China Embarks on a New Hydroelectric Project — the World’s Largest

China has begun construction on the world’s largest hydropower dam, known as the Motuo Hydropower Station, on the eastern rim of the Tibetan Plateau, which will cost $170 billion and is expected to generate 300 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, about the amount of electricity consumed by Britain last year. It will consist of five cascade hydropower stations located in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River in a section of the river that falls 2,000 meters within a span of 50 kilometers, providing significant hydropower potential. The hydroelectric dam is expected to come online sometime in the 2030s, possibly taking less time to build than the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. The Three Gorges Dam took almost two decades to complete and generated nearly a million jobs, displacing about that number of people. China has not provided an estimate of the number of jobs the new project would create.

The Yarlung Zangbo River becomes the Brahmaputra River as it leaves Tibet and flows south into India and then into Bangladesh, sparking concern from both countries regarding the project. According to experts, the new dam would empower China to control or divert the trans-border Yarlung Tsangpo, which flows south into India’s Arunachal Pradesh and Assam states as well as Bangladesh, where it feeds into the Siang, Brahmaputra, and Jamuna rivers. A 2020 report by the Lowy Institute, an Australian-based think tank, noted that “control over these rivers effectively gives China a chokehold on India’s economy.” The countries are concerned that the Siang and Brahmaputra could “dry up considerably” once the dam is completed, or the dam could be used as a water bomb, destroying the Siang belt where the Adi tribe and similar groups have land and property.

Both India’s and Bangladesh’s federal governments have expressed concerns to China about the impact of the dam on their communities downriver. The local ecosystem is one of the richest and most diverse on the plateau. India plans to build a hydropower dam on the Siang River, which could act as a buffer against sudden water releases from China’s dam and prevent flooding.

For China, the project is designed to stimulate employment, industrial demand, and regional economic development in Tibet, a region the Chinese government regards as politically sensitive. But activists indicate that the dam is the latest example of China’s government’s exploitation of Tibetans and their land, as China intends to transmit the hydropower dam’s electricity out of the region to be used elsewhere, along with meeting Tibet’s power demands. President Xi Jinping has personally pushed to build mega-dams and hydropower stations that can sustain the country’s electricity-hungry eastern metropolises, which he called “xidiandongsong”, or “sending western electricity eastwards.” Last year, the Chinese government rounded up hundreds of Tibetans who had been protesting against another hydropower dam. It ended in arrests and beatings, with some people seriously injured, according to the BBC.

China is the world’s leading hydropower producer. It added 14.4 gigawatts of new hydropower capacity last year and is expected to exceed its target of 120 gigawatts in pumped storage hydropower by 2030. The hydroelectric project in Tibet is another step towards China’s decarbonization goals. China has national goals of peaking carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2060.

Analysis

China has broken ground on what will become the world’s largest hydropower dam, a giant project on the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau that underscores China’s dual ambitions of securing energy independence and solidifying geopolitical leverage over one of Asia’s most important rivers. It’s unclear how successful China’s project will end up being; since the Yarlung Zangbo River is fed by glacial meltwater, flows are highly seasonal, leading to an unstable power supply. Popular disapproval of the dam in Tibet could also disrupt construction and delay the project. Chinese officials have likely considered these factors and still view the project as worthwhile; however, without property rights and price signals, the state is incapable of conducting an adequate cost-benefit analysis. It’s also possible that China cares more about the leverage the dam gives it over its neighbors than its energy-producing potential, in which case this investment should be examined through a national security lens.