Looking at the wrong place with the wrong lens

Sometimes news found in the main Indian press can be flabbergasting. Take the case of the purported ‘diversion’ of the Yarlung Tsangpo.
A serious national newspaper spoke of the “Yarlang Tsangpo, it is what the Brahmaputra River is called in Mandarin”. The Yarlung (and not Yarlang) Tsangpo is the Tibetan name for the river originating near Mt Kailash, it has nothing to do with Mandarin. A mere detail!
The article further says that the Ministry of Water Resources has asked the Hyderabad-based National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) for a report on the Chinese building activities near the Great Bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo, as it enters into Indian territory: “Sources do not rule out the possibility that the ‘new’ images could be of existing structures, since the resolution of India's satellite images has increased substantially in recent months. The resolution has gone up from 181m to 10cm. This means structures, which have been there, are now visible in much greater detail.”
Great news, but the NRSC scientists are wasting their time looking for structures near the Grand Bend of the Brahmaputra: the diversion is planned a few hundred kilometers upstream, near the city of Tsetang.
Had the Ministry done its homework before sending a request to NRSC?
External Affairs Minister SM Krishna is also not a good pupil: he mixes the ‘diversion scheme’ with the dams being built on the Brahmaputra, when, answering a question on the diversion, he affirms that Zangmu Dam “is no cause of concern to India as it is a ‘run off the river’ dam”.
In fact, Beijing is planning a string of 6 dams in this area in Lengda, Zhongda, Langzhen, Jiexu, Jiacha and Zangmu.
No need to mention here the utopian dream of a 38 Gws power station (nearly twice the size of the Three Gorges Dam) in the Great Bend, near the Indian border; there are too many geological and technical issues involved to be taken seriously in the decades to come.
The smaller dams (about 500Mws each) are not directly linked with the diversion scheme which is proposed to be built a few hundred kilometers upstream. It would make no technical sense to have such a project at a relatively lower altitude near the Great Bend, when the waters can be pushed up towards the north from a much higher altitude, near Tsetang in Central Tibet.
Headlines Today mentioned a top secret report prepared by the Cabinet Secretariat in Delhi on June 13 which would state: “Beijing is not responding to India's concerns on the Brahmaputra dam. There is an urgent need to take up this issue with China as these dams will 'severely impact' the flow of water into India."
According to the same source, SM Krishna would have assured Assam CM Tarun Gogoi that “ISRO satellite maps showed no construction”.
No construction where?
On November 15, 2010, The People’s Daily had announced: “The Brahmaputra River, which has long been praised as a ‘heavenly river’, was dammed for the first time on November 12 …the Zangmu Hydropower Station, the first large hydropower station in Tibet, will soon begin its main construction.” In fact, the construction had been started several months earlier.

But let us go back to the source of the ‘diversion’ story.
A couple of weeks ago, Prof. Wang Guangqian, a senior scientist at Chinese Academy of Sciences Engineering was quoted as saying: “Chinese experts have raised a new proposal to divert water from the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra River to the country’s northwestern province of Xinjiang”.
Prof Wang’s project is a variant of a scheme prepared some 10 years ago by two Chinese engineers: Gao Kai, a retired PLA General, considered by many as the father of the mega scheme and his colleague Li Ling who wrote a book Tibet's water will Save China. The project was then called the Shuomatan Canal (from Suma Tan in Central Tibet to Tanjing in China).
Interestingly, Wang Guangqian seems to have the backing of Li Ruihuan, a former member of the Standing Committee of the CCP's Politburo and former Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Many in the PLA as well as the mega dam companies are said to be supporting the project.
Wang Guangqian spoke about the proposed route: “Brahmaputra waters are expected to be rerouted to Xinjiang along the Qinghai-Tibet Railway and the Hexi Corridor – part of the Northern Silk Road located in Gansu Province”.
Wang admitted: “We thought this would be a plan 50 years later,” adding that presently Chinese experts and governmental officials are still studying the possible impacts (technical and political) of the proposal.
The Chinese engineers are clearly conducting a ‘feasibility study’, no construction has started.
But the project, planned to be undertaken in 50 years time, might now start much earlier: “Faced with severe challenges brought by reduced water resources and a severe drought that has affected a large portion of the country, China has started to consider diverting water from the Brahmaputra River.”
One can reasonably think that it would begin in 10 years at the earliest, keeping in mind that it is a political decision which could only be taken at the highest level of the Chinese State by President Hu Jintao’s successors.

