China-India border dispute spills over into water resources: ‘difficult to agree’

Both nations are building major dam projects in a region they have rowed about for decades, with the same river involved

Analysts say water should be kept separate to diplomacy but that does not always happen, and there is currently no formal sharing treaty

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A road leads to the Line of Actual Control, the disputed India-China border, in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh. Photo: AP

Published: 9:30am, 4 Sep 2023

As the border stand-off between China and India continues to test diplomatic efforts, a new front of tension is bubbling up: water resources.

New Delhi is reviving 12 hydropower projects along the border while a Chinese “super dam” is under construction on Tibet’s Yarlung Tsangpo, or Zangbo, river, the upper stream of the trans-boundary Brahmaputra that exits the higher Himalayan region via great gorges to reach northeastern India and Bangladesh.

India’s new dams will cost US$15.3 billion and together are expected to generate a massive 11,517 megawatts of energy. They will be built in the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, an area China has repeatedly laid claim to, including this year.

01:26

India lodges formal protest with China over new map that lays claim to disputed territory

India and China share a disputed 3,440km (2,100-mile) long de facto border, known as the Line of Actual Control. Rivers and lakes mean the poorly demarcated line can shift.

On August 28, days after Delhi’s announcement that it would revive its dam projects, Beijing released new maps of China that showed parts of Arunachal Pradesh as well as the whole of the Aksai Chin region as its own.

Aksai Chin is mostly controlled by China, but India claims it as part of its Kashmir region. In the past, China has said all of Arunachal Pradesh belongs to it.

India’s hydropower projects had been allotted to private companies to be built “about 15 years ago but remained non-starters due to various reasons”, a government readout said on August 12.

China-India border dispute spills over into water resources: ‘difficult to agree’

Both nations are building major dam projects in a region they have rowed about for decades, with the same river involved Analysts say water should be kept separate to diplomacy but that does not always happen, and there is currently no formal sharing treaty

Both nations are building major dam projects in a region they have rowed about for decades, with the same river involved

Analysts say water should be kept separate to diplomacy but that does not always happen, and there is currently no formal sharing treaty