@
haidian
post the news article than just posting the link....
The recently-opened tunnel to Metok in Tibet may facilitate the diversion. (Photo credit:
Claude Arpi
While India is preparing for a 17th round of talks with China on the India-China border, Beijing is still planning to divert the Brahmaputra. According to a communique, Shivshankar Menon, the Indian National Security Advisor (and Special Representative) and Yang Jiechi, his Chinese counterpart will soon meet to discuss ‘strategic issues’, including the situation in Afghanistan, East Asia and Southeast Asia.
There is not much to discuss about the boundary after 16 rounds of previous unsuccessful discussions. Will the Special Representatives sign a 6th Agreement for maintaining the peace along the 4,057-km Line of Actual Control (LAC)? During his visit to Beijing in October 2013, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had inked a Border Defence Cooperation Agreement; it was the 5th one (after the 1993, 1996, 2005 and 2012).
A MoU on Strengthening Cooperation on Trans-border Rivers was also signed by the Chinese and Indian Ministries of Water Resources in Beijing. The Memorandum says, “The Chinese side agreed to extend the data provision period of the Brahmaputra River [Yarlung Tsangpo].” China would now generously give India hydrological information on the Brahmaputra River ‘in flood season’ from May 15 (instead of June 1) to October 15 of the same year.
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The Indian side was delighted, “The Indian side expressed appreciation to the Chinese side in this regard.” Frankly, this amounts to little when there was not a word about the planned diversion of the Brahmaputra. South Block will argue that it has been denied by Chinese officials several times; till today, the diversion of the Brahmaputra seems very much on the cards. True, in November 2006, on the eve of President Hu Jintao’s visit to India, Water Resources Minister Wang Shucheng, a hydraulic engineer, had affirmed that the proposal was “unnecessary, unfeasible and unscientific. There is no need for such dramatic and unscientific projects,” adding “the cost of diverting water from the Yarlung Zangbo would be much more expensive than any of the current water projects.”
It is also correct that in October 2011, Jiao Yong, vice-minister in the Ministry of Water Resources, told a Press conference in Beijing that although there is a demand among Chinese to make greater use of the Yarlung Tsangpo, “considering the technical difficulties, the actual need of diversion and the possible impact on the environment and State-to-State relations, the Chinese Government has no plan to conduct any diversification project in this river.” I got a shock when I discovered an article posted on the website of the Yellow River Conservancy Commission of the Chinese Ministry of Water Resources, detailing the project.
It describes in detail the phaoronic Great Western Water Diversion and the Yellow River Waterway Corridor. It mentions a preliminary feasibility study prepared by officials of the Ministry of Water Resources in Beijing. The idea of the Chinese engineers is to divert 150 billion cubic meters of water and ‘push’ these waters into the drying (and dying) Yellow River in order to irrigate northern China. The Water Diversion Project would collect waters from the Yarlung Tsangpo (later known as Siang in Arunachal and Brahmaputra in Assam), the Nujiang (Salween), the Lancang (Mekong) and Jinsha (Yangtze), Yalong (Yalung) and Dadu rivers and before reaching the upper reaches of the Yellow River.
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The website of the Chinese Ministry even gives some details; some 50 billion m3 would be diverted from the Yarlung Tsangpo/Brahmaputra (about 30 per cent of the average annual runoff of 165.4 billion m3), 24 billion m3 from the Salween (35 per cent), 26 billion m3 from the Mekong (35 per cent), 28 billion m3 from the Yangtze (20 per cent), 12 billion m3 from the Yalung (20 per cent) and 10 billion m3 from the Dabu (20 per cent).
To my knowledge, it is the first time that a ‘preliminary’ study appears on a Government website with such details. In the 1990s, though we got to know about Li Ling’s book,
Tibetan Waters will save China, it was not widely circulated outside some experts. Li and his acolyte Guo Kai, a retired PLA General had suggested a Shuotian Canal (‘Shuotian’ is a contraction of Shuomatan in Central Tibet, the origin of the canal and the city of Tianjing at the other end). This project would have diverted 206 billion m3 of water from Tibet to northern China, which badly lacks water.
According to Li Ling, at same time, the recurrent floods of the Yellow River would be eradicated; inland water transport in north China would restart, and, don’t laugh, the floods in Bangladesh and India would be prevented. The route suggested by Li Ling was, however, different from the one mentioned on the website of the Chinese Ministry of Water Resource. For the new project, the Chinese engineers bank on two tributaries of the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra), the Palung Tsangpo and Yigong Tsangpo through which the Yarlung Tsangpo’s waters could be ‘pushed’ eastward along the Sichuan-Tibet highway (China National Highway 318, running from Shanghai to the China-Nepal border) through the Baxoi County of Chamdo Prefecture in the Tibet Autonomous Region.
The diversion would meet the Salween, (one of the three parallel rivers, with the Mekong and the Yangtze) and proceed to Xiaya following the Chamdo-Tibet Highway. The Sanjiang (Three Rivers) Water Transfer would then follow the Sichuan-Tibet highway before reaching Dege and the confluence with the Upper Yangtze. Now, the ‘four rivers’ could run along the Sichuan-Tibet highway through Queer Mountain (or Chola Mountain of Western Sichuan) and via Garze reach the confluence with the Yalung River. There would now be five rivers (Yarlung Tsangpo, Salween, Yangtze, Mekong, and Yalung). The water transfer would then proceed along the Sichuan-Tibet highway, via Dadu in Luhuo County.
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After the confluence with the Dadu River, it would finally shoot off north along the highway through Zamtang of Ngaba prefecture before reaching the Yellow River which would be crossed to reach the Yellow River Ma Chu Great Bend where a giant reservouir would regulate the flow of the river. ‘Maqu’ or ‘Ma chu’ (‘River of the Peacock’ in Tibetan) is the local name of the Yellow River. How feasible is it to realize a such mega project? It is impossible to say. The first leg, before the transfer reaches the Salween, seems impossible, but the Chinese engineers (and their emperors) like to realise the ‘impossible’. The fact remains that China is still working on a feasibility study of this megalomaniac scheme; it has not been shelved as Indian officials were
told.
The problem is that China is thirsty; China needs water so badly. Will Indian Government officials dare to ask some pertinent questions to their Chinese counterparts is another issue.
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India shouldn't "catch Up" or "take resort of same tactics" like China did,diverting the water from Brahmaputra.we should also take care of lower riparian country BD.cause if we deploy same tactics,BD will suffer massively.
we should call our BD brothers..
@
BDforever @
kalu_miah @
asad71 @
PlanetSoldier and other Bangladeshi members....your views
..we dont make the preliminary study of this river for nothing, Tibet water will definitively save China for sure.
