Paul
Goble
Staunton, May 3 – Russia’s
agriculture minister Aleksandr Tkachev is proposing opening talks with Beijing
on the diversion of Siberian river water to China. But although he says it
would benefit Russia by limiting spring flooding inside the Russian Federation,
there are three reasons why his proposal is likely to prove explosive.
First, for Russian nationalists and
Siberian residents, it will recall earlier debates about the possible diversion
of Siberian river water to Central Asia, a program that Mikhail Gorbachev
killed after considering its ecological impact on downstream areas and the
Arctic and its political consequences among Russians.
Second, it will highlight other
trans-border river issues along Russia’s southern border in Asia, particularly
the dispute with Mongolia over a dam that Russian officials and activists say
will contribute to the destruction of Lake Baikal but that Ulan Bator sees as
necessary for its own development.
And third, it is likely to
contribute to anger in Central Asia against both Russia and China, against
Russia because Moscow appears willing to give China the water it has been
unwilling to give Central Asia and against China because Beijing’s increasing
footprint in Central Asia is already sparking protests and unrest there.
In comments that have been picked up
by various Russian news services today, Tkachev said that “we are ready to
propose a project for divert fresh water from the Altay kray of Russia through
Kazakhstan to the Xinjiang-Uyghur autonomous district of the Peoples Republic
of China which is suffering a drought (ria.ru/east/20160503/1425318933.html).
According to the Russian sources,
this would involve sending “about 70 million cubic meters of water” from
reservoirs in the Altay to China via the Pavlodar oblast of Kazakhstan and
require the construction of a new canal system to handle the flow, one that
would likely have to be lined with concrete in order to reduce leaching.
This is only one of the trans-border
water issues in the region. Far more serious because far more advanced is a
clash between Russia and Mongolia over Ulan Bator’s construction of a dam a
river that provides much of in-flow of water to Russia’s Lake Baikal, something
the Russian authorities and environmental activists very much oppose.
But despite Russian pressure,
Mongolia shows no sign of backing down. The
construction of the dam and the creation of a reservoir, Ulan Bator officials
say, is vital to the future of their country whose population is growing and
whose territory is increasingly subject to desertification (asiarussia.ru/news/12192/).
They say that they have “no choice
but to go ahead if the Mongolian state is to exist” and express the hope that “Russian
citizens, including our blood brothers, the Buryats, will understand this,”
adding that if Baikal is under threat, Russia rather than Mongolia is
responsible for that.
But perhaps even more immediately
important as a trigger for political conflict are water disputes not between
China and Mongolia, on the one hand, and Russia, on the other, but among the
countries of Central Asia and especially between them and China which is
rapidly expanding its position in the region, including making efforts to gain
access to water supplies.
Tensions between the two water
surplus Central Asian republics – Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan – and the three
water short ones – Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan – have existed since
the 1920s. Indeed, in Soviet times, Moscow exploited them as one of its tools
to keep the region divided and subservient.
Since 1991, these tensions have only
grown because there is no one to play the role of arbiter as Moscow used to do.
That has not only sparked clashes between those countries with enough water and
those without but also sparked an international search for solutions, one that
has not get achieved its aim (caa-network.org/archives/7040).
China’s involvement in the region
has only intensified this issue given that many Central Asians fear that
Beijing will purchase land and with it access to water and thus reduce them to
the status of its vassals, a fear that recently sparked major demonstrations in
three cities of Kazakhstan (bbc.com/russian/international/2016/04/160429_kazakhstan_land_rent_protests).
Protesters said that “if we give
land to the Chinese, they will never leave,” over time they will acquire
Kazakhstan citizenship, and then “our descendants will be their slaves.”
Just how potentially explosive this
issue is not only in Kazakhstan but across the region has been highlighted by
Tashkent’s decision to block sites reporting about the protests in the
neighboring country and any discussion of the issues involved (asiaterra.info/news/v-uzbekistane-zablokirovali-soobshcheniya-o-massovykh-vystupleniyakh-v-kazakhstane).
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