The issue
An article by Zhang Ke on the website chinadialogue.net provided more information. Wang Guangqian admitted that his proposal, also called the Major Western Route, has been inspired by the work of Guo Kai.
The hard fact: fast developing China has less and less water and Beijing has to locate possible sources of water to survive. Scientists are looking in the only two possible directions: the sea (the Bobai Sea) or the mountains (the Tibetan plateau).
Wang quoted a survey by the Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Figures from the Chinese Academy of Sciences showing that “rivers on the Qinghai-Tibet and Yunnan-Guizhou plateaus, including the Yarlung Tsangpo, Salween and Mekong, carry between 637 billion cubic metres and 810 billion cubic metres of water out of China each year”.
What disturbs some Chinese engineers is that most of these rivers flow down to India and South-East Asia, becoming the Brahmaputra, Salween and Mekong; in other words, the waters are ‘wasted’ for China.
The diversion project envisaged by Wang (and Gao Kai) could move some 200 billion cubic metres of water a year up to Northwestern China – the equivalent of four Yellow Rivers.
According to Li Ling, the Institute of Advanced Technology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences is using supercomputers and data modeling to simulate the project and evaluate its feasibility. Wang Guangqian himself works with the South-North Water Transfer office to prepare a ‘scientific’ report.
In 2006, the Chinese government pretended that 'a few mad men' were thinking of this pharaonic project, but if these few 'mad men' (supported by a former Politburo's Standing Committee member) are able to use the super computers of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for their calculations, they may not be as mad as painted by the Government.
Three important factors have to be understood.

One, China’s hydropower lobbies have a financial interest in ‘concretizing’ the project as soon as possible. Last week, an article in The Financial Times affirmed: “China’s Three Gorges Project Corporation has proposed a $15bn hydropower scheme to Pakistan to dam the Indus river valley at several points, in a project aimed at controlling floods and tackling electricity shortages.” Dams, whether in Pakistan or Tibet, mean big business and the large Chinese corporations will continue to lobby hard to get these projects through.

The second crucial factor is the cost-benefit perspective. The Chinese leadership is down-to-earth, rational. A friend who worked on the issue told me: “If the price of transferring water is cheaper than conservation or getting water from the sea, China will go ahead.” Why divert the Brahmaputra and risk a conflict with India, if there is a possibility to avoid it?

Three, China badly needs water and can’t import it.
The diversion of the Brahmaputra is in competition with another diversion: to take water from the Bohai Sea, the innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea on the coast of Northeastern China and push it up to Xinxiang.

The rationale remains, China needs to:

1. To stop the desertification in Xinjiang, Gansu and Inner Mongolia
2. To help a dry and polluted Yellow River flow again
3. To feed its people, for which large amounts of water are required for agriculture

If such grandiose and seemingly unrealizable projects are even thought of, it is because the situation is quite desperate and nobody is able to foresee any ‘realizable’ solution.
So far, China has refused to collaborate with downstream States. When in May 1997, when the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, China was one of 3 countries voting against. The rather mild Convention "aimed at guiding States in negotiating agreements on specific watercourses”.
In the long run, whether it will be by adopting such a Convention or by signing a bilateral treaty like the Indus Waters Treaty (1960) between India and Pakistan, Beijing has no choice but to collaborate with its downstream neighbours on a crucial issue like water on which the future of Asia depends. The current ‘imperialist’ attitude does not tally with the status of ‘responsible power’ which China is striving for.

The Bohai Diversion project

Apparently, the diversion of the Brahmaputra is in competition with another diversion: the idea is to pump water from the Bohai Sea, the innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea on the coast of Northeastern China and push it up to Xinxiang.
The Chinese press reported that on November 5, 2010, the Xinjiang People’s Government Development Research Center and Institute of Western and Eastern Economy sponsored a conference in Wushi to discuss 'The Plan for the Diversion of Sea Water to Western China'.
Over 120 experts from throughout China gathered to find a solution to the water issue which is obstacle for Xinjiang's development: “Huo Youguang, a professor at Xian Transportation University, along with Chen Changli, a professor at China University of Geosciences, came up with the basic idea of diverting seawater from the Bohai Sea to Xinjiang. They believe that such a diversion project can thoroughly improve the deteriorating environmental conditions of north and northwest China.”
Later, it was announced that the Development and Reform Commission [Planning Commission] of Inner Mongolia and Liaoning province had approved the project and that five construction sites related to the project had become operational. This was later denied.
On November 17, 2010, Xinhua published a news item under the title Experts: Water diversion from Bohai to Xinjiang unfeasible (see below).
A similar discussion will probably take place for the Great Western Diversion (the diversion of the Brahmaputra).
Some scientists/bureaucrats will say it is ‘impossible’; some will argue, 'we can do it'.
The fact remains that today, China is badly in needs:
1- To stop the desertification in Xinjiang, Gansu and Inner Mongolia
2- To have the Yellow running again
3- To feed its people (for which water is required)
If such grandiose and seemingly unrealizable projects are even thought of, it is because the situation is quite desperate and nobody is able to foresee any better solution.
But Beijing should look again into the disastrous performances of the Gorges Dam and the two first legs of the Diversion scheme (Eastern and Central parts) before taking a hurried decision.

