Competitive Dam Building in the Yarlung Tsangpo-Brahmaputra River Basin

Abstract

This final case study chapter looks at the Yarlung Tsangpo-Brahmaputra River basin, which is being targeted by India and China for a remarkable development of hydropower dams. I first survey the river system as a whole, looking at its environmental history, and its unusual ecology, throughout examining and critiquing the ways in which the Brahmaputra has been thought about in IR. The river has, to this point, proven extremely difficult for humans to tame, due to its high altitude, powerful floods, muddy and unstable terrain, and its high levels of silt. I then contrast this with the history of state-making and border disputes, looking at the ways in which environmental issues were a factor in the region becoming seen as a colonial frontier, and later, a postcolonial borderland in need of development and mastery. I look also at forms of international cooperation that currently exist over water in the region, how riverine people relate to them, and how the situation is entangled with geopolitical competition. For the most part, there is very little international and transboundary management of the watershed. Finally, I examine the region’s hydropower contest, particularly focused on India and China, looking at the stretch of the river between Medog County in Tibet, where the river takes a sharp turn towards India and loses altitude rapidly, and Arunachal Pradesh in India.