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WATER POLITICS

Given its geographic size, enormous population, and frenetic pace of industrialization, it is perhaps no surprise that water issues are becoming more and more critical in China. And, rather than taking a revisionist approach to history and forgetting all the errors & damage inflicted on water sources around the world by other nations and trying to hold China to a higher standard, we believe it important to present some details of the situation today. Without a doubt, China understand the magnitude of the challenges before it and has a number of highly talented people focused on water issues. But, the reality is that, between India and China (both of whom have growing water challenges), Asia faces some of the most difficult geopolitical and environmental decisions related to water in the years ahead. They will involve national (i.e. internal) allocation debates, possible international disagreements, and class-based & urban-rural based tussles.

As Jim Rogers recently noted in his book entitled “A Bull in China”:

• “…the north of China, which hosts 2/3 of the country’s farmland receives less than 8% of the world’s rainfall average. The more tropical south, which provides irrigation for 70% of the nation’s grain, has fallen victim to rapid urbanization;
• might Yangtze may be biologically dead by 2012; it now absorbs 40% of China’s wastewater, 80% of which is untreated;
• 180 cities depend on the Yangtze for their drinking water, including Shanghai, Wuhan, and Chongquing, with a combined population of nearly 60 million people
• China has been designated by the UN as among the world’s lowest thirteen countries in terms of water per capita. By 2030, China’s Ministry of Water Resources predicts such resources will fall 20% lower. Over 60% of China’s 660 cities are already running short.
• If the Chinese become desperate enough, they may turn to neighbouring Russia for water, as they have for oil. Lake Baikal in Siberia, largest freshwater lake, contain >20% of the world’s freshwater…”

As a recent USA Today article noted, nearly one million people currently lack drinking water in a southern Chinese province that is suffering its worst water shortage in more than 50 years due to insufficient rain:

“…Water levels in rivers and lakes have fallen by half from last year in poor, mountainous Guangxi, where nearly all county-level cities are facing their most severe water shortage since 1951, the People’s Daily newspaper reported.

…Rainfall in Guangxi, which is next to the booming province of Guangdong, was six times lower in the past 10 weeks compared to the same period last year, the report said.

The government is planning to spend $311 million to tackle the problem by setting up water conservation projects and repairing water access to the countryside, the paper added.”

Via the China Digital Times, details on a growing problem of desertification in China’s wild west and the threat to Xihu National Nature Preserve which sits in between Dunhuang, Gansu’s oasis town, and China’s sixth largest desert, the Kum-tagh. As the article notes:

“…The 660,000-hectare region is the only green belt that shields lands to the east from marching sands coming out of the west. Wetlands in the preserve are shrinking, the result of dropping water tables and decreasing water supply from glaciers on Qilian and Altun mountains. The region’s Shule and Dang Rivers have gone nearly dry in places, reducing above-ground water supplies to both Dunhuang and Xihu. The expansion of agriculture around Dunhuang and a boom in logging of Euphrates poplar forests for construction have made the water shortage worse…”

Finally, some grand thoughts on the need for China to move its capital due to Beijing’s water constraints from one Chinese blogger:

“…Retaining Beijing as the capital continues to present problems. A city of 20 million people located in such a water-poor area raises concerns…. Quenching Beijing’s thirst has already meant tapping the Hai River and water from neighbouring provinces. Now the Han River is to be diverted for a huge project transferring water from the south to the north. The impact of this project on the lower reaches of the Han River should not be underestimated. It will not necessarily solve water problems in the north, but it may well destroy the environment in the south. Beijing may have moved the Shougang steel plant for the sake of its air quality, but it continues to develop water-intensive industry. Why not move the industry and resources where there is more water?…”