When Wen visited the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon within the spring of 2025, the unbiased Chinese language ecologist noticed quite a few heavy vehicles loaded with development supplies alongside Medog county within the southeastern a part of the Tibet Autonomous Area. Solely a single, slender street related the county seat and townships, and locals believed the roads had been being paved simply because the central authorities was ramping up plans to construct a hydropower plant.
It wasn’t only a hydropower challenge, although. Chinese language Premier Li Qiang known as it a “challenge of the century,” as he stood alongside high-ranking officers to announce the development of the 1.2 trillion yuan (about $168 billion) infrastructure challenge alongside the decrease reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo river in July. The state-run Xinhua Information Company hailed the world’s greatest deliberate hydropower dam as a “low-carbon improvement … a protected challenge that prioritizes ecological safety.”
However the sheer scale of the dam carries quick and long-lasting penalties for planetary well being. Environmentalists say the Yarlung Tsangpo creates distinctive hydrothermal circumstances when it collides with the jap Himalayas, ensuing on the earth’s northernmost tropical rainforest, house to numerous massive cats and ungulates, in addition to a few of Asia’s largest and historic bushes. Many new species are nonetheless being found within the space, together with the white-cheeked macaque, discovered round 2014.
“The ecological and environmental influence of this challenge is my main concern,” mentioned Wen, who requested to make use of a pseudonym as a result of delicate nature of the challenge. “All the precise plans for the challenge are confidential. We can not assess the challenge’s actual impacts—which habitats could also be flooded or fragmented and … adjustments within the river’s movement price, water temperature—[nor] do we all know methods to mitigate these impacts.”
Whereas China’s environmental influence evaluation legal guidelines and laws comprise a number of provisions for public disclosure, additionally they clearly spell out that such revelations usually are not obligatory in instances the place nationwide laws require confidentiality.
A now-deleted discover posted on the Nationwide Forestry and Grassland Administration’s web site final 12 months, later reposted on the Qilian Mountain Nationwide Park’s WeChat account, acknowledged that the Yarlung Tsangpo Nice Canyon Nationwide Nature Reserve would see almost 42,000 hectares of land faraway from the reserve’s greater than 920,000 hectares as a result of “challenge use.” Nevertheless, it didn’t specify the placement of the eliminated areas.
On a public WeChat account in August, a Chinese language lawyer shared a doc from a petitioner who had filed an software to acquire authorities data on the challenge; the Ministry of Ecology and Atmosphere denied the request—and subsequent requests to reveal the challenge’s environmental influence evaluation—saying it concerned “state secrets and techniques.”
Medog’s mega-dam challenge, with a deliberate technology capability of 300 billion kilowatts-hours of electrical energy yearly—about 3 times the annual output of the Three Gorges Dam—lies in an ecologically fragile and politically delicate space. It’s positioned close to the Nice Bend, the place the Yarlung Tsangpo makes a U-turn, slicing by means of the Himalayas and flowing south into India’s plains to turn into the Brahmaputra after which to Bangladesh as Jamuna earlier than getting into the Bay of Bengal. The development web site is simply over 30 miles from the disputed space between China and India.
With most hydropower in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces already tapped, analysts now see the upstream rivers of the Tibetan Plateau because the final huge frontier, with massive hydropower potential.
Sabrina Habich-Sobiegalla, a professor of recent China at Germany’s Freie Universität Berlin, mentioned the Chinese language authorities now views Tibet not simply because the water tower for Asia but in addition because the clear vitality hub for China, turning its rivers into renewable vitality bases. Though Tibet’s many protected areas make it an ecological scorching spot on paper, she mentioned there’s a “elementary contradiction in Chinese language coverage.”
“Conservation zones typically overlap with vitality improvement zones, and ecological fragility does often not override state improvement priorities,” Habich-Sobiegalla mentioned. “In the event you ask whether or not the party-state is on a mission to destroy the ecological setting in Tibet, I believe that sounds too deliberate. I’d say that they’re prepared to sacrifice the setting for these different targets, although.”
