Ruth Gamble and Hongzhang Xu
On Christmas Eve 2024, the Chinese government announced that it had approved the world’s largest – and, at $137 billion, most expensive – hydropower project on the Yarlung Tsangpo River in the Eastern Himalaya, near its disputed border with India. The project would generate around 60 gigawatts annually, nearly three times the capacity of the Three Gorges Dam, and help China meet its energy transition goals.
The government did not provide any additional information.
Most international media misinterpreted the announcement, assumed that all hydropower projects were dams, and reported that China was building “the world’s largest dam” (BBC, South China Morning Post, New York Times, Economist) near the disputed border. The Indian media were the most alarmed, using AI-generated images to depict China’s “mega-dam” looming over India.
The threat of the dam has reverberated through the Indian public sphere since. Pema Khandu, the chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh, a border state with territory claimed by China, called the “mega-dam” a “water bomb” and asked for India’s largest dam, which is planned for the same river 90 kilometers below the border, to be fast-tracked on national security grounds.
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