At 200 GW, China, including the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), has the highest installed hydroelectric capacity of any country in the world (Brazil is second, with 84 GW). It also reflects (although Buckley only briefly mentions this) nascent but growing pressure from sections of Chinese society concerned about or affected by proposed dam projects. For example, the near-moratorium on new dam building during the 11th Five Year Plan (2006-2010) – despite the fact that the Plan envisioned major hydropower projects – was to some extent a result of civil-society groups and environmentalists putting pressure on the government. The 12th Plan, however, has been termed a ‘Great Leap Forward’ for dam building (one laughs at the idea of a cement lobby, but it almost certainly exists), and Buckley shows how much of the ‘Great Leap’ is poised to take place in Tibet.
Currently, there are only a handful of ‘medium sized’ dams inside the TAR and the majority-Tibetan areas that border it, many of which are not operable year-round due to high-altitude rivers freezing up during winter. The government is planning to build twenty new dams, of which a proposed 38 GW capacity megadam near Metok, in eastern Tibet, will be far and away the world’s largest if completed (the largest at the moment, the Three Gorges Dam in Hubei province, generates 22.5 GW, and set its own record in displacing 1.2 million people during construction). Although the area around Metok is sparsely populated, it is a site of religious significance for Tibetans and also lies in an area prone to earthquakes. The most recent reminder of this was the 7.9 magnitude earthquake which struck Sichuan in May 2008 and killed 87,000 people. The political aftershocks of the dam will also be far-reaching; the Yarlung-Tsangpo river, upon which the dam will be built, becomes the Brahmaputra once it flows into India, and water-claiming on such a huge scale will undoubtedly raise tensions in New Delhi.
Buckley also shows how the tender and contract-awarding processes for new dams are often hobbled by corruption. While laws introduced in 2003 stipulate that Environmental Impact Assessments must be carried out and approved before construction begins, local governments have been too easily swayed by the promise of immediate economic windfalls, and have given the go-ahead to those wanting to dig or build. Buckley also points out how distance from the central authorities means that there are ways around the government’s diktat:
Work on Ahai Dam, in the upper Yangtse region, was carried out in secret by Sinohydro Corporation. Signs declaring the site a “military zone” were erected to discourage visitors. There was no EIA at Ahai Dam: authorities planning to visit the dam to approve the project were presented with a dam that was practically completed.
Huaneng, another state-owned power company has been fined numerous times by the government for building before permission had officially been given, and yet continues to enjoy favour.
Downstream
The megadams and water diversion projects planned by the Chinese government will allow China to “turn the water on or off” for countries downstream. Buckley travelled to Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, India and Nepal, and these forays worked extremely well in expanding the scope of the book and providing glimpses of the larger ecological and geopolitical picture. Lake Tonle Sap in Cambodia, for example, floods every year, acting like a ‘back up valve’ for the Mekong river, and provides 60 percent of the annual freshwater fish catch when the floodwaters recede. Local sources attribute the disastrous 2003-04 catch – which was half of its usual volume after the lake flooded for three months instead of the usual five – to the completion of the Dachaoshan dam, upstream in Yunnan, in the same year. In Burma, Buckley reports how construction of the proposed 3200 MW Myitsone dam in the northeast, at the confluence of the Mali and N’Mai (the source of the Irrawaddy, the country’s longest river) was officially suspended in 2011. The dam would have submerged more than 60 villages, while 90 percent of the power generated would have been exported back to China, and its suspension is a “rare victory for anti-dam campaigners in Burma”. However, on a visit to Myitkyina with a “Kachin guide and a motorcycle”, Buckley is informed by locals that workers are still on-site, working by night. What they are doing is unclear, and one wishes he had stayed longer to find out, but he reports that those displaced during the original phases of construction have not been allowed to return home, leading to the conjecture that, “Chinese engineers are just biding their time, waiting for the project to resume.”
The book also reports on the activities of Chinese state-owned enterprises in Pakistan, where dam building serves the dual purpose of power generation and territory-claiming in the disputed Northern Territories. The state-owned Gezhouba Group is helping Pakistan build the 969 MW-capacity Neelum-Jhelum dam, even as India proceeds to dam the river further upstream at Kishanganga. In northeast India, similar practices are being employed by New Delhi in the face of competing claims over the waters of the Yarlung-Tsangpo/Brahmaputra: “New Delhi argues that if it has to go to the International Court of Justice to counter Chinese dam building and diversion on the Yarlung-Tsangpo, then it must show beneficial use of the river in India by building its own dams.”
There are instances of Chinese and Tibetans working together on environmental projects – see “Search for Sacred Mountain”, a film funded by the Pullitzer Center. It can easily be found on Youtube.
Spirituality Science – What is Tibet’s Destiny?
I agree with author’s assessment that Tibet can be saved if people in China desire it to be. In India, Nepal, and Tibet people share cultural belief in concept of Karma which is generally deals with actions of individuals and its consequences in present or future life. To some extent, individual can influence Karma by modifying his own actions or by regulating the desire to experience fruits of his actions.
The concept of Destiny or Fate involves external power or agency over which individual has no control. Destiny or Fate is shaped by events over which man has no ability to save himself. The concept speaks of inevitability of events and man may have to find his existence under subjugation to external power or agency.
Tibet exists under military subjugation or military occupation by superior force exerted by China. However, the concept of Destiny or Fate visualizes Force or Power which no man and no nation can overcome. Destiny can affect not only individuals but also national entities. It influences collective behavior and response by imposing events which people cannot avoid.
For example, Bolide Collision in the past wiped out entire Dinosaur population giving chance to various other forms of Life to thrive on planet Earth. This major K-T extinction event did not wipe out all forms of life. It rather helped in emergence of new forms of life.
In several human cultures, people describe Doomsday in terms of Destiny of very large population and not of random individuals. Several heavenly objects have collided with Earth and man may not have the ability to entirely stop or prevent such catastrophic collisions. In my analysis, China’s most populous City of Shanghai faces the risk of such disastrous collision. The consequences of such fateful collision will make people in China to reconsider subjugation of Tibet for they are forced to reconcile to live under subjugation by an external power or agency called Destiny or Fate.