Water Disputes

The dispute between India and China is mainly regarding the Brahmaputra River flowing through the two countries. The search for water resources in China and India has persistently been a source of tension between the two countries. Chinese efforts to divert the water resources of the Brahmaputra River away from India will worsen a situation that has remained tense since the 1962 Indo-China war. The melting glaciers in the Himalayas as a result of accelerating global climate change will have a dramatic effect on this river’s water supply. This will increase water scarcity as well as the likelihood of floods, impact agrarian livelihoods and strain the fragile equilibrium between the two Asian giants.

China Enjoys Unique Riparian Status

Asia’s water map stands out for the unique riparian status that China enjoys. It has established a hydro-hegemony unparalleled on any continent by annexing in 1951 the Tibetan Plateau, the starting place of major international rivers. Another sprawling territory Beijing forcibly absorbed, Xinjiang, is the source of the transnational Irtysh and Ili Rivers.

• China is the source of rivers for a dozen countries. No other country in the world serves as the riverhead for so many countries. This makes China the central driver of inter-riparian relations in Asia.
• China also stands out for not having a single water-sharing arrangement or cooperation treaty with any co-riparian state. Its refusal to accede to the Mekong Agreement of 1995, for example, has stunted the development of a genuine basin community. By building mega-dams and reservoirs in its borderlands, China is working to unilaterally reengineer the flows of major rivers that are the lifeblood for the lower riparian states.
• To be sure, China trumpets several bilateral water agreements. But none is about water sharing or institutionalized cooperation on shared resources. Some accords are commercial contracts to sell hydrological data to downstream nations. Others centre on joint research initiatives, flood-control projects, hydropower development, fishing, navigation, river islands, hydrologic work, border demarcation, environmental principles, or non-binding memorandums of understanding.
• By fobbing off such accords as water agreements, China creates a false impression that it has cooperative riparian relations. In fact, it is to deflect attention from its unwillingness to enter into water sharing or institutionalized cooperation that Beijing even advertises the accords it has signed on sharing flow statistics with co-riparian states. These agreements are merely contracts to sell hydrological data, which some other upstream countries provide free to downriver states.
• The plain fact is that China rejects the very concept of water sharing. It also asserts a general principle that standing and flowing waters are subject to the full sovereignty of the state where they are located. It thus claims “indisputable sovereignty” over the waters on its side of the international boundary, including the right to divert as much shared water as it wishes for its legitimate needs.