China has begun the construction of a giant hydropower project at the earthquake-prone edge of the Tibetan plateau, a spectacular engineering feat that is central to Beijing’s enduring mission to become self-sufficient in critical areas such as energy.
The $167 billion facility will require digging tunnels that plunge through high mountains to harness the power of a river that sharply descends through the deepest and possibly longest canyon on the planet.
If its planners succeed—after shrugging off objections from neighbors—the project could generate triple the output of the world’s largest hydroelectric facility, China’s Three Gorges Dam, which is big enough to power around 40 million Chinese homes.
The endeavor is a dramatic example of China’s determination to become self-reliant in areas of national importance, from technology to food, a yearslong campaign that has gained momentum as Beijing’s rivalry with the U.S. intensifies. China imported nearly a quarter of its energy supply in 2023, a level of dependency that Beijing is working hard to undo.
The plan, slated to be the world’s most expensive infrastructure project, will also plow money into a struggling Chinese economy and bring jobs and business to a remote and sensitive corner of China where Beijing is trying to engineer the loyalty of the Tibetan population. A planned $7 billion high-voltage transmission network will deliver electricity from the site in Tibet to Guangdong province, the economic center on China’s southeast coast, and the cities of Hong Kong and Macau.
But the project on the Yarlung Tsangpo River has stirred accusations that it will give Beijing the power to strangle resources beyond its borders, where the river flows into northeastern India and then south through Bangladesh.
It has also raised fears of environmental damage and potential disaster in the mountainous, seismically active region. The location is one of vast biodiversity, featuring rare primates and a wider range of big cats, from snow leopards to Bengal tigers, than anywhere else in the world.
China has yet to reveal the details, but it is evident that the design aims to avoid the pitfalls of some of the original plans, which included using nuclear explosions to blast a route north.
“It’s super clever,” said Ruth Gamble, an environmental historian at La Trobe University in Australia who studies Himalayan rivers. “I don’t like dams, but as far as dams go it avoids all the wrong stuff.”
The project achieves that because it likely won’t rely on a megadam to generate power.
Instead, according to interviews, online postings by Chinese hydrologists and a review of official statements, the project involves drilling deep tunnels that begin above and emerge below the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon—essentially cutting across a U-shaped bend that descends nearly 2 vertical miles over more than 300 miles. It is expected to include dams at the top and bottom of tunnels in which diverted water drives turbines.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang, inaugurating the project last month, called it a “project of the century.”
Experts say it appears to emphasize “run-of-the-river” design, using the water’s flow without relying on significant storage behind a dam.
“This dam doesn’t take the water out of the river,” said Mark Giordano, a geography professor at Georgetown University. “It’s a tunnel that reroutes it from one part of the Chinese river, through the tunnel and enters the river again on the Chinese side before flowing to India.”
The bigger issue for China and its downstream neighbors could be the dam’s location in an area with a history of huge earthquakes. In 1950, a magnitude-8.6 earthquake centered about 50 miles northwest of where the Yarlung Tsangpo enters India struck the region, killing more than 4,500 people and setting off hundreds of landslides, including some that blocked rivers.
“It’s a high earthquake zone, so that’s clearly a risk,” said Giordano.
China has carried out extensive hydropower projects in recent decades in an effort to boost its supply of renewable energy. The Three Gorges Dam, which was completed in 2006, created a 400-mile reservoir on the Yangtze River and forced the relocation of 1.3 million people.
Where the Three Gorges Dam aroused skepticism, even within China’s rubber-stamp legislature, the Yarlung Tsangpo project has met with far less resistance, a sign of Beijing’s growing confidence in hydropower construction—and its ability to quash even nominal dissent.
But news of the project has prompted protests from across the border. Pema Khandu, chief minister of the neighboring Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, has called it a “water bomb” that poses an existential threat to his constituents because untimely releases of water could exacerbate seasonal flooding.
India has responded with plans to build a megadam on the river, in part to control the flow.
Adding to tensions, Beijing claims Arunachal Pradesh as its own territory, referring to it as southern Tibet. The relationship between China and India has been strained by territorial disputes, including a deadly military clash in 2020.
China, India and Bangladesh have no agreement for managing the river, which becomes the Brahmaputra in India and eventually joins the Ganges in Bangladesh.
China has rejected criticism from states downriver, which say they could suffer from changes in the flow of water and sediment. The project will “speed up clean energy development, improve local people’s life and proactively respond to climate change,” said Guo Jiakun, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
To the east of the Yarlung Tsangpo, where Tibet meets Sichuan province, China is already building a series of dams along the upper reaches of the Yangtze, the country’s longest river. More than a dozen dams are planned for that section of the river, known as the Jinsha, which is now the site of the world’s second-largest and fourth-largest dams by installed capacity.
The Yarlung Tsangpo has been comparatively untouched. A group of Chinese hydrologists estimated in 2022 that the river was generating just 2% of its potential hydropower capacity.
Exiled Tibetans in India say they also have concerns about the work being done in their homeland, and some projects have prompted protests, including the Yebatan dam on the Upper Jinsha, which Tibetans protested last year because some villages and historic monasteries would be inundated.
“When disaster happens, it’s the local Tibetans that face the consequences,” said Lobsang Yangtso, an environmental researcher with the International Tibet Network based in India.