China is building 'world's largest' dam on Brahmaputra, should India be worried?

China's decision to proceed with the construction of a massive hydropower project on the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet is raising concerns in India. The project, planned in the Tibet Autonomous Region, is located near the disputed border with India and is expected to significantly impact the water flow of the Brahmaputra and Siang rivers, which flow into northeastern India and later into Bangladesh.

China's state news agency Xinhua recently reported that the project has received official approval and highlighted its importance in supporting China’s development goals. The dam will be constructed in Medog County, Tibet, in a deep gorge where the Yarlung Tsangpo river takes a sharp U-turn before flowing into Arunachal Pradesh, where it is known as the Siang, and later the Brahmaputra in Assam. This mega-project is expected to generate three times the energy of the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest power station, with an installed capacity of 22,500 MW.

India has consistently urged China to ensure that activities on the Yarlung Tsangpo do not harm downstream nations like India and Bangladesh. Concerns over reduced water flow have been amplified, with Tapir Gao, a Lok Sabha member from Arunachal Pradesh, calling the project a potential "disaster" for India’s northeastern region and Bangladesh.

New Delhi and Beijing have a history of discussions about transboundary rivers, establishing an expert-level mechanism in 2006 to address such issues. However, tensions between the two nations escalated after the military standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, which began in 2020 and lasted over four years. The last meeting on river-related issues was held in 2019.

India and China currently lack a formal water-sharing agreement. Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) for China to share hydrological data on the Brahmaputra and Sutlej rivers with India have not been renewed since 2018 and 2023, respectively. While China’s earlier projects on the Yarlung Tsangpo were run-of-the-river, meaning they did not block water flow, this new dam has heightened India’s concerns since it was first proposed in China’s 14th Five-Year Plan in 2020.