Draft Paper. Not for Citation

Water Hegemony: Examining China’s Hydro-behaviour[1]

Uttam Kumar Sinha

Summary

China is a thirsty country in need of a lot of water. It is simultaneously an energy short country. In order to meet its water requirement, it is successively intervening on the rivers through dams and diversions, specifically the Tibetan rivers, which is politically and ecologically sensitive. While China is well within its territorial rights to do so, however a set of externalities involving the principles of water sharing and down riparian needs raise concern over China’s maximalist approach. Angst and anger accompany the lower riparian from Afghanistan to Vietnam forming a crescent of lower riparian countries deeply dependent on the waters flowing from Tibet. Such interventions by China on the rivers can easily trigger natural disasters, degrade fragile ecologies and divert water supplies. By controlling the rivers as it does and by manipulating the waters if it wants to, Beijingcan exercise enormous strategic and diplomatic strong-arming.On the eight great Tibetan rivers alone, almost 20 dams have been built or are under construction while some 40 more are planned or proposed. Clearly the Tibetan rivers have potentially strategic implications.

Introduction

China’s “peaceful rise”[2], a phrase propounded with crafty ease by Chinese officials and scholars since 2003, has always intrigued the outside world. The ‘rise of China’ has become near conventional wisdom amongst IR scholars and Chinese experts resulting in a large number of high-quality work examining China’s rise and its implications for the international system. The inquiry continues.[3]The questions remain familiar almost now rhetorical:How will China behave as it rises? Will it be responsible and act cooperatively or as it gains military muscle and economic power be confrontationist thereby creating challenges and threats?

The paper queries China’s hydro-behaviour and looks at its actions on the Brahamaputra (Yarlung Tsangpo) and the Mekong (Lancang) to infer certainhegemonic tendencies. Through the course of the paper and the analysis that follows, it can, with some understanding, be concluded that China’s policies on the transboundary rivers does not indicate to the ‘peaceful’ nature of its rise. In fact, there seems to be a great deal of ‘hydro-arrogance’, ‘hydro-aggression’ and ‘hydro-egoism’. There are indicators that confirm to this and the paper will delve into it specifically. One strong pointer is China’s hydrobehaviour towards Tibet. The hydro-relevance of Tibet suggests that it is the lifeline of China. This frames Beijing’s maximalist orientation towards harnessing the water resources and therefore dams and diversions are engineering process towards mitigating its food and energy requirements and overcoming its uneven distribution of water.

Large shifts of water from Tibet will continuously form part of China’s development plans – it’s an unquestionablenecessity but also has strategic significance as the Tibetan plateau is the source of Asia’s 10 major river systemmeandering to 11 countries that includes the Indus, Sutlej, Brahmaputra, Irrawady, Salween and Mekong. About 2 billion people stretching from Afghanistan to the Ganga-Meghna-Brahmaputra basin in South Asia to the Mekong in the Southeast depend on the rivers.The reason for China’s intransigence on Tibet is clear – water. Tibet’s vast water resources is key to sustaining China’s northwest region, revitalising its deserts and the Yellow river itself, as well as being crucial to its Himalayan Strategy. China’s need and the water requirements of the other down riparian countries sets up a contesting and conflicting situation often prompting analysts to say that ‘China’s thirst will leave others thirsty’.

China’s rise not being peaceful can have various connotations. In relation to water issues, given its enormous requirement, Chinawill befar less accommodative and in the realist sense “guardian of its own security and independence”.[4] This makes China a “rational egoist” interested in its own utility as well as a “defensive positionalist” firm in maintaining relative capabilities. Therefore one needs to continuously inquire the impact of China’s actions particularly on the peripheral states which it always considers as being rivals.

In the regional context China’s ascendancy has far reaching significance than from a Western perspective that viewsChina’s rise as a challenge to a ‘Western-dominated international society’. Some of the Western writings, particular the EnglishSchool,are largely pessimistic about China’s ability to “continue rising peacefully”.Others more specifically argue that the peaceful rise in the next 30-years will be challenged by domestic reforms and cracks will emerge as Chinatransits from a command to a market economy. These arguments are well circulated and contested and make the debate on China’s rise fascinating.

