A New Front in Asia’s Water War
For decades, China has been dragging its neighbors into high-stakes games of geopolitical poker over water-related issues. But the country's politically motivated decision to withhold hydrological data from India amounts to an escalation of China's efforts to exploit its status as the world's hydro-hegemon to gain strategic leverage over its neighbors.
NEW DELHI – China has long regarded freshwater as a strategic weapon – one that the country’s leaders have no compunction about wielding to advance their foreign-policy goals. After years of using its chokehold on almost every major transnational river system in Asia to manipulate water flows themselves, China is now withholding data on upstream flows to put pressure on downstream countries, particularly India.