Water and Security

Claude Arpi

Human Quests?

• The Quest to live• The Quest to dominate others• The Quest to defend itself• The Quest to survive• The Quest to grow and develop• The Quest to know• The Quest to Happiness

What is Security?

• The state of being secure • A United Nations study (1986) defined Security as a national condition, so that countries can develop and progress safely.

• Precautions taken to ensure against threats, attacks, thefts, espionage, denial of vital commodities, etc .

The Quest for Fire: the first Security Issue

What is National Security?

National security is the requirement to maintain the survival of the State

through the use of economic, military, political power; diplomacy

or other means (non-violent alternatives?)

The Quest for the Atom

Peaceful and destructive use of the

atom

Tibetan Plateau: its Strategic Importance

He who holds Tibet dominates the Himalayan piedmont; he

who dominates the Himalayan piedmont, threatens the Indian subcontinent; and

he who threatens the Indian subcontinent may well have all of South-east Asia within his reach, and all of Asia.

Security: Defending a National Border

The 1962 Sino-Indian

Conflict

Conventional Security Issues/Threats

‘Defending the borders’

Conventional Security Issues/Threats

Missiles based in Qinghai can be transported by

rail or road

The Quest for Oil: the Gulf War

Next: Water Wars?

In 1995, Ismail Serageldin, Director of Alexandria Library declared: “Many of the

wars this century were about oil, but those of the next century will be over water.”

He wanted to “ring the alarm bell for the impending water crisis”.

Some Statistics

China’s Water Reserves

From Conventional to Unconventional Security Threats

Arunachal & Himachal Floods (2000, 2004)

Was the lake breached to allow

waters to flow downstream?

Third Pole’s Waters

Rivers originating from the Tibetan Plateau• The Yarlung Tsangpo (or Brahmaputra)• The Yangtze • The Yellow River • The Mekong, the Salween, the Irrawaddy • The Arun & the Karnali• The Sutlej and the Indus • 90% of their runoff flows to China, India,

Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

The Western Diversions

Save China through Water from Tibet ?

Guo Kai and one

of his colleague

s

Li Ling ’s book

A Reservoir would be located in Qinghai

The Shuotian Canal

• 56 kilometers of tunnels, • The longest being 20 kms long, • 200 billion cubic meters of water

diverted• A 300-meter-high dam

US$25.1 billion

Estimated by Gao at US $25.1 billion

The Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra)

• Originating near Mt Kailash• 2,900 km long• Flows 2,047 km in Tibet mostly above 4000 m• Takes a U-Turn before entering India in Upper

Siang (Arunachal)

A Megadam: a Security Risk for India

A proposed megada

m?

Biological Security: a lost Paradise

60 % of Tibet’s

biological

resources are

located in this area

Security Implications

• A huge artificial lake stretching hundreds of kms upstream

• Danger due to the high seismicity of the region

• China’s control of the Brahmaputra waters

• Loss of a biological reserve

The Great ‘Assam’ EarthquakeAugust 15, 1950

Rivers were blocked up for a while, and then broke through, they came down with

rush and a roar, a high wall of water sweeping down and flooding large areas and washing away villages and fields and gardens. These rivers have changed their colour and carried some sulphurous and other material which spread a horrible smell for some distance around them.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Zipingpu ‘Sichuan’ Earthquake

In May 2008, more than 87,000 lost their lives in the ‘Sichuan’

earthquake.Was the earthquake triggered by the weight of the Zipingpu

reservoir nearby?

A Step ForwardThe Chinese side agreed to take measures for controlled release of accumulated water of the landslide dam on the river Pareechu, as soon as conditions permit.It was noted with satisfaction that an agreement concerning the provision of hydrological data on Sutlej was concluded during the visit and that the two sides had also agreed to continue bilateral discussions to finalize at an early date similar arrangements for the Parlung Zangbo and Lohit Rivers.

During Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to India Joint Statement (April 2005)

The two sides will set up an expert-level mechanism to discuss interaction and cooperation on the provision of flood season hydrological data, emergency management and other issues regarding trans-border rivers as agreed between them.

During President Hu Jintao’s visit to India November 2006, Joint Declaration

Wang Shucheng, China's Minister for Water Resources stated that the Gao Kai’s diversion scheme was "unnecessary, unfeasible and unscientific" and had no government backing. The China Daily quoted him as saying: "There is no need for such dramatic and unscientific projects.“

Another step forward

After a War: Coal and SteelWhat could be done to link France

and Germany, and implant a common interest between them, before it was too late? That was the question I turned over and over in my mind in the silent

concentration of the day's march.

I could see only one solution: we must bind

ourselves inextricably to Germany in a common

undertaking in which our other neighbours could

join. A European-wide territory of prosperity and peace would thus be created.

The European Example

Coal and steel were at once the key to

economic power and the raw materials for forging weapons of

war. This double role gave them immense

symbolic significance, now largely forgotten, but comparable at the time to that of nuclear energy today. To pool them across frontiers would reduce their malign prestige and

turn them instead into a guarantee of peace.

How to Solve the Quest for Water?

• A fair and binding Treaty between upper and lower riparian States such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (1997)

• A High Authority or any other supranational mechanism to manage rivers from the Third Pole?