Author: Norpell Wilberforce
Publication: The Times of India
Date: September 7, 2026
URL:   https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-plus/environment/himalayan-chinese-checkers/articleshow/133886484.cms

For Beijing, Tibet is about resource extraction. But the area hosts a vital river system. Plus, project-related tunnelling & loosened earth up danger quotient of floods. China must share hydrological & climatic data

As the official death toll from Aug 26th’s landslides in Tibet and Nepal surpasses 1,300, with at least four times that missing, the further tragedy is that climate scientists and Himalayan peoples have been warning about exactly this sort of devastation for over a decade. The landslides’ triggers may not have been avoidable, but their catalysts were.

The Himalayas (especially the Tibetan plateau) are as vital for the world’s climate as the Amazon rainforest. From Brahmaputra to Mekong, most of the largest rivers flowing into Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, and South Asian seas originate in Tibet. Together, these waterways sustain billions across the continent. And the Himalayas are suffering global warming up to twice as fast as the global average, much of it driven by China’s resource extraction in occupied Tibet.

August’s disaster should be seen as the culmination of this accelerating trend. Since it built its first dam on the Tibetan plateau in 2009, Chinese Communist Party has initiated hundreds of large-scale extractivist projects. These include the world’s largest hydropower dam, whose generation capacity will surpass that of China’s nuclear plants combined, and a lithium mine that represents up to 4-5% of global supply.

It is not only Tibetan communities and climates that are the collateral damage of these projects. Of course, the forcible relocation of one million nomads since the 1990s represents one-sixth of Tibet’s population. Of course, local protests continue to be met with state repression. But in Chinese govt’s extractivist logic, the rest of Asia is also a mere externality.

For example, during times of extreme drought and decimated fish populations in Mekong River, satellite imaging and mathematical modelling have revealed that an overabundance of water at key Chinese dams at its Tibetan headwaters, is closely correlated with significantly reduced levels downstream. Scientists have calculated that these dams trap as much as 83% of Mekong’s sediment, critical for its fish population and the 40mn people who depend on this. With its monopoly over Tibet’s waters, China’s gain is downstream nations’ loss.

Some might object that correlation does not prove causation. China’s foreign ministry itself denies that its hydropower projects in Tibet were behind the recent disaster. But this objection must be questioned. Because scientists have estimated, from the database of a state-owned hydroengineering corporation no less, that 98.6% of all dams and 99.7% of western China’s hydroelectric generating capacity are located in zones with a moderate to very high level of seismic hazard.

Yes, the Aug 26 disaster was triggered by a landslide, not an exploding dam. But that landslide occurred within the Rasuwa-Kyirong corridor, which sits directly above where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates collide, and contains several hydropower projects, including one directly on the Nepal-Tibet border. Widespread tunnelling and loosened earth around the border are exactly why a glacial break created such catastrophic debris floods. The problem is that when these natural disasters do occur, Chinese industrial activity provides the perfect conditions for their worst impacts.

China’s govt jealously guards its extensive real-time data about upstream climatic conditions. Nepal’s requests for hydrological and seismic data-sharing with China have repeatedly met with rejection or inaction – as recently as in a bilateral meeting just three months before the Aug disaster. Given their climatic importance, the Himalayas are a commons in which every surrounding nation has a stake. Their critical information should be treated as sharable, too.

In times of conflict, Chinese govt has weaponised its informational monopoly. At the height of the 2017 Doklam military stand-off, China shared hydrological data with Bangladesh but not India. This sort of withholding leaves India underprepared for Brahmaputra’s flooding, despite China being legally obliged to share such information with India under a 2013 agreement. In the 2017 flooding in Assam, 500,000 people were made homeless.

Amid this impasse, what should be done? Certainly not an arms race, which is effectively what would happen if India goes ahead with a proposed mega-dam of its own in Arunachal Pradesh. This would not only irreversibly displace indigenous Adi communities, but also further destabilise what is already one of the world’s most climatically volatile regions. Besides, India’s downstream elevation puts it at the greatest risk when similar catastrophes inevitably recur.

What downstream nations and international institutions should do instead is, together, diplomatically pressure China to enter legally binding hydrological and seismic data-sharing agreements. All signatories must abide, not China alone. Downstream nations are constructing their own hydropower projects and these should be responsibly managed too, although, in some countries, obviously not India, these dams’ funding and stake ownership by Chinese capital present complications.

Critically, Tibetans and other Himalayan peoples should be platformed as the stewards of their own lands. They are the ones with the most to lose from the destruction that is the cost of an unfree Tibet. Yet, as toxic chemicals from mineral extraction in Tibet seep into drinking waters that are diverted eastwards to mainland China, we must remember that ordinary Chinese people suffer from their govt’s policies, too.

China, as long as it recklessly co-opts Himalayan climates and waterways for its own gain, must be held accountable. India is the single biggest recipient of Tibetan waters, and I urge the people and govt of India to lead this effort. I also call on the world to recognise Tibet’s and Nepal’s resilience in the face of such climatic and political crises, as an example of both peoples’ dignity and their centrality in fighting against climate devastation. As a Tibetan with a refugee family in Nepal, my heart bleeds for both sides of the border. I am also worried about what these disasters will mean for countless unborn children, if China and the world do not wake up.