China Dam
China's plan to create dam along South Asian rivers triggers tension in India, Bangladesh
Beijing/New Delhi/Dhaka: China's plan to build a super dam on a major river that flows into India and Bangladesh is surely threatening to create a flashpoint with New Delhi and even raise concern for Bangladesh, a nation which is dependent on the river for fresh water, media reports said.
Analysts in India have raised several red flags – they fear the project could trigger flash floods or create water scarcity.
Security experts say a dam close to China’s heavily militarized border with India would give Beijing strategic leverage as differences between the two countries intensify over disputed borders in the Himalayan mountains, reports Voice of America.
The dam is projected to be built in Tibet, along a bend in the river in the vicinity of the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing claims as South Tibet. It could generate up to 60 gigawatts of power, according to Chinese state media reports – nearly three times the size of China’s Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze river, the world’s biggest, the news portal reported.
“For India, the primary concern is China’s unilateral action in going ahead with a project that involves trying to control the flow of water in the transnational river,” according to Jagannath Panda at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses in New Delhi as quoted by the news portal.
Relations between India and China hit a new low last year when soldiers from both nations clashed in Ladakh.
Military experts in New Delhi, however, underline what they see as serious security ramifications for India of a megadam close to a contested border.
“When China creates a massive asset like that, it will deploy air weapons systems, develop roads, new townships would come up,” Brigadier Arun Sahgal of the Delhi Policy Group, a think tank in New Delhi, told Voice of America.
“If you bring such development close to a contested border, it becomes a huge red line and will constrain India in any military situation,” he said.
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