China is giving the world a dubious gift. On Christmas Day, Beijing approved the final construction plan of what would be the world’s largest electrical power complex, according to the state-run news agency Xinhua. The Great Bend hydroelectric project, which would sit on China’s contested border with India, would inflame tensions between the two giants and aggravate other South Asian nations. The project is further evidence of China’s long-term drive to control the waters of the Tibetan Plateau, which supply more than two billion people.
The megadam would endanger the ecologies of China and its southern neighbors. It would reinforce Xi Jinping’s economic plan to rely on industrial production for growth, to the detriment of the local and global environment. It would also undermine investment in human resources as the country channels money into infrastructure rather than education, health and other social services. This industrial-focused growth model is already floundering and stoking public discontent with the communist regime.
Read the full article in the Wall Street Journal.
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