Access To Fresh Water Could Be The Reason Why China And India Go To War

Economist

Palmo Tenzin, National Interest: This Is What Could Start a War between India and China

While everyone’s anxiously watching and analyzing the events unraveling in the South China Sea, there’s another resource conflict involving China that also deserves attention. In the Himalayas, China and India are competing for valuable hydropower and water resources on the Yarlung Tsangpo–Brahmaputra River. The dispute offers some important lessons for regional cooperation (on more than just water), and highlights what’s at stake if China and India mismanage their resource conflict.

The Yarlung Tsangpo–Brahmaputra River is a 2,880km transboundary river that originates in Tibet, China as the Yarlung Tsangpo, before flowing through northeast India as the Brahmaputra River and Bangladesh as the Jamuna River.

WNU Editor: On my first trip to China the first thing that I learned was it was a country beset with serious  problems when it came to freshwater and electricity interruptions. .... and that was in the 1980s. And while China has gone a lot of way in solving the problem of electricity interruptions (building coal plants while producing another problem .... pollution)  .... water is still a problem .... and doubly so in India. China's water plans are already causing concern .... China: As water demands grow sharply, supply is shrinking (CSM) .... but the big crisis will be with India, especially as that country's population continues to grow and its water needs expand .... World Population Set To Hit 9.7 Billion People By 2050.