China is the world’s largest carbon emitter however plans to peak emissions by 2030 and obtain carbon neutrality by 2060. The nation is investing closely in renewable vitality to understand these targets, aiming to have non-fossil fuels make up 25 % of its vitality consumption within the subsequent 5 years.
China invested 6.8 trillion yuan ($940 billion) in clear vitality final 12 months, barely greater than the 6.3 trillion yuan ($890 billion) it spent in 2023. The nation continues to guide international hydropower improvement, accounting for almost 60 % of the world’s new hydropower capability added final 12 months, in accordance to the Worldwide Hydropower Affiliation.
However clear vitality initiatives aren’t at all times good for the native setting. As early as 2010, the Hong Kong-based environmental nonprofit CWR known as hydropower a “double-edged sword”—whereas the vegetation cut back emissions, they pose grave threats to animals, fish, and birds as a result of development in addition to displace native folks.
A 2024 report by the Worldwide Federation for Human Rights notes that the hydropower increase in Tibet is “inflicting irreparable harm” to the Tibetan civilization, the setting, and downstream international locations and that China’s agenda “disregards the human influence, the science, and worsening local weather change hydropower brings.”
Tempa Gyaltsen Zamlha, an environmental skilled and the deputy director on the India-based Tibet Coverage Institute, instructed International Coverage that the notion of mega-hydropower initiatives as a supply for inexperienced vitality is “outdated” and that they’re not thought of inexperienced vitality as a result of their brief lifespan and the heavy ecological and social prices.
“This specific web site is a sacred area in Tibetan tradition and a sanctuary for historic forests and uncommon species,” he mentioned. “The dam would submerge huge tracts of those forests, destroy wildlife habitats, and destabilize the delicate mountain ecosystem, resulting in elevated landslides and floods each domestically and downstream.”
When the Chinese language legislature authorised the Three Gorges Dam in 1992, there was a uncommon pushback—177 of two,633 Nationwide Individuals’s Congress deputies voted towards the decision, 664 of them abstained, and 25 submitted “no” votes as a result of issues and controversies related to the challenge. Research present that the dam development led to a diminished variety of fish larvae and a change in fish species, downstream riverbed erosion, and reservoir-induced landslides and seismic hazards. It additionally displaced greater than 1 million folks.
As China is pursuing one other colossal challenge, any area for dissent or pushback has vanished underneath President Xi Jinping. The Medog dam challenge wasn’t voted on within the legislature however as an alternative appeared in China’s 14th 5-12 months Plan in 2020, with Xinhua saying its approval in 2024.
“The general public debate sparked by the Three Gorges Dam is much extra in depth, in-depth, and enduring than this challenge,” Wen mentioned. “The Three Gorges Dam concerned a lot of displaced folks, and the planning particulars of this challenge have been saved strictly confidential.”
Primarily based on accessible data and conversations with locals in Medog county, Wen mentioned the mega-dam challenge doesn’t seem to contain large-scale inhabitants displacement, as occurred with the Three Gorges Dam. Wen mentioned a couple of locals they spoke with believed the challenge would convey good enterprise, including that they hadn’t heard about any relocation plans.
In a letter submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council in January, the nonprofit Worldwide Marketing campaign for Tibet (ICT) estimated that the challenge would forcibly displace greater than 24,000 locals in a 31-mile radius and mentioned it ignored the rights and traditions of Tibetan communities, although it’s unclear how the ICT derived the quantity.
Final 12 months, the development of the Kamtok dam in jap Tibet led to mass protests and a authorities crackdown, the BBC reported. The dam’s reservoir would submerge a number of villages and monasteries and relocate an estimated 4,287 folks.
Zamlha mentioned claims over the dam’s advantages to locals had been “deceptive,” including that there have been few settlements close by, opposite to Chinese language media experiences that the Medog dam was anticipated to “increase native folks’s livelihood.” He mentioned the electrical energy generated would even be provided to Chinese language cities, benefiting city elites quite than Tibetans.
