China’s Mega Dam on the Yarlung Zangbo: Power Play or Policy Blind Spot?

On July 19, 2025, China officially broke ground on what is projected to be the world’s largest hydropower project: the Medog (Motuo) cascade on the Yarlung Zangbo River - known downstream as the Brahmaputra. With five cascading dams, a total drop of 2,000 meters, and a projected capacity of 60 GW, this mega-infrastructure dwarfs even the iconic Three Gorges Dam. It is part of China’s broader push toward renewable energy and climate goals. But beneath the headlines of clean power and engineering marvels lies a troubling pattern of opacity, underdeveloped social safeguards, and geopolitical risk.

Geopolitics at the Headwaters

The Yarlung Zangbo originates in Tibet and flows into India (as the Brahmaputra) before reaching Bangladesh. It is one of Asia’s most critical transboundary rivers - sustaining ecosystems, agriculture, and millions of livelihoods.

China’s unilateral development of large-scale hydropower upstream, without formal water-sharing agreements or joint assessments, has raised alarms across the region. India has responded by fast-tracking its own dam projects in Arunachal Pradesh, both to assert prior-use rights and as a strategic counterweight. Bangladesh, furthest downstream, has called for greater transparency and cooperation, citing potential impacts on seasonal flows, sediment loads, and water availability during dry periods.

In a region already shaped by fragile diplomacy, the weaponisation of water - or even the perception of it - risks escalating tensions in unpredictable ways.

The Promise (and Politics) of Energy

From an energy policy perspective, China views the Medog project as a climate-aligned stimulus initiative. Its expected output of 300 billion kWh per year could power entire provinces and offset hundreds of millions of tonnes of CO₂ over its lifetime. The project also supports rural electrification and economic development in remote parts of Tibet.

However, when infrastructure of this scale is executed without adequate environmental and social due diligence - and especially when it involves transboundary ecosystems - the risks quickly outpace the benefits. The rush to build must not override the responsibility to inform, assess, and consult.

An EIA That No One Can Find

To date, no standalone Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) has been made publicly available for the Medog cascade. Instead, analysts suggest the project was buried within a 2011 basin-level study for the upper Yangtze and Yarlung regions - a document that is now over a decade out of date and fails to reflect the current project design, climate realities, or community context.

This practice - hiding assessments in obscure, outdated documents - is not only poor transparency. It actively undermines public accountability, prevents stakeholder input, and violates international norms around project disclosure and free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC), which is likely applicable downstream. It also raises serious questions about the adequacy of proposed mitigation measures - if any exist at all.

The Gaps in China’s EIA Framework

China’s domestic Environmental Impact Assessment Law (2003, amended 2016) mandates technical assessments for major infrastructure projects. However, the legislation remains narrowly scoped compared to international frameworks such as the IFC Performance Standards or World Bank Environmental and Social Framework (ESF).

Key gaps include:

• Lack of FPIC: There is no legal requirement to obtain the free, prior, and informed consent of affected Indigenous or ethnic minority communities.

• Weak stakeholder consultation: Public participation is limited, often pro forma, and largely absent in sensitive regions like Tibet.

• No social baseline or livelihoods assessment: Economic displacement, informal land use, and downstream impacts are rarely accounted for.

• No enforceable grievance mechanism: Affected people have little recourse to challenge or shape decisions that impact their lives.

Forced Evictions: A Recurring Pattern

These policy gaps are not hypothetical. They echo a long history of social disruption and human rights abuses linked to past hydropower megaprojects in China.

The Three Gorges Dam, completed in 2012, displaced more than 1.3 million people, many of whom were resettled without adequate compensation or livelihood restoration. Research by human rights observers and academics has documented cases of coercion, relocation to unsuitable land, and loss of cultural heritage, particularly among ethnic minorities.

There is little to suggest the Medog project will break this pattern - particularly given the ongoing militarization and surveillance in Tibet, where public dissent is often criminalized, and where resettlement risks are compounded by remoteness and limited access to legal aid.

Cumulative Impacts and E-Flows Ignored

The Medog cascade is not an isolated project. It joins a growing cluster of dams along the Yarlung Zangbo, including:

• Zangmu Dam (510 MW, operational since 2015)

• Jiacha Dam (360 MW, operational since 2020)

• Dagu Dam (660 MW, operational since ~2023)

  
  

Despite this concentration, no comprehensive cumulative impact assessment has been released. Critical concerns - like sediment transport disruption, biodiversity loss, and environmental flow (e-flow) maintenance — remain unaddressed. So too do socio-economic dependencies downstream: farmers, fishers, herders, and Indigenous communities whose survival hinges on predictable river behaviour.

It is alarming that, in 2025, a project of this scale can proceed without credible data on how much water will remain in the river, when, and for whom.

The Cost of Secrecy

Climate mitigation through renewable energy is necessary. But it cannot come at the cost of secrecy, dispossession, or ecological degradation. Hiding the EIA in a decade-old document and bypassing meaningful consultation is not just bad governance - it undermines the legitimacy of the very “green” goals these dams are meant to serve.

A clean energy future must also be a just and inclusive one. That means aligning not only with emission targets but with international standards of transparency, social protection, and environmental stewardship.

What Needs to Change

If China is serious about leading on global climate solutions, it must also lead on safeguard standards. For the Medog project and others like it, this would mean:

• Publishing a standalone, updated ESIA with full social and transboundary impact assessments

• Ensuring genuine stakeholder consultation - including downstream users in India and Bangladesh

• Integrating IFC/WB-aligned standards on displacement, livelihood restoration, and grievance mechanisms

• Committing to transboundary water diplomacy through data-sharing and joint basin governance

  
  

Until then, China’s mega dam may generate clean power - but it will do so in the shadow of displacement, distrust, and international concern.