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17 August 2024

The geopolitics of water: how the Brahmaputra River could shape India–China security competition

Neely Haby

Although hydroelectricity can be transported thousands of miles away from its origin, the impact it has on servicing the immediate region in which a hydropower plant is built begins with construction.9 The installation of hydroelectric systems builds communities by bringing electricity, highways, energy and commerce.10 China repeatedly uses village building to consolidate the central government’s control over the country’s periphery, moving interior Chinese populations to the country’s frontiers.11 Hydroelectric infrastructure is an indicator of Chinese efforts to build and support larger Chinese communities in territory disputed with India. 

The strategic value for Beijing in establishing infrastructure and communities in its borderlands extends beyond the consolidation of domestic political control.12 It could also be used to substantiate China’s claims in disputed territory. The annual report released by the Pentagon on China’s military power in 2021 stated that ‘Sometime in 2020, the PRC built a large 100-home civilian village inside disputed territory between the PRC’s Tibet Autonomous Region and India’s Arunachal Pradesh state in the eastern sector of the Line of Actual Control.’13 Populating disputed territory with civilians and infrastructure gives Beijing a better negotiating position in border talks to refuse the removal of ‘local’ populations.14 China is working to silently, and irreversibly, legitimise its control of its borderlands, including territory disputed with India.

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