Rivers, Straits and Power: Global Infrastructure Game from Yarlung Zangbo Hydropower Project
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: On July 19, 2025, in Nyingchi, Tibet, the lower Yarlung Zangbo River hydropower project with a total investment of about 1.2 trillion yuan was officially started. As a downstream country, India regarded it as a geopolitical challenge. The traditional single territorial dispute has evolved into a complex competition and cooperation with water resources, scientific and technological strength and economic ability as the core. The project can not only accelerate the transformation of China’s green energy, upgrade Tibet’s infrastructure, but also strengthen the economic resilience of border areas; At the same time, India is worried that the upstream regulation will solidify China’s dominance in the disputed area and reduce its water security. The Yarlung Zangbo River case shows that large-scale infrastructure has gone beyond the scope of technology and become a key variable in reshaping the regional power structure. Similar logic also appears in the geopolitical game between the Strait of Malacca and the Suez Canal. In the future, the form of international conflict may change from military confrontation to “engineering competition” with infrastructure as the carrier, and controlling the dominant power of infrastructure is to master the right to speak and initiative. In this context, this paper uses case analysis to study and compare the international status of different countries, and obtains the Countermeasures of countries with different status through secondary data and secondary literature research. In the future, in the large-scale infrastructure game, large countries will expand their influence through financing, technical standards and cooperation strategies, while passive countries will safeguard their sovereignty through multilateral cooperation, technological autonomy and legal framework. All parties need to find a balance in the three dimensions of financing, technology and cooperation to achieve sustainable development and mutual benefit and win-win results of global infrastructure.
Author: Zhiying Cai
Institution: Northeastern University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4414477723
FWCI:
Cites:
Cited by:
Related to: