The Strategic Importance of Tibet and Its Water Resources
This is the Tibetan Plateau, a huge geographic region in the middle of Asia that's more than half the size of the European Union, but with a population of only around 5 million people, which is less than that of Slovakia. This place is extremely remote and empty of people. But it's not the number of people here that makes it important. Tibet is one of the most strategically important regions in the entire world to control because it is the home of tens of thousands of glaciers locked high up in the mountains that collectively store the third-largest reserve of fresh water found anywhere on the planet—only behind the North and South Poles. At the same time, the sources of many of the world's mightiest rivers begin up here as well, like the Yangtze, Yellow, and Mekong Rivers—the three longest rivers located on the Asian continent and the third, sixth, and 12th longest rivers in the entire world, respectively.
The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers flow to the east from their sources in Tibet towards the Pacific Ocean, entirely within just a single country: the People's Republic of China. Hundreds of millions of Chinese people live downstream within the basins of these two great rivers. At the end of the Yangtze, across the river's delta, is an area that alone comprises around 20% of China's entire economic GDP. These rivers are the literal arteries that supply China's huge and thirsty population, and the control of their sources over in Tibet is an imperative matter of national security for Beijing.
But then there's that third river, the Mekong, which doesn't entirely run through a single country. Far to the contrary, instead of flowing to the east like the Yangtze and Yellow, the Mekong flows to the south through the territory of China initially but eventually winds its way through Southeast Asia, across multiple other countries like Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and finally Vietnam, through the river's delta region in southern Vietnam, where it empties into the South China Sea.
The key fact that makes this 4,500 km long river one of the most important in the world is that it is the primary source of fresh water for nearly 70 million people across Southeast Asia while simultaneously providing almost 20% of the entire world's freshwater fish supply. This understandably makes the river critical for the life of the entire region, the same way that the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers are critical for China's civilization. But despite that massive importance, the Mekong River is currently dying for the nations of Southeast Asia, and a lot of it can be blamed on the policies of China.
China's Dam Construction and Its Impact on the Mekong River
When visualizing the Mekong, it's more helpful to see it through the lens of two really separate and distinct areas. There's the Lower Mekong Basin in the south, which begins near the Laos-China border and encompasses a broad mass of tributary rivers that cover the majority of Laos, Cambodia, and significant amounts of Thailand and Vietnam. While this southern basin is a large, flowing spread of numerous rivers and wetlands across five different countries, the separate Upper Mekong Basin to the north is almost entirely within China, where the river is more technically known as the Lancang.
From the high peaks of Tibet down towards the lower elevation of Southeast Asia, the water flows across a much steeper geography. Think of it almost like a really long, drawn-out waterfall over hundreds of kilometers. This means that the water flows pretty quickly down this area, making the Lancang section of the river one of the most ideal locations in the world to construct dams and harvest hydroelectric power. With tens of millions of people living near the river today, electricity has always been a highly demanded commodity. As a result, dam building across both the Upper and Lower Basins of the Mekong has been an incredibly popular engineering activity.
More than 200 dams in total have been constructed or are planned to be constructed across the southern basin throughout Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. And while that sounds like a lot, most of them are relatively small in scale and are just located on the Mekong's various tributary rivers that feed into the main section. In fact, out of that huge number of 200 dams, only two have actually been built across the main section of the Lower Mekong—the Xayaburi and the Don Sahong, both located within Laos. This means that the flow of water through the Lower Mekong's primary course is generally pretty unrestricted and free-flowing.
But this is far from the case in the Upper Mekong Basin, which is more conducive to hydroelectric power generation. Since the 1990s, China has gone on an unparalleled dam-building spree across its territory, especially on the Lancang, where they've constructed 11 dams just in the past couple of decades alone, with a 12th currently under construction and a 13th planned shortly in the future. Unlike the lower basin, all of these dams have been built directly across the river's primary course and not along any of its tributaries.
Two of these 11 dams are classified as large storage dams, meaning that they are extremely large and hold back a massive volume of water. If you took just these two Chinese dams on the Lancang alone—without even including the other nine—they store almost as much water as the entirety of the Chesapeake Bay between the U.S. states of Maryland and Virginia, a body of water that spans more than 11,000 square kilometers. That is a lot of water being held back. But when you consider that China has nine other dams on the Lancang, two more being built, and 11 more planned over the next 20 years, you can quickly see how this could become a significant problem for the Southeast Asian countries further downstream.
Environmental and Economic Consequences of the Mekong's Disruption
The existing dams in the Lower Mekong Basin today generate about 12,285 megawatts of total power on average, which is a lot. But the 11 Chinese dams on the Lancang in the Upper Basin, where the water flow is faster, generate an astounding 31,650 megawatts of power. When combined, all of these dams on the Mekong generate about 44,000 megawatts of power—enough to supply the entire electricity needs of the whole region and power the entirety of New York City four times over.
While this energy is theoretically clean, the big problem is that these dams come at an ever-increasing environmental cost, made even worse by the historically low water levels and drought in the region. Just a couple of years ago, Cambodia had to completely shut down its largest dams due to a crippling lack of water flow, causing months of debilitating electricity blackouts and major disruptions across its economy. Additionally, lower water levels and pressure from upstream have allowed saltwater from the South China Sea to intrude into the Mekong River Delta in southern Vietnam, devastating Vietnamese farmland and depleting fishing stocks in the region by as much as 90%.
Other factors, such as lower-than-average rainfall and climate change, also contribute to the death of the Mekong. However, a significant share of the responsibility falls on Beijing and its management of the Upper Mekong. The construction of numerous dams has dramatically disrupted the natural flow of the river. Before the 1990s, the river's water levels would rise and fall seasonally, with peak water levels occurring during the wet monsoon season from June to October. This was further compounded by melting snow and ice from the Himalayas, often causing floods that deposited nutrient-rich sediments onto fertile floodplains.
Now, however, that natural rhythm has been almost completely interrupted. Massive amounts of water are held back during the wet season, leading to dramatically lower water levels—sometimes up to 5 meters less than expected. In 2019, the Mekong River reached some of its lowest levels on record. Meanwhile, the Lower Mekong Basin is entering its fourth straight year of severe drought.
For the livelihoods of more than 70 million people, significant steps must be taken to restore the river's natural balance. If action is not taken soon, the Mekong River—one of the most important water sources in the world—could face irreversible collapse.
Source: RealLifeLore. (2022, May 12). Why China is Killing Asia’s 3rd Longest River [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4BIwTaZqlQ