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00:00which means such a huge dam that China has proposed to be built on the Yangtze River
00:07that we call in Tibet, and which is called Brahmaputra as it enters India, India would
00:12surely have serious implication where it could induce seismic activity, and that could cause
00:21huge risk to the Indian community in northeast regions, such as Arunachal Pradesh, Assam,
00:28and other regions, and such earthquake has happened many times in past history. One specific
00:35issue was, if I'm not wrong, happened in 1954, the very tragic Assam earthquake. So
00:44there could be other such earthquake happening because of such mega dams.
00:49And then third, and something that would be more political or strategic implication for
00:55India is that China might use the dam for various reasons. If China has a good relation
01:04with India, it might use it as a good, the management of the river flow might be used
01:11amicably as for the relation at that point in time. But if the relation between these
01:17two major powers can fluctuate for sure, so if the relation between India and China deteriorates
01:24or at some point becomes unfavorable to each other, the Chinese government could easily
01:31use the dam strategically. Either ways, if there's a war between India and China, they
01:37could suddenly release water from the dam and cause floods in the region, or they can
01:42just throw up the water to cause drought in the region. So these are the issues that I'm
01:48sure Indian government understands, clearly understands, and they have also put up a statement,
01:53the Indian government has put up a statement. But the government of India and the strategic
01:58thinkers of India need to take it very seriously, as we as Tibetans, as we live here in India,
02:05and India is our second home, and we are very grateful to India. So we also fear that such
02:11a dam would have serious implications for India. That's something that we do not want
02:16to see, and it's something that we have raised in an article that I wrote back in 2020 that
02:22you can read. It was published by Tribune in printing, both printing and online, and
02:27in which I have stated that the accelerated effort by the Chinese government to have infrastructure
02:37built up in the region is nothing but a greater strategic plan that China has in the region,
02:44because much of the southern regions of Tibet has very scarce population, and the Chinese
02:52after development of excessive infrastructure in the region, China could easily bring Chinese
02:59population in the region that would support any of the Chinese government's policy of
03:06populating the region, particularly the Indo-Tibet border regions. So this is something that
03:12we should be very, very careful about, and we should need to do careful studies.
03:18Some people believe that China is constructing a water bomb.
03:22Yeah, exactly. That's what I said. The dam itself is basically a water dam. During the
03:27First and Second World War, there has been cases where the elite power, they bombed dams
03:33to cause destruction in the country that they intend to cause destruction. So China can
03:41use the dam, as I stated earlier, either way. Sometimes they can say, okay, we have good
03:48relations with India, so we are providing hydrological data. When there's the relation
03:53source, they could just do anything, because the dam is under their territory control,
04:00as Tibet is currently occupied by China. So they have the authority. The only thing we
04:05here in India can do is to monitor through the satellite images, but that may not be
04:09comprehensive. So we need to have ground data of the dam and the water flow. We lack that.
04:20So it's definitely a water bomb for sure, and we should not overlook it. Sometimes we
04:26have this tendency in India that, okay, the river flow from the Brahmaputra is not as
04:32big as it is being made to be, but ultimately the river itself is coming from there. So
04:38if their source is blocked, what's the point of other rain-fed waters? Basically there's
04:46no area where it can be accumulated if the primary source of the river is not there.