Like it or not, China does matter.[5]It is home to a 1/4thof the world’s population but finds itself with disproportionately less arable land, water and oil. Its economy while galloping at a pace that is undoubtedly impressive[6]has left a telling impact on the environment. There are limits to China’s resources that can match its ability to be self-sufficient in food. Being food secure equally means optimising the water resources.A hungry China is equally a thirsty China. It is a compelling reminder that no engagement with China can afford to ignore its resource dilemmas.

Nature of Transboundary Rivers

Transboundary rivers originating from, flowing through and draining into territorially defined boundaries are a significant part of the freshwater biome, contributing roughly 60 per cent of world’s freshwater excluding the Antarctica.[7] There are about 260 river basins home to 40per cent of the world population with roughly 145 sharing agreements/treaties in existence.[8] Clearly the rivers make the international system positively busy with an array of cooperation and shared benefits. However, rivers display a peculiar tendency that can be referred to as the ‘unsettlement of the settled’. Water relations can never be permanently settled since flows in river are not constant. The flows in turn are determined by seasonal variations and usage particularly those that are non-consumptive in nature. Also, interventions and diversions on rivers impact flow. Political relations therefore can easily swing according to the changing quantitative and qualitative nature of the river.

Varied interpretations on the use of river have resulted in differing claims between riparian countries.[9]‘Limited Territorial Sovereignty’, however, allows each riparian state to use the flow of the shared rivers within its territory provided such utilization does not impinge on the rights of the co-riparian. that nations are entitled to “reasonable share of water”. But since there is no legal-binding international treaty on water sharing, riparian relations will remain hostage to individual states’ current needs and future requirements.[10]As major parts of the globe experience high-level of water-stress, riparian relations will get contentious.

While rivers are visible yet they are not transparent. This relates to the difficulty in monitoring and measuring the flows and as such the lack of knowledge prompts suspicion and creates conflictual positions. Since rivers physically link upstream and downstream users, knowledge can also be ‘constructed’ to suit the riparian state interest. The possession or capture and control of water resources can result in aggressive tendencies and can readily translate into power and dominance. Water thus can assume hegemonic attribution. Project MUSE® - View Citation

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Alex Liebman. "Trickle-down Hegemony?: China's "Peaceful Rise" and Dam Building on the Mekong." Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs 27.2 (2005): 281-304. Project MUSE. Web. 25 Apr. 2011. <

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Alex Liebman. (2005). Trickle-down hegemony?: China's "peaceful rise" and dam building on the mekong. Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs 27(2), 281-304. Retrieved April 25, 2011, from Project MUSE database.

Alex Liebman. "Trickle-down Hegemony?: China's "Peaceful Rise" and Dam Building on the Mekong." Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs 27, no. 2 (2005): 281-304. (accessed April 25, 2011).

TY - JOUR
T1 - Trickle-down Hegemony?: China's "Peaceful Rise" and Dam Building on the Mekong
A1 - Alex Liebman
JF - Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs
VL - 27
IS - 2
SP - 281
EP - 304
Y1 - 2005
PB - Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
SN - 1793-284X
UR -
N1 - Volume 27, Number 2, August 2005
ER -

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Power and hegemony

The paper coneptualises the role of hegemony and power in transboundary water to understand the power asymmetries and the hegemonic nature of transboundary water relations. Steven Lukes’ study on power is a common tool of analysis in understanding state’s behaviour.[11]Some studies have already applied power and hegemony to transboundary water particularly while analysing the hydro-relations between Turkey and Syria on the Tigris and Euphrates and Ethiopia vis-à-vis Egypt on the Nile.[12]This paper does so in relation to China.

Power is not easy to define and highly contested. It is “less about what power is than about what power does.”[13]Lukes description of three dimensions of power is interesting when approached through water.[14] The first form of power being the state’s military and economic superiority or ‘structural power’ also referred to as ‘hard power’.It can be reasoned that states riparian position and its control of water can fall under structural power. Here the hydro-hegemon can employ structural power in a coercive way. The second form of power refers to setting the agenda, dictating the discussion and ability to shift the goal post. The stronger party gives very little choice or option to the weaker party. This is referred to as the ‘bargaining power’.[15]The third form of power occurs when the hegemon takes the initiative of depoliticising the issue and becomes a kind of a guarantor and regulator of affairs, a ‘dean’ or ‘guide’ so to speak. This is referred to as ‘ideational power’ or ‘psychological power’.[16]Mark Zietoun and Jeron Warner describe hydro-hegemony as “hegemony at the river-basin level achieved through water resource control strategies such as resource capture, integration and containment. The strategies are executed through an array of tactics (e.g. coercion-pressure, treaties, knowledge construction, etc.) that are enabled by the exploitation of existing power asymmetries within a weak international institutional context.”[17]Eventually all international river basins are determined by ‘who gets how much water, how and why?’[18]

