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Long a source of tension with its neighbours, China’s transboundary rivers are opening opportunities for regional cooperation.

Sixteen major rivers originate in China that supply fresh water to nearly 3 billion people in 14 Asian countries – more than a third of the world’s population.

 As 'Asia’s water tower', China has often been depicted as the upstream bully when it comes to water politics – taking what it needs for itself with little consideration for its downstream neighbours. 

But with the growing connection between sustainable development and regional stability, China has an opportunity to use transboundary water management as a springboard for regional peace and cooperation. 

Its success will depend not just on navigating diplomacy with many neighbouring states, but also on the unpredictable course of the US-China rivalry, as China looks to  in renewable energy production. 

Clean energy industries are re-adjusting their global strategies to be more in sync with international political alliances. And global mineral markets and supply chains have shifted, with China recently  of strategic rare earth minerals.

At the same time, transboundary water management and hydropower development are becoming integrated into security, political and economic negotiations among riparian states – part of an emerging .

For China, this scenario presents challenges to its  to create and oversee platforms for regional cooperation. 

Neighbouring states are under immense pressure to bring economic growth to large populations — and to do so with clean energy.

Hydropower — harnessing the immense potential of these rivers — could be their ticket.

The politics of hydropower

Since the 2016 implementation of the UNFCCC , many countries in the region are facing increased pressure to phase out fossil fuels and invest in hydropower development. 

Various domestic clean energy demands and complicated geopolitical positions, diplomatic histories and political cultures mean that China might make a better partner for some than for others.

�����Գ����� in Thailand 2004 against a proposed dam project in southwestern China, environmental activists and campaigners from four lower Mekong countries — Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam — have often rallied together to halt the construction of hydropower plants and dams on the upper stream Mekong (Lanchang jiang in Chinese) inside China. 

The protests also marked the beginning of Chinese environmental NGOs joining transnational coalitions against the construction of large dams in China.

But in recent years, due to domestic energy demands, lower Mekong region states have collaborated with China in developing hydropower projects on the river. 

Some of the authoritarian states in the region, despite being highly sensitive to public protests, have allowed environmentalists and non-governmental organisations to protest against dams invested in by Chinese capital and built in neighbouring countries. 

The Xayaburi dam in Laos and  are cases in point. 

Water wars

The situation is even more intense between China and India. 

Diplomatic skirmishes related to transboundary water resource management have sometimes been referred to by observers as “”. Since the establishment of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, India has frequently accused China of .

A decade ago, research  that China’s water diplomacy had remained underdeveloped or ineffective due to institutional constraints