Fri Dec 27 14:43:50 UTC 2024: ## China Defends Brahmaputra Dam Project Amidst India, Bangladesh Concerns
**Beijing, December 27, 2024** – China has defended its plan to construct the world’s largest dam on the Brahmaputra River (Yarlung Zangbo in Tibet), asserting that the project will not negatively impact downstream countries India and Bangladesh. The $137 billion hydropower project, located in a seismically active region of the Himalayas, has sparked concerns in neighboring countries.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning stated that decades of extensive studies and safety measures have been implemented. She emphasized China’s commitment to responsible development of cross-border rivers and pledged continued communication with India and Bangladesh regarding the project, including cooperation on disaster prevention and relief. The dam, she added, aims to promote clean energy and mitigate climate change impacts.
The project, approved on Wednesday, is part of China’s 14th Five-Year Plan and is slated to be the world’s largest infrastructure project, surpassing even China’s Three Gorges Dam. Its location near the Indian border, within a significant gorge where the Brahmaputra River changes course, has raised concerns about China’s potential control over water flow and the risk of flooding in border regions during conflict.
India, which is also constructing a dam on the Brahmaputra in Arunachal Pradesh, has expressed its concerns. While both nations participate in the 2006-established Expert Level Mechanism (ELM) for data sharing on trans-border rivers, the scale and location of the Chinese dam remain a point of contention. Recent talks between Indian and Chinese special representatives for border issues acknowledged the need for increased cooperation and data sharing on trans-border rivers. However, the engineering challenges posed by the dam’s location in a tectonically active zone remain significant.
First Piper 