014the situation would be very different, as the flow of the Brahmaputra in India would be greatly reduced.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n

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\n Voir aussi<\/span>\n
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20 November 2024<\/div>\n HA\u00cbNTJENS Jean<\/a>\n
\n 4 min.\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n\n Read, Seen, Heard\n <\/a>\n Environment<\/a>\n Society<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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It should also be remembered that China claims the whole of Arunachal Pradesh, which it calls Southern Tibet. Bangladesh, for its part, is doubly dependent on China and India, both of which lie upstream of its territory. It has legitimate fears about Chinese and Indian projects. Like China, India and Bangladesh have not signed the 1997 United Nations treaty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China took its decision without consulting these two countries. The only existing hydraulic agreement between India and China dates back to 2006 and only concerns the provision by China of information on the Brahmaputra and the Sutlej, a tributary of the Indus, in the event of heavy flooding. Moreover, this agreement has not always been respected by China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The construction of a dam on the Brahmaputra River in Arunachal Pradesh (known as Siang in this Indian province) is being delayed by fierce local protests from people who fear being relocated. But the chief minister is using the risk of massive flooding that could be intentionally provoked by China to try to convince his constituents of the merits of the project, which is essentially hydroelectric and is known as the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project (SUMP).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The region where the dam is to be built is seismic, as demonstrated by the earthquake in south-eastern Tibet on 7 January 2025. All of which adds to the fears of the downstream countries, India and Bangladesh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Source: <\/em>this note is taken from the Lettre confidentielle Asie21-Futuribles<\/em>, no. 190, January 2025.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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N.B.:<\/em> this article has been translated from French by DeepL, and revised by the author and Futuribles.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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China\u2019s announcement on 25 December 2024 of its intention to build a huge dam on the Brahmaputra River, close to the Indian border, has raised fears in the downstream countries of India and Bangladesh. It should also be remembered that China claims the whole of Arunachal Pradesh, which it calls Southern Tibet. Bangladesh, for its … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":104222,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"both","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":301,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[202,203],"keyword":[3244,953,849,1066,1955,1007],"class_list":["post-111104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newswatch","tag-environnement-en","tag-geopolitique-en","keyword-bangladesh-en","keyword-chine-en","keyword-energie-en","keyword-inde-en","keyword-droit-international-en","keyword-ressources-en-eau-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111104"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112138,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111104\/revisions\/112138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111104"},{"taxonomy":"keyword","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyword?post=111104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}