28 September 2020, NIICE Commentary 6048
Adil Qayoom Mallah
As human populations and economies grow, the amount of freshwater in the world remains roughly the same as it has been throughout history. The total quantity of water in the world is immense, but it is divided into saltwater (97.5 percent), or locked in ice caps (1.75 percent). The amount economically available for human use is only 0.007 percent of the total, or about 13,500 km3, which is about 2300 m3 per a person—a 37 percent drop since 1970. This increasing scarcity is made more complex because almost half the globe’s land surface lies within international watersheds—the land that contributes to the world’s 263 transboundary waterways. When water is scarce, the importance of access to water becomes critical. Driven by its increase in value and as a non-substitute resource, water potentially can become so precious that states will go the distance to possess it, as well as become unwilling to share it.
Hydropolitics in international river basins demands increasing attention from the international community as the competition over trans-boundary water resources intensifies to satisfy growing societal needs. Third parties are being asked to play important roles in facilitating and supporting negotiations, and helping to develop and sustain bilateral and multilateral agreements aimed at cooperative development and sharing of water across international borders. This essay focuses on the importance of these complexities in the India-China relationship.
Trans-boundary River Basins and Southern Asia
Transboundary river basins are a prominent feature of the South Asian physical landscape, cutting across political boundaries and are therefore of paramount importance to the region’s geo-political stability. Transboundary Rivers link its riparians in a complex network of environmental, economic and security interdependencies. As rivers in South Asia criss-cross the political boundaries, they introduce inter-dependence that can either reinforce or reduce differences. There is no doubt that transboundary rivers link the upstream and downstream users, and their uses offer ample opportunities for development benefits. However, they can serve as a cornerstone for cooperation or an equally potential source of conflict. Water is now being increasingly viewed as an issue of urgency in South Asia. With its rising population, increasing urbanisation and an unchecked poverty, the Subcontinent has added enormous pressure to existing water resources. The Indian sub-continent is continually facing rising incidents of conflicting water events; some even reach the level of violence. The primary reason attributed to the friction due to water is ratio of freshwater percentage to population percentage which is at a dismal low of 0.38 for Indian subcontinent where as the rest of the world average is 1.16. As majority of the water resources available in India are transboundary in nature- making the region one of the most hotly contested.
Water has emerged as a contentious issue between India and China, with complex inter-linkages among the social, environmental, economic and political dimensions of the resource. According to Brahma Chellaney- a strategic policy researcher, “water is becoming a key security issue in Sino-Indian relations and a potential source of enduring discord. China and India are already water stressed economies. The spread of irrigated farming and water intensive industries together with the rising middle class, have led to a severe struggle for more water”.
India is at the receiving end when it comes to sharing the waters of Brahmaputra (also known as Yarlung Tsangpo). China, being the upper riparian country, unconstrained by legally binding commitments to maintain the current level of flow or direction of the transboundary rivers (mainly Tsangpo/Brahmaputra), is being perceived by India as being in an overtly advantageous position as it controls the availability of freshwater in its North-eastern region, thereby not only holding immense strategic power over India, but also causing an immense imbalance of power in favor of China. As a lower riparian, India is vulnerable to any major storage projects planned on the Brahmaputra. Given the political situations between the two countries, it is hard to imagine China as a responsible upper riparian by releasing regulated flows from power houses immediately back to river. China’s consumption requirements and long distance transfer of waters will undoubtedly hurt the interests of India and more so Bangladesh. India is facing an insurmountable challenge in ensuring shared access to transboundary waters. And as the recent clashes on the Sino-Indian border have made clear that India needs to assess how China might “weaponise” water to its advantage over downstream countries.
Indian and Chinese differences in international engagement over transboundary waters are explicated through their history with water treaties. While India entered into water treaties with Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, China has not signed a water treaty with any state, and has active water disputes with at least nine of its neighbors. India is middle downstream riparian in the Brahmaputra river system (spanning across China, India, Bhutan and Bangladesh) is highly susceptible to water resource projects planned by China on the upstream. The lack of trust and absence of sound political partnership makes dialogue in the area of water resources between India and China a rare phenomenon, which defies joint water cooperation. As China adheres to the theory of Absolute Territorial Sovereignty – which states that a riparian state is free to utilize the water resources within its border. China’s large scale infrastructure projects such as the North-South Diversion Project and East-West Power Transfer Project already threaten the water security prospects of downstream riparian states including India.
Tibetan plateau, which is also termed as “third pole’ owing to its glacial expanses and vast reserves of freshwater, has turned out to be a strategic geo-political entity for China, for as many as nine countries in the surrounding region depend on the rivers whose waters originate from the said plateau and the status of rivers emerging from the plateau becomes a key concern. Tibet is the hydrological lynchpin of the region. Control over Tibetan Plateau allows China to exercise hydrological hegemony over its neighbors (including India), as majority of country’s waters originate from this area. China is an upstream controller of seven of South Asia’s mightiest rivers, only because it lays express claim over Tibet’s waters. The way water stress is deepening in South Asia in general and India in particular, and the way China moves on with its dam building projects clearly matters a great deal in determining how dire a situation India faces. A situation like this will bring to anvil the importance of Tibet for China as for as its “hydro hegemony” is concerned. From the Indian point of view, the disputed status of Tibet can be used as a tool to counter China in the hydro-political arena. One the one hand, if Beijing holds true to its word that all Brahmaputra projects are to be small and run-of-the–river, then India will have little to fear. On the other hand, if India determines at some point that dams and water diversions on the Chinese- controlled portion of the Brahmaputra do present a threat, the question becomes: what instruments of national power does India have at its disposal to stop construction or mitigate the consequences?
