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Even after Asia’s economies climb out of the Covid-19 recession, China’s strategy of frenetically building dams and reservoirs on transnational rivers will confront them with a more permanent barrier to long-term economic prosperity: water scarcity. China’s recently unveiled plan to construct a mega-dam on the Yarlung Zangbo River, better known as the Brahmaputra, may be the biggest threat yet.

China dominates Asia’s water map, owing to its annexation of ethnic-minority homelands, such as the water-rich Tibetan Plateau and Xinjiang. China’s territorial aggrandisement in the South China Sea and the Himalayas, where it has targeted even tiny Bhutan, has been accompanied by stealthier efforts to appropriate water resources in transnational river basins—a strategy that hasn’t spared even friendly or pliant neighbours, such as Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Nepal, Kazakhstan and North Korea. Indeed, China hasn’t hesitated to use its hydro-hegemony against its 18 downