China's plans on diversion of Tibetan rivers

More on the reported Chinese plans to divert the waters of the Yalong Tsangpo - Brahmaputra River in the Tibeten plateau and India's possible concerns downstream.  

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/JL09Ad01.html

India quakes over China's water plan  By Sudha Ramachandran  BANGALORE - Even as India and China are yet to resolve their decades-old territorial dispute, another conflict is looming. China's diversion of the waters of a river originating in Tibet to its water-scarce areas could leave India's northeast parched. This is expected to trigger new tensions in the already difficult relations between the two Asian giants.  Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is reported during his recentBeijing visit to have raised the issue of international rivers flowing out of Tibet. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has said that water scarcity threatened the very "survival of the Chinese nation". The river in question is the Brahmaputra, which begins in southwestern Tibet where it is known as the Yalong Tsangpo River." Analysts have drawn attention to incidents in the past to show how vulnerable downstream areas are to what takes place upstream in Tibet. In June 2000, for instance, the breach of a dam in Tibet led to floods and left over 100 people dead or missing inArunachal Pradesh. In August that year, swollen lakes in Tibet caused severe flooding of the River Sutlej in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, sweeping away around 100 bridges and killing scores of people. If floods upstream have a serious impact on downstream areas, the diversion of waters will have “even more devastating consequences”, an India-China watcher in India, Claude Arpi, warned.  Underscoring the implications of the project, Arpi said that issues of concern “not only pertain to the environment but also to national and international security. If Beijing goes ahead with the Tsangpo project it would practically mean a declaration of war against South Asia.”