Building mega dams domestically and abroad helps China diversify energy supply, reduce maritime supply vulnerabilities, and establish itself as a global clean-energy provider with proprietary transmission technologies and governance benchmarks away from the western standards.
Chen Dongping, former Deputy Secretary-General of the China Society for Hydropower Engineering, told “China Industry News” that the “cutting-the-bend tunnel diversion” method, first used at the Jinping II Hydropower Station on the Yalong River, created a 120-km underground network over 2,500 meters deep, a world record. Lin Boqiang, Chair Professor at Xiamen University’s School of Management and Director of the China Energy Policy Research Institute revealed that “cutting the bend” is not a new technology, it has been used in hydropower projects on the Jinsha, Dadu, and Wu Rivers, enabling shorter water flow paths, greater drops, higher efficiency, and lower costs.
With a planned installed capacity of 60 GW and projected annual generation of 300 billion kWh, about three times the output of the Three Gorges Dam, it is set to become the world’s largest hydropower facility. China Yajiang Group Co., Ltd., a conglomerate of 99 state owned enterprises was officially established to take full responsibility for the Lower Reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River (Yaluxia) Hydropower Project.
According to a report in the “China Industry News”, groundwork for the project began in 2009 with geological surveys to assess its feasibility. In March 2021, the “Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and Long-Range Objectives for 2035” explicitly proposed developing the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River, along with other major initiatives. The project received state approval in December 2024, was incorporated into the 2025 annual plan by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in March, and officially inaugurated on 19 July 2025.
Though the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), in a cautiously worded response in the Rajya Sabha, acknowledged that “the project was first made public as far back as 1986 and since then, preparations have been underway in China,” and that “the Government has consistently conveyed its views and concerns to the Chinese authorities.” China has nevertheless deemed the construction its sovereign right, and Chinese media have also reminded India of the implications of putting the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance and of threatening its “iron brother” by blocking the flow of the Indus in the wake of the Pahalgam terror attack.
CHINA’S STRATEGIC MOTIVATIONS
One, China is the largest electricity consumer and producer in the world. Its electricity consumption in 2024 reached approximately 9,852 kWh, up 6.8 % over 2023, with further growth expected to reach 10.4 kWh in 2025. In contrast, India consumed only 1,395 kWh in 2023-24, according to government sources. Since China is the global manufacturing hub, its industry, especially high‑tech and manufacturing sectors, accounts for the bulk of usage; high-tech equipment, EVs, battery production, and semiconductor fabrication plants drove electricity demand in these sectors by 10.3 % year-on-year, according to a report by the “China Daily”.
China’s ambitious investments in semiconductors, AI, data centres, EVs, and clean-technology manufacturing demand massive amounts of energy. According to a “Wall Street Journal” report, global AI servers are expected to consume as much electricity as a mid-sized economy by 2027. As China leads in dozens of critical technologies including EV batteries, solar wafers, drones, and AI infrastructure, it has significantly expanded electricity-intensive manufacturing. From Chinese standpoint, control over inland water resources increases resilience, while exporting electricity further helps reduce dependency on fossil fuel imports, especially maritime routes.
Two, with the breakthrough in ultra-high-voltage direct current (UHVDC) technology—900 kV+ DC, such as the Zhundong-Wannan ±1,100 kV transmission line (3,400 km, 12 GW capacity) operational as of 2018—China is planning to build future “electricity highways” inside as well as outside China. A recent Xinhua report says that the project was envisaged in 2013. The world’s first ±1100 kV converter transformer used a modular onsite assembly, with aerospace-precision insulators and perfectly tensioned copper conductors enduring Gobi Desert sandstorms. This “electricity highway” broke the 3,000-km barrier for economical transmission, cutting losses and lowering costs.
Three, China is already exporting electricity to neighbouring areas: projects in Vietnam have contracted power purchases. For example, from 2005 to 2016, Guangxi supplied over 1.1 billion kWh to Vietnam via the China-Vietnam power interconnection before a seven-year suspension. On 23 May 2023, the two sides signed an agreement to restart power transmission through the 110 kV Shengou-Mong Cai line, supplying about 30 million kWh monthly to the Mong Cai area to ease northern Vietnam’s power shortages.
Chinese energy infrastructure projects through Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are underway in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America, including hydropower and transmission systems in countries like Brazil, often financed or engineered by Chinese firms. These works embed Chinese grid norms, standards and benchmarks. Under the Global Energy Interconnection (GEI) concept, from the State Grid Corporation of China, China proposes a super‑grid interlinking 80 countries via ultra-high voltage lines through Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America during 2030-2070.
Four, by controlling Brahmaputra flows at its origin, China gains strategic influence over water availability and flood risk in India and Bangladesh, raising fears of unilateral water-flow manipulation during geopolitical crises. India has characterized it as a potential “water bomb” and is pursuing its own dams, such as the Siang Upper project (11 GW) in Arunachal Pradesh, though local resistance and geological challenges persist. Control over Brahmaputra flow allows geopolitical influence and gives China leverage in regional diplomacy, particularly under an absence of a formal water-sharing treaty with India and Bangladesh.
From these vantages, building mega dams domestically and abroad helps China diversify energy supply, reduce maritime supply vulnerabilities, and establish itself as a global clean-energy provider with proprietary transmission technologies and governance benchmarks away from the western standards. The Brahmaputra project in Tibet anchors such ambitions: clean power generation, UHVDC integration, and strategic upstream control all feed long-term energy security and export capability.
RISKS AND REACTIONS
Tibet is prone to seismic vulnerability, therefore, there would be risk of landslides, seismic reservoir-induced phenomena, and biodiversity loss. If such a dam were to be struck by a natural disaster, as big as last year’s 7.1-magnitude earthquake in Dingri County, Tibet, it could unleash catastrophic consequences for downstream communities. Although China has offered assurances on the dam, for example early this year in an article Wang Lei, the Chargé d’Affaires of China in India maintained that “Yarlung Zangbo hydro project won’t hurt India”, but deep mistrust remains due to the fraught nature of India-China relations, the absence of a river-water sharing treaty, and a significant trust deficit.
The real worrisome situation, however, would be China’s massive water diversion plan, which envisages constructing a canal intersecting six rivers, namely, Brahmaputra, Nu, Lancang, Jinsha, Yalong, and Dadu. The distance between Brahmaputra and Yellow River would be bridged by a 240-kilometre-long tunnel, diverting around 200 billion cubic meter (equalling 4 Yellow rivers) of water.
Another perspective is that Tibet accounts for less than 20 per cent of the Brahmaputra’s total water flow. It looks valid if we look at the mean annual runoff of Brahmaputra’s tributaries such as Lohit, Subansiri, Kameng, Manas etc., inside India, the same is 618 billion m3 comparing Yarlung Zangbo’s 165 billion m3 in the upstream of the river inside Tibet. Nonetheless, a mega dam upstream as expounded above is indeed fraught with many dangers and challenges.
Nonetheless, China’s Yarlung Zangbo River hydro project in Tibet is far more than a renewable energy project. It is a cornerstone of a multi-pronged strategy: to meet domestic clean-energy growth driven by high-intensity manufacturing, AI, semiconductors and EVs; to secure energy supply independent of volatile maritime routes; to gain hydro-political leverage over downstream riparian states; and more importantly, to build the foundations of a global energy grid under Chinese transmission and regulatory norms. From this strategic prism, investment in dams, both in Tibet and overseas becomes an instrument of energy diversification, geopolitical influence, and future global leadership in clean‑energy infrastructure.
B.R. Deepak is Professor, Center of Chinese and Southeast Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
