Tensions
over water are rising in Asia—and not only because of conflicting maritime
claims. While territorial disputes, such as in the South China Sea, attract the
most attention—after all, they threaten the safety of sea lanes and freedom of
navigation, which affects outside powers as well—the strategic ramifications of
competition over transnationally shared freshwater resources are just as
ominous.
Asia has less fresh water
per capita than any other continent, and it is already facing a water crisis
that, according to an MIT study, will
continue to intensify, with severe water shortages expected by 2050. At a time
of widespread geopolitical discord, competition over freshwater resources could
emerge as a serious threat to long-term peace and stability in Asia.
Already, the battle is underway, with China as the main aggressor. Indeed,
China’s territorial grab in the South China Sea has been accompanied by a
quieter grab of resources in transnational river basins. Reengineering
cross-border riparian flows is integral to China’s strategy to assert greater
control and influence over Asia.
China is certainly in a strong position to
carry out this strategy. The country enjoys unmatched riparian dominance, with 110 transnational rivers and lakes
flowing into 18 downstream countries. China also has the world’s most dams,
which it has never hesitated to use to curb cross-border flows. In fact,
China’s dam builders are targeting most of the international rivers that flow
out of Chinese territory.
Most of China’s internationally shared
water resources are located on the Tibetan Plateau, which it annexed in the
early 1950s. Unsurprisingly, the plateau is the new hub of Chinese dam
building. Indeed, China’s 13th five-year plan,
released this year, calls for a new wave of dam projects on the Plateau.
Moreover, China recently cut off the
flow of a tributary of the Brahmaputra River, the lifeline of Bangladesh and
northern India, to build a dam as part of a major hydroelectric project in
Tibet. And the country is working to dam another Brahmaputra tributary, in
order to create a series of
artificial lakes.
China has also built six mega-dams on the
Mekong River, which flows into Southeast Asia, where the downstream impact is already
visible. Yet, instead of curbing its dam-building, China is hard
at work building several more Mekong dams.
Likewise, water supplies in largely arid
Central Asia are coming under further pressure as China appropriates a growing
volume of water from the Illy River. Kazakhstan’s Lake Balkhash is now at risk
of shrinking substantially, much like the Aral Sea—located on the border with
Uzbekistan—which has virtually dried up in less than 40 years. China is also
diverting water from the Irtysh, which supplies drinking water to Kazakhstan’s
capital Astana and feeds Russia’s Ob River.
For Central Asia, the diminished
transboundary flows are just one part of the problem. China’s energy,
manufacturing, and agricultural activities in sprawling Xinjiang are having an
even greater impact, as they contaminate
the waters of the region’s transnational rivers with hazardous chemicals and
fertilizers, just as China has done to the rivers in its Han heartland.
Of course, China is not the only country
stoking conflict over water. As if to underscore that the festering territorial
dispute in Kashmir is as much about water as it is about land, Pakistan has,
for the second time this decade, initiated international arbitral tribunal proceedings
against India under the terms of the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty. The paradox here
is that downstream Pakistan has used that treaty—the world’s most generous
water-sharing deal, reserving for Pakistan more than 80% of the waters of the
six-river Indus system—to sustain its conflict with India.
Meanwhile, landlocked
Laos—aiming to export hydropower, especially to China, the mainstay of its
economy—has just notified its neighbors of its decision to
move ahead with a third controversial project, the 912-megawatt Pak Beng dam.
It previously brushed aside regional concerns about the alteration of
natural-flow patterns to push ahead with the Xayaburi and Don Sahong dam
projects. There is no reason to expect a different outcome this time.
The consequences of growing water competition
in Asia will reverberate beyond the region. Already, some Asian states,
concerned about their capacity to grow enough food, have leased large tracts of
farmland in Sub-Saharan Africa, triggering a backlash in some areas. In 2009,
when South Korea’s Daewoo Logistics Corporation negotiated a deal
to lease as much as half of Madagascar’s arable land to produce cereals and
palm oil for the South Korean market, the ensuing protests and military
intervention toppled a democratically elected president.
The race to appropriate water resources in Asia is straining agriculture and
fisheries, damaging ecosystems, and fostering dangerous distrust and discord
across the region. It must be brought to an end. Asian countries need to
clarify the region’s increasingly murky hydropolitics. The key will be
effective dispute-resolution mechanisms and agreement on more transparent
water-sharing arrangements.
Asia can build a harmonious, rules-based
water management system. But it needs China to get on board. At least for now,
that does not seem likely.
This first appeared in ASPI’s The
Strategist
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