In the meantime, some analysts say that as a result of the dam is linked with China’s local weather targets and personally backed by Xi, the federal government will spare no effort to finish it, particularly if it could turn into a showcase for China’s massive infrastructure initiatives.
“That’s why many observers see the Medog dam much less as a local weather necessity and extra as a political and symbolic challenge: an illustration of engineering prowess and Xi Jinping’s push for ‘world-leading’ infrastructure,” Habich-Sobiegalla mentioned.
Whereas celebrated in China, the development has sparked issues amongst downstream international locations, notably India and Bangladesh. China just isn’t a signatory to the United Nations Watercourses Conference, which prevents conflicts, promotes data sharing and environmental safety, and ensures equitable use of water sources between international locations.
Habich-Sobiegalla famous that constructing large-scale infrastructure in border areas was part of China’s long-standing state-building technique, because it asserts management, integrates these areas extra tightly into nationwide financial networks, and creates on-the-ground capability for state presence. With the Yarlung Tsangpo, the transboundary points are additionally obvious.
Within the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which borders the development web site and which China claims as its territory nearly completely, there are worries that the dam may divert or regulate water and disrupt the ecosystem. Specialists say that whereas sudden water launch may see catastrophic floods, particularly in the course of the monsoon season when the Brahmaputra basin already experiences devastating deluges, China withholding water may result in potential droughts, impacting the farming financial system in India’s northeast and Bangladesh.
“It will trigger an existential menace to our tribes and our livelihoods,” Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu instructed Indian media in July. “It’s fairly critical as a result of China may even use this as a form of ‘water bomb.’”
Neeraj Singh Manhas, a particular advisor for South Asia on the South Korea-based Parley Coverage Initiative, mentioned the dam development is a “energy transfer” from a geopolitical perspective. He added that controlling the river movement grants China appreciable affect over its neighbors amid an absence of water-sharing treaties between China, India, and Bangladesh.
China claims specific possession of upstream rivers in Tibet that movement as main rivers to a number of downstream international locations, giving it strategic leverage. An estimated 718 billion cubic meters of floor water is claimed to movement from Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inside Mongolia to neighboring international locations, of which 48 % runs into India. A 2020 report by the Lowy Institute mentioned management over the rivers “successfully provides China a chokehold on India’s financial system.”
“It’s not solely about vitality; it’s about water management in a area already tense with Sino-Indian border disputes,” Manhas instructed International Coverage. “India fears China may weaponize water—both by obstructing flows or unleashing sudden floods.”
In March, India’s Ministry of Exterior Affairs mentioned the Indian authorities has “registered its issues” with the Chinese language authorities, together with on the “want for transparency and session with downstream international locations.” A Proper to Info question submitted to India’s water ministry by India Right now revealed in Could that China hadn’t shared river knowledge with India since 2022. The 2 international locations signed an information settlement in 2002, serving to India to forecast floods and water administration points.
Specialists say India’s fears are legitimate, contemplating China’s hydropolitics within the Mekong in Southeast Asia. A 2020 report by the Stimson Heart mentioned China’s dams restricted almost all higher Mekong moist season movement and the rising development of moist season drought within the decrease basin “tracks carefully to the best way China releases water in the course of the dry season and restricts water in the course of the moist season.”
In response to Manhas, international locations akin to India and Bangladesh may take a lead in establishing a regional physique, like a Mekong Fee for South Asia, to barter water rights. Whereas the decrease Mekong nations—together with Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam—shaped the Mekong River Fee in 1995, it doesn’t have the facility to implement choices, and China is absent as a signatory.
“The difficulty is China’s observe report—it has typically been reluctant to completely have interaction with the Mekong setup, tending to prioritize its personal pursuits,” Manhas mentioned. “Gaining China’s cooperation for a South Asian equal can be troublesome however not unattainable. It’s a protracted shot, however a united entrance may persuade China to undertake extra cooperative water administration practices.”
However as China kicks off the mega-dam development, there aren’t any indications but of a possible partnership with downstream international locations to share knowledge that might assist assess its environmental impacts. For now, the dam displays the ambitions of a rising China—shrouded in secrecy.
