China and Transboundary Water Politics in Asia
Water-related conflicts have a long history and will continue to be a global and regional problem. Asia, with 1.5 billion of its people living in shared river basins, and with very few transboundary rivers governed by treaties, is especially prone to such conflicts. The key to mitigating transboundary water conflicts and advancing cooperation in Asia is largely in the hands of China, the upstream country for most of Asias major transboundary rivers. To avert the looming water crisis, apart from spending billions of dollars on domestic water transfer projects such as the SouthNorth Water Diversion Megaproject, as well as on water conservancy and pollution abatement, China has sought to utilize the water resources of the major rivers that run across borders with neighbouring countries. On these transboundary rivers, China has built or plans to build large dams for hydroelectricity and major water diversion facilities, which has triggered anxiety and complaints from downstream countries and criticism from the international society.
This book aims to systematically examine the complex reality of water contestations between China and its neighbouring countries. It provides a discussion on transboundary hydropolitics beyond the state-centric geopolitical perspective to dig into various political, institutional, legal, historical, geographical, and demographic factors that affect Chinas policies and practices towards transboundary water issues. This book also provides a collection of comparative case studies on Chinas water resources management on the Mekong River with other five riparian states in the Lower Mekong region: the Salween River with Myanmar, the Brahmaputra River with India, the Amur River with Russia and Mongolia, the Ili and Irtysh Rivers with Kazakhstan, and the Yalu and Tumen Rivers with North Korea. Furthermore, this book sheds light on Chinas future role in global water governance.
Hongzhou Zhang is a Research Fellow in the China Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Mingjiang Li is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the China Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
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China and Transboundary Water Politics in Asia
Edited by Hongzhou Zhang and Mingjiang Li
China and Transboundary Water Politics in Asia
Edited by
Hongzhou Zhang and Mingjiang Li
First published 2018
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Zhang, Hongzhou, editor. | Li, Mingjiang, editor. | Container of (work): Moore, Scott, 1985 Assessing Chinas domestic hydropolitics.
Title: China and transboundary water politics in Asia/edited by Hongzhou Zhang and Mingjiang Li.
Description: New York: Routledge, 2018. | Series: Politics in Asia series | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017041169 | ISBN 9781138060654 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315162973 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Water resources developmentPolitical aspectsChina. | Water resources developmentPolitical aspectsAsia. | Water-supply ChinaInternational cooperation. | Water-supplyAsiaInternational cooperation. | Water rightsChina. | Water rightsAsia. | China Foreign relationsAsia. | AsiaForeign relationsChina.
Classification: LCC HD1698.C5 C47 2018 | DDC 333.9100951dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017041169
ISBN: 978-1-138-06065-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-16297-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Galliard
by codeMantra
Contents
PART I
Key factors shaping Chinas transboundary water policies and practices
HONGZHOU ZHANG AND MINGJIANG LI
SCOTT MOORE
FRAUKE URBAN, GIUSEPPINA SICILIANO, AND JOHAN NORDENSVARD
YANJUN GUO
PART II
Major transboundary rivers
EUGENE SIMONOV AND EUGENE EGIDAREV
ZHIFEI LI
R. EDWARD GRUMBINE
JULIAN KIRCHHERR
VISHAKA GULATI, ARUNDHATI DEKA, SAFA FANAIAN, SUMIT VIJ, AND ANAMIKA BARUA
ZHANGGUI ZHOU AND RUOLIN WANG
PART III
China and global water governance
HONGZHOU ZHANG AND MINGJIANG LI
Anamika Barua, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology-Guwahati, India.
Arundhati Deka, the South Asia Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies (SaciWATERs), Hyderabad, India.
Eugene Egidarev, Pacific Geographical Institute, Far East Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences / Amur Branch of the World Wildlife Fund (WWFRussia), Vladivostok, Russian Federation.
Safa Fanian, the South Asia Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies (SaciWATERs), Hyderabad, India.