China’s continued water development, now witnessing a rapid pace with successive interventions on the rivers, is in pursuant of its internal compulsions and therefore self-driven. It, however, does not find it necessary to take into consideration the concerns of its downstream neighbours. China’s upper riparian position gives it the hydrological advantage to use and control the waters the way it wills. This allows for enormous power (structural). Power also determines who the hegemon is. Recently, Wen Jiabao in an interview to Malaysian and Indonesian media stressed on the fact that China would never seek hegemony when it becomes a developed country.[19]Such statement of calm and assurance is typical of China and Wen is the perfect PR man. However, one cannot discount China’s deception and dismiss the fact that it will not strive to become a regional hegemon (domination).[20]

China’s effort to dominate Asia has to be understood from two important features of Asia: continental and maritime. To be a true hegemon, China will have to dominate over both the continental and the maritime. It’s continental domination, first having filled the space left by the collapse of the Soviet Union its prime continental challenger, is now solidly secure with the control of the waters of the Tibet. China’s maritime dominance continues to be challenged by countervailing powers like the US in Asia’s littoral and India in the Indian Ocean.[21]It can be argued here that China’s continental hegemony is predominantly hydro-hegemony. With roughly 10major riversflowing out of China’s territory to 11 countries and none coming in, it’s a resource dominance of unimaginable proportion. With such control, what can China do? First, its disproportionate water hold gives it the capacity to coerce the weaker riparian. As a hydro-hegemon it can set and dictate the agenda for all riparian. It can also determine the knowledge that is included and exclude the hydrological information by ensuring that any information used enhances the hegemon’s case and not that of a weaker party contestation.

Chinese civilization and water management

Chinese civilization like many of the early civilization flourished around the mighty river systems of the Yellow and the Yangtze. These great rivers also accompanied with it widespread deluge and destruction, “…rising to the heavens with their swell.”[22] While the society respected water as nature’s gift it also acknowledged its destructive force. The history of Chinese civilization in many ways is a history of hydraulic engineering, canal building and water conservation. Modern day projects such as the Three Gorges and the SNWP (South-to-North Water Project) carry a distinct Chinese tradition of taming the rivers which goes back to nearly 5000 years when Yu the Great of the Xia Dynasty (2205 BC) also referred to as Da Yu (Mighty Yu) dredged the vast floodplains of ancient China. Legend has it that Yu created Sanmenxia (now a city in western Henan province of central China) by cutting the Longman mountain into three ridges with a divine battle axe to control the floods of the Yellow river. Yu’s period symbolized the beginnings of Chinese water projects and water control. The Great Yu’s control of the floods is cast as ‘courage’ and ‘struggle’ of the labouring people against the elements of nature. Looked from a Chinese political philosophy, it bears a certain class imprint and thus part of the popular political consciousness.

Some of the most famous water projects of ancient China include the Dujiangyan Irrigation System, the LingCanal and the Grand Canal. The Dujiangyan Irrigation System, built in 3 century BC on the Min river, a major tributary of the Yangtze, is regarded as the oldest water project in the world and listed as a UN World Heritage Site.[23] It still serves the Chengdu inhabitants. Li Bing who built the project acquired a mythic status representing mans struggle against the forces of nature and its ultimate triumph. Bing left behind a legacy of water planners and builders who arerevered and commemorated in China. The LingCanal and the Grand Canal represents engineering feats of connecting rivers. The LingCanal completed in 214 BC is probably one of the oldest canals in the world linking the Xiang and Li rivers both tributaries of the Yangtze. The Grand Canal built over 2000 years ago and still functioning, is an engineering marvel that connected the rivers Hai, Yellow, the Huai, the Yangtze and the Qiantang to form a great aquatic artery from north to south with a total length of 1794 km running from Hangzhou to Beijing.[24]It is also interesting that China's recently revived political direction of building ‘a harmonious society’,‘harmony with nature’ and a ‘harmonious world’,all Confucian concept, does not comply with its current water projects. It seems that for China the challenge is not just ultimate environmental security, but immediate and medium-term survival.