Catastrophe on the roof of the world
The Tibetan Plateau is home to vast glacial reserves, which amount to the largest store of fresh water outside the Arctic and the Antarctic.
It is also the source of 10 major Asian river systems — including the Yellow and Yangtze rivers of mainland China, the Mekong, Salween and Irrawaddy rivers of Southeast Asia and the Indus and Brahmaputra of South Asia — which supply water to nearly 20% of the global population. And, now, it is the site of a slow-burning environmental calamity that is threatening the water security, ecological balance and geopolitical stability of the entire Asian continent.
For over two decades, China has been engaged in an aggressive and opaque dam-building spree, centered on — though not limited to — the Tibetan Plateau. Yet China's government has refused to negotiate a water-sharing treaty with any of the downriver countries, which must suffer the consequences of their upstream neighbor's whims.
Already, Chinese-built megadams near the Plateau's border have brought water levels in the Mekong River to unprecedentedly low levels, with devastating effects on fisheries and livelihoods across Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. As the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam retreats — driven partly by Chinese dams — rice farmers are being forced to abandon their traditional livelihoods, instead farming shrimp or growing reeds.
Yet China's dam ambitions continue to grow. The Three Gorges Dam, which runs along the Yangtze River, is the largest in the world. But it will be dwarfed by the dam China is now building on the Yarlung Zangbo river, also known as the Brahmaputra, in a seismically active region of the Tibetan Plateau. If completed, this project would drastically alter water flows into India and Bangladesh, threaten the region's food security and ecological balance and increase China's geopolitical leverage over downstream countries.
The specter of water weaponization looms large. In fact, water is fast becoming the new oil — a strategic resource with the potential to trigger conflicts. Already, water disputes within and between countries are intensifying.
But China's assault on the Tibetan Plateau extends beyond water. Its avaricious mining of Tibet's mineral-rich lands — which boast critical resources like lithium, gold and copper — is contributing to deforestation and producing toxic-waste discharge, while providing cover for China's militarization of the Plateau.
It is impossible to know the full extent of China's destruction. The area is off limits to international observers and efforts by members of indigenous Tibetan communities — whose cultural reverence for nature has underpinned a long history of sound environmental stewardship — to sound the alarm are quickly quelled, often through imprisonment or exile.
But there is no doubt that the Tibetan Plateau's ecosystem is becoming increasingly fragile, especially given its heightened vulnerability to climate change. The Plateau is warming at twice the global average rate and its ice is melting faster than at the poles — trends that are reducing its water-storage capacity and reshaping river flows.
The implications are far-reaching. The Tibetan Plateau, which towers over the rest of Asia (rising into the troposphere), profoundly influences Asian climatic, weather and monsoonal patterns and even affects atmospheric general circulation — the system of winds that transports warm air from the equator toward higher latitudes — in the Northern Hemisphere. Its degradation will exacerbate droughts and floods, accelerate biodiversity loss, contribute to agricultural collapse and fuel mass migration across Asia and beyond.
Despite these risks, the international community, from global climate forums to multilateral institutions like the United Nations and World Bank, has been deafeningly silent about Tibet. The reason is not ignorance, but fear: China has used its clout to suppress meaningful criticism of its actions on the 'roof of the world.'
Given the stakes, the international community cannot afford to let itself be cowed by China. Countries must relentlessly press for transparency about China's activities on the Tibetan Plateau. Specifically, China must share real-time hydrological data and submit its projects for international environmental assessment. Independent environmental researchers and monitors must be granted unfettered access to the Plateau to gather vital data and conduct unbiased analyses.
China must also be held accountable for its violations of the rights of indigenous communities — including the nearly 1 million Tibetans who have been forcibly relocated from their ancestral lands since 2000. Western governments and multilateral institutions have leverage here. By tying environmental transparency, respect for indigenous rights and equitable management of shared river systems to trade agreements and climate cooperation, they can compel China to change its behavior. Direct support for indigenous Tibetan voices and civil-society networks would also help boost transparency.
Ignoring the unfolding crisis on the Tibetan Plateau might seem expedient; after all, China has plenty of economic and geopolitical clout — and it is not afraid to use it. But the costs of inaction would be staggering. Tibet is Asia's ecological lifeline. China must not be allowed to use it in ways that threaten to upend the lives of people throughout the continent and beyond.
Brahma Chellaney, professor emeritus of strategic studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research and fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin, is the author of "Water, Peace, and War: Confronting the Global Water Crisis" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2013). © Project Syndicate, 2025
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