Why China Needs Tibet

From the gorgeous Flickr stream of Chinese photographer Luo Shaoyang:

“Time passes on just like the flowing water in the river ,not ceasing day or night!”
— Analects of Confucius

The Chang Jiang (??) or Yangtze River is the largest river in China and the third longest in the world after the Nile and the Amazon. It flows 6 300 km from its source in western Qinghai province, north of Tibet, to the East China sea at Shanghai. During the 40 million years history of the life and 50,000 years history of human civilization, Yangtze River, a mother river of the Chinese people,brings up billions of Huaxia (????) people. I took this photo through glass-window of a moving train from Beijing to Tibet, it was taking on the so called ” First Bridge” of the river – The origin of Yangtze River

Without Tibet’s water China dies of thirst. Just like Israel with Lebanon, it’s not just about nationalism or imperialism. It’s absolutely crucial to Chinese interests (as it is to Israel’s, and increasingly, as the climate changes, to other nations too) that it controls the source of its water:

Sichuan province in south-western China relies on water from the Tibetan peninsula. At Kanding, several hundred kilometres away from Jiuzhaigou, there are valley glaciers which are seriously imperilled by rising temperatures. All across the Qinghai-Tibet highland that spans much of western China, global warming is speeding the retreat of glaciers, stoking evaporation of glacial and snow run-off, and leaving dwindling rivers that are dangerously clogged with silt, says Greenpeace in a report on climate change in the region.

[…]

Chinese government research shows that global warming is melting the plateau at 7 per cent annually. These glaciers account for 47 per cent of the total coverage in China. Water from the mountain region feeds the Yellow, Yangtze and other rivers that feed hundreds of millions of people across China and South Asia, said Li Yan of Greenpeace’s Beijing office.

“Climate change is the major factor leading to the overall ecological degradation in this region while localised human activities, such as industry and agriculture, have aggravated the situation,” the Greenpeace report says.

The Qinghai-Tibet plateau covers 2.5 million square kilometres – about a quarter of China’s land surface – at an average altitude of 4,000m above sea level. “The river itself is under threat from this deterioration in its birthplace,” the report says of the Yellow river. The environmental group cited one forecast that 80 per cent of the glacial area in Tibet and surrounding parts could disappear by 2035. It is still unclear exactly how quickly the glaciers will melt.

We in the west can urge demonstrations at the Olympics all we like: we’re not short of water at the moment. It’s not going to change the fact that China’s population is short of water, and the government isn’t going to let little annoyances like the Tibetans and their ancient culture stand in the way.