Just as China is working to change the territorial or maritime status quo from the western Himalayas to the East China Sea, its dam-building frenzy is designed to appropriate internationally shared water resources. Beijing is seeking to present a fait accompli to its downstream neighbors by quietly building dams on the transnational Amur, Arun, Brahmaputra, Illy, Irtysh, Mekong and Salween rivers.
In the latest development, Beijing has announced that it has completed — ahead of schedule — the world's highest-elevation dam at Zangmu, Tibet. It said that all six power-generating units of the $1.6 billion project on River Brahmaputra have become fully operational.
China is now racing to complete several additional dams located in close proximity to each other on that river. This cascade of dams is likely to affect the quality and quantity of downstream flows into India and Bangladesh.