Water and Security

1. Water and Security Claude Arpi

2. 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 Human Quests?

3. 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 . What is Security?

4. The Quest for Fire: the first Security Issue

5. 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?)

6. Peaceful and destructive use of the atom The Quest for the Atom

7. 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.

8. Security: Defending a National Border The 1962 Sino-Indian Conflict

9. Conventional Security Issues/Threats ‘Defending the borders’

10. Conventional Security Issues/Threats Missiles based in Qinghai can be transported by rail or road

11. The Quest for Oil: the Gulf War

12. 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”.

13. Some Statistics

14. China’s Water Reserves

15. From Conventional to Unconventional Security Threats

16. Arunachal & Himachal Floods (2000, 2004) Was the lake breached to allow waters to flow downstream?

17. 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.

18. The Western Diversions

19. Save China through Water from Tibet ? Guo Kai and one of his colleagues Li Ling ’s book A Reservoir would be located in Qinghai

20. The Shuotian Canal Estimated by Gao at US $25.1 billion US$25.1 billion • 56 kilometers of tunnels, • The longest being 20 kms long, • 200 billion cubic meters of water diverted • A 300-meter-high dam

21. 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)

22. A Megadam: a Security Risk for India A proposed megadam?

23. Biological Security: a lost Paradise 60 % of Tibet’s biological resources are located in this area

24. 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

25. 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

26. 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?

27. A Step Forward The 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 ParlungZangbo and Lohit Rivers. During Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to India Joint Statement (April 2005)

28. Another step forward 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.“

29. After a War: Coal and Steel • What 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.

30. 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.

31. 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?