China claims no ‘negative impact’ on India from Brahmaputra's dam project

China has claimed the project to have a dam across the Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) river in its own territory would have no ‘negative impact’ in the lower reaches – that is India and Bangladesh.

The Tsangpo flows from Tibet into India and then to Bangladesh before joining the Bay of Bengal.

Yu Jing, spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in India, put a post on X on Saturday, saying, “The project has no negative impact on the lower reaches”.

The spokesperson added China will continue to maintain communication with countries at the lower reaches through existing channels, and step up cooperation on disaster prevention and relief for the benefit of the people by the river.

China’s response has come after New Delhi on Friday expressed ‘concern’ over the upcoming mega dam across the Tsangpo in Tibet.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal on Friday said India is a lower riparian state with established user rights to the waters of the river. “We have consistently expressed, through expert-level as well as diplomatic channels, our views and concerns to the Chinese side over mega projects on rivers in their territory,” Jaiswal said.

India has urged China to ensure that interests of downstream states of the Brahmaputra are not harmed by activities in upstream areas.

The Chinese Embassy spokesperson has responded, saying, “China has always been responsible for the development of cross-border rivers. China’s hydropower development in the lower reaches of the (Tsangpo) river aims to speed up developing clean energy, and respond to climate change and extreme hydrological disasters.”

“The hydropower development there has been studied in an in-depth way for decades, and safeguard measures have been taken for the security of the project and ecological environment protection,” Yu Jing added.