Experts: Water diversion from Bohai to Xinjiang unfeasible
November 17, 2010
Source:Xinhua   
A proposal to divert water from the Bohai Sea on China's eastern coast to Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the far west to fight deserts and sandstorms is "unfeasible" and an "illusion," water resources scientists and experts said Tuesday.
They made the remarks while responding to questions at a press conference in Beijing concerning a study on Xinjiang's water strategy and sustainable development.
Shi Yulin, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a research fellow at the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the salt contained in the huge amount of diverted sea water could further encrust the saline land in Xinjiang.
Li Zechun, an academician at Chinese Academy of Engineering, and former director of National Climate Center, said the sea water could not produce sufficient vapor to create enough rainfall to affect the climate in northwestern regions.
Ning Yuan, former deputy director and research fellow of the South-North Water Diversion Project Commission (SNWDPC) of the State Council, said the Bohai Sea was 5,000 km from Xinjiang, five times the distance of the South-North Water Diversion from Danjiangkou, in central Hubei Province, to Beijing.
That meant the laying of a pipeline, the huge cost of the project, and the water distribution were all problems "beyond imagination," Ning said.
In a widely reported meeting on November 5 in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, researchers and local government officials discussed the proposal to divert water from east China to the west.
According to the proposal, the huge amount of sea water, if diverted to the west, could form man-made lakes and rivers and serve as vapor source to create more rainfall to contain the threat of desertification in north and northwest China.

Climatic changes and big projects

'Climatic' changes such as the current drought in China have serious consequences, not  only for the Middle Kingdom, but for Asia in general.
First, it shows that huge infrastructure projects benefit more the State companies building dams (many of the them are run by princelings) than the common man.
The author of the Discovery article says: "Besides the lack of rain, some experts blame the Three Gorges Dam.
Wang Jingquan, director of the flood control and drought relief office affiliated with the Yangtze River Water Resources Committee, told China Daily that damming up the river has aggravated the drought by pinching off water flow to lower reaches."
Though it is denied by the Dam officials, it is certainly a truth in it.
Another lesson of the drought is that electricity production announced by the State Council does take into account severe natural (but recurrent) phenomena like drought or pollution (see my earlier posting on the subject).
Another serious issue is the fate of he south-to-north water diversion project in which more than 17 billion dollars had already been invested last year. It could be in jeopardy (it is already very much delayed). If the Yangtze is dry, where will the water come from? Any diversion could only aggravate the situation. 
A few months ago, the Chinese press affirmed: "The South-to-North Water Diversion Project is designed to divert water from the water-rich south of China, mainly the Yangtze, the country's longest river, to the country's arid northern regions. It will consist of three routes: an eastern, middle and western route. The project started with construction of the eastern route in 2002. Up until now, both of the eastern and middle routes were already under construction. The western route, meant to replenish the Yellow River with water from the upper reaches of the Yangtze through tunnels in the high mountains of western China, is still in the planning stage."
Let us hope that the planners in Beijing will think twice before embarking in the western route (diverting Tibetan rivers to the North). The consequences could be even more dramatic.
In the meantime, investment in 'big' projects continues in Tibet.
China Tibet Online reported: "During the 11the Five-Year Plan period, Tibet has seen 16.33 billion yuan [more than 2 billion dollars] fix assets investment, surpassed the total of 55 years ever since Tibet's peaceful liberation. Especially in 2010, national investment on Tibet has hit its historical record to 25.3 billion yuan, increased by 20.5% than that of last year."
Beijing says that it will benefit the local Tibetans, but this is extremely doubtful; it will just help bringing more Han migrants on the Roof of the World.

China's Yangtze River Running Dry
Discovery News
Tim Wall
May 13, 2011
While tornadoes, floods and fires have raged across the United States, in China the mix of weather is just as variable. Yesterday in the city of Weihai, in east China's Shandong province, blowing sand from the Gobi desert necessitated a "yellow" wind alert. Last weekend, floods in the south resulted in a fatal landslide. And along the east coast, droughts have reduced the Yangtze River to its lowest water levels in 50 years.
Officials from the Yangtze River Waterway Bureau said Wednesday that they have closed a 185-kilometer (115-mile) stretch of river from Wuhan to Yueyang to oceangoing vessels.
The river near Wuhan is down to only about 10 feet. The river, normally almost 500 feet wide, has shriveled to only about 160 feet at its narrowest.
Since April 30, more than 700 ships have been stranded in the shrunken waterway in Huzhou, Xinhua News Agency reported. Officials believe the shallow water will continue hindering shipping until June.
"The severe drought, the first seen in the past half-century, has kept the water level in the Yangtze the lowest since 2003, when the Three Gorges Dam went into operation," said Wu Heping, director of the Wuhan Waterway bureau, in an interview with China Daily.
The drought has left 400,000 people in Hubei province without drinking water, according to an AFP report. In Hunan, 320,000 people are without drinking water, according to China Daily.
Water now gushes from the Three Gorges Dam at a rate of about 1,850,000 gallons per second. That is about 397,000 gallons per second more than the dam collects, but it has not yet been seen if this will solve the drought.
Rainfall was roughly 50 percent below normal in the region between October 2010 and April of this year. The rainy season usually begins in late April, and there have been a few rains, but some officials are still worried.
"Even though heavy rains are expected in coming months, it's possible they won't raise the water level much," the China Daily quoted  Wu Heping.
In an effort to bring more rain, the Chinese have even used rain-making techniques.
"Starting from 3 a.m. on Tuesday, we launched 57 rocket projectiles and 320 artillery projectiles," remarked Xu Zhaonan, director of the Xiangyang meteorological bureau, in China Daily.

The rain brought some relief to local farmers.
"During the drought, we only planted a little sweet potato in the field, but this rain has brought hope for us," farmer Zhang Dequn commented to China Daily.
In the area around Xianyang, in Shaanxi province, about 741,000 acres of agricultural land are affected by the drought. In Hubei province, close to 2 million acres of cropland are dry.
The lack of rain is also affecting power production. Hydropower plants in Hunan province are producing less than a third of their capacity.
Besides the lack of rain, some experts blame the Three Gorges Dam.
Wang Jingquan, director of the flood control and drought relief office affiliated with the Yangtze River Water Resources Committee, told China Daily that damming up the river has aggravated the drought by pinching off water flow to lower reaches.
But another official said such assertions are groundless. Yan Fei, director of the China Three Gorges Corporation's press office, said statistics show the dam's increased discharge of water has helped to relieve the drought.
Other parts of China are suffering from the opposite of a drought.
Heavy rains in southern China caused a massive landslide this past weekend. More than 22 quarry workers were buried alive in a dormitory near Luojiang in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The death toll now stands at 12 at least. One worker is known to have survived.
"We first saw smoke rising up in the valley, then the rocks and mud gushing out. The dormitory was soon buried underneath," said Chen Yuanliang, a villager who witnessed the landslide, in People’s Daily.
The landslide covered an area equivalent to two basketball courts with about 15 feet of mud and debris, according to He Qishi, deputy chief engineer of the region's general geological environment monitoring station.

No Water

In the 1980’s, the American agronomist Lester Brown wrote Who Will Feed China in which he studied the cases of Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The conversion of agricultural land for other uses (factories, residential areas, airports, roads, flyovers, etc…) had provoked the loss of 52% of Japan’s grain harvested areas, 46% of Korea’s and 42% of Taiwan’s, while more and more waters were being used for industrial purposes. Brown deducted that the same process will occur in China and ultimately China will be unable to feed its own people. A real nightmare for Beijing!
But ultimately the problem will be the lack of water to irrigate and to ...drink.
This is confirmed by this report of the National Development and Reform Commission (the Chinese Planning Commission).
It is why China needs Tibet. But as the Sichuan earthquake has shown, the big dams are as dangerous as the nuclear plants (if not more) for the downstream populations.


A Quarter of Chinese Residents Have No Clean Drinking Water    
According to a report released by the National Development and Reform Commission, a quarter of Chinese residents have no clean drinking water, one third of the urban population breathes polluted air, and less than 20% of garbage goes through proper treatment. The report says that, "Large numbers of people are exposed to polluted air, water, and soil.” It further states, “China's ecological environment is very fragile; forests cover only 18.21% of China's land surface, which is less than 67% of the average for the world's countries. China has 1.74 million square kilometers of desertified land. 90% of its natural grassland suffers from degradation.”

Source: Economic Information, March 9, 2011, reprint by People’s Daily
http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/1027/14096289.html

It will take three hundred years

China is bound to become a new Sahel. That is why Beijing is looking at Tibet's waters to save China.
Read my earlier posting on Gua Kai.
In the meantime, the wise men of Bharat say:"They won't do it". 

China official warns of 300-year desertification fight
January 2011
Martin Patience BBC News, Beijing
A senior Chinese official has said it will take 300 years to turn back China's advancing deserts at the current rate of progress.
Liu Tuo, who leads China's efforts to tackle the problem, said investment was "seriously insufficient."
More than one quarter of China is either covered by desert or is land that is suffering desertification.
The process is often caused by overgrazing and other unsuitable farming techniques.
Authorities worry that expanding deserts could put crops and water supplies in the world's second largest economy at risk.
But the official leading China's efforts against the problem said not enough was being done.
Liu Tuo said there was a "huge gap" in the country's efforts, adding that at current rates it would take 300 years to reclaim land which has recently become desert.
"There is about 1.73m sq km (0.67m sq miles) of desertified land in China, and about 530,000 sq km of that can be treated," he said.
"At our present rate of treating 1,717 sq km a year, I've just calculated we'll need 300 years."
He also warned that global warming could exacerbate the problem by causing drought.
Most of the desertification in China happens on the fringes of the Gobi Desert which lies in the west of the country.

Where are the Waters?

This article in Xinhua (in Chinese) highlight what many believe to be the No 1 problem of China. How to solve it? The only place where one can still find water is Tibet. Why not to divert some of the Roof of the World's rivers to the mainland, particularly to North China? Many are thinking about it, simply because there are no other solution.


Deputy Minister of Water Resources: Serious Water Shortage in the North     
Xinhua,
October 7, 2010
Hu Siyi, the Deputy Minister of Water Resources, recently announced that the situation regarding the lack of water in northern China is getting worse due to the double pressure of global climate change and large-scale economic development. For example, the Haihe River Basin surface water level dropped 41% during the past two to three decades. The urbanization of China is speeding up rapidly. Meanwhile, the acceleration of industrialization is resulting in a rapid increase in water usage. During the past four years, just the energy and heavy chemical industries alone consumed 10 billion cubic meters more water. Hu believes that water conservation faces unprecedented challenges.

Grave implications of Chinese Hydro Projects

Power Politics has published my article Grave implications of Chinese Hydro Projects. You can read it by clicking here.

Kokonor Lake expanding

The Kokonor Lake (Qinghai Lake) is probably expanding  due to the climate change and the melting of glaciers in Amdo (Qinghai) province. This a rather disturbing news. Though the Chinese government will pretend that it is due to the environmental protection work that have done, global warming is probably the main factor. 
A recent scientific study "Paleoenvironmental and archaeological investigations at Qinghai Lake, western China: Geomorphic and chronometric evidence of lake level history" published in the Quaternary International explains the importance of environmental changes to determine the successive levels of the lake: "Qinghai Lake, located on the northeastern Qinghai–Tibet Plateau is China’s largest extant closed-basin lake. Its position relative to major Asian climate systems makes it sensitive to global climate change. The lake has been the subject of numerous paleoenvironmental investigations including dating of shoreline features around the lake basin. Here we report new age estimates of shoreline features, geomorphic exposures and archaeological sites that contribute to the development of a lake level history for Qinghai Lake and a landscape model of the Qinghai Lake Basin."


China's largest saltwater lake grows after 50 years of shrinking
2010-08-02 07
Xinhua
The surface area of China's largest saltwater lake had grown in size over the past five years amid increased rain and decreased evaporation, an expert from the Qinghai Provincial Center of Geomatics said Saturday.
The surface area of the Qinghai Lake had reached 4,249.3 square kilometers, 4.3 square kilometers more than in 2005, Wang Yuan, deputy director of the center, said.
"The year 2005 was a turning point. Before then, the lake's size was decreasing due to climate change and human activities," Wang said.
The government's environmental protection work had contributed to the increase in surface area, Wang said.
The lake's surface area shrunk more than 300 square kilometers beginning in the 1950s, according to the Qinghai Province Meteorological Sciences Academy.

Will water lead to an India-Pak war?

Site of one of the dams being built by China on the Brahmaputra


My article Will water lead to an India-Pak war? on the strategic consequences of global warming is posted on in Sify.com. Click to read.

Water: Culture, Politics and Management

A publication of the India International Centre for which I contributed an article Himalayan Rivers: Geopolitics and Strategic Perspectives is now available. Click here to order.

Water: Culture, Politics and Management is a compilation of essays written by some well-known connoisseurs of Indian art and culture as well as experts and activists dedicated to the cause of conservation of water. They illustrate how water has been treated in mythology, reveal the ecological messages that underlie these myths, and describe the culture that developed around water. There are also essays on maritime trade, the craft of boat- and ship-building, the politics of water emerging out of issues like dam construction, pollution of rivers and the scope of social services in flood-ravaged areas. Finally, a commentary on the imagery of water in Indian cinema, a selection of poems and a collection of photographs illustrating the sanctity built around water depict our response to it through art and poetry. Drawing on different disciplines as well as the arts, this volume is an informative and engaging exploration of the many ways that water has sustained and enriched our existence.

Table Of Contents
Introduction: The Ecology and Myth of Water, by Kapila VatsyayanThe Kaveri River, by Clare Arni

PART I: THE RIVER

   1. Himalayan Rivers: Geopolitics and Strategic Perspectives, by Claude Arpi
   2. The Narmada: Death of a River, by Shripad Dharmadhikary
   3. A Boat of Hope, by Sanjoy Hazarika
   4. Water as a Metaphor in Indian Cinema, by Partha Chatterjee

PART II: THE SEA

   5. The Indian Ocean: The History, Ecology and Making of a Community, by Himanshu Prabha Ray, Rohan D?Souza and Gulshan Dietl
   6. Pre-Portuguese Maritime Crafts of India: The Ethnological Evidence, by Lotika Varadarajan
   7. The Composite Culture of Goa, by Maria Couto

PART III: WATER RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

   8. Water: What Must We Do? by Ramaswamy R. Iyer
   9. Hunting Down Water in India: In Search of Vox Pops, by Sanjay Barnela and Vasant Saberwal; Poems by Maya Khosla
  10. Environmental Values and the Quality of Life, by Mahesh N. Buch

PART IV: THE CULTURE OF WATER

  11. Vanchipattu: Songs of the Boat Race in Kerala, by Vijayan Kannampilly
  12. Bhatiali: Songs of the Boatmen of Bengal, by Indrani Majumdar
  13. A Selection of Poems, with Introduction by Keshav Malik

China 2019

This scenario found in a posting in The Financial Times might come true. Many great empires have collapsed due to the shortage of water. It is apparently what happened to the Indus-Sarasvati civilization. Beijing managed to sabotage Copenhagen Conference, but it does not mean that China environmental problem is solved.



Financial Times
December 30 2009

At the start of the decade you had to look hard for signs of trouble ahead: empty ice-buckets in the casinos of Macau, dry toilets in the bathrooms of Inner Mongolian new-builds.
At the start of the decade you had to look hard for signs of trouble ahead: empty ice-buckets in the casinos of Macau, dry toilets in the bathrooms of Inner Mongolian new-builds.
By 2015, it was obvious: China was seriously parched. The Great Wall of Credit of 2009-2012 had unleashed too much industrial capacity consuming too much water. That exacerbated a nationwide shortage – China had more than a fifth of the world’s population, but only 6 per cent of its fresh water. Efforts to shut down water-guzzling cement and steel plants remained half-hearted: what local government official would wreck his prospects for promotion by putting thousands out of work? Four years later and the crisis has taken on ruinous dimensions. Crop failure and famine in the deserted interiors; emergency rationing in the teeming coastal cities.
This could have been averted. Ten years ago China had it all: a well-nourished workforce, vast reserves of paper money, a new swagger on the international stage. The sharp currency revaluation of 2010 unleashed a global mergers and acquisitions spree the likes of which the world had never seen. But the most vital element was taken for granted. In 2009 China spent about Rmb10bn on improving irrigation – 1/1000th of the total loans disbursed that year. The Ministry of Water Resources was then just one of 27 under the State Council; minister Chen Lei’s portfolio included trade, tourism and looking after ports. Projects to divert rivers were sold as demonstrations of what a nation could do, rather than what it should. Channelling the Yangtze wowed engineers globally; meanwhile factories befouled tributaries without penalty. A humbled nation long ago abandoned such pharaonic gestures. That president Xi Jinping is considering beseeching poorer neighbours for food aid is a measure of how far the mighty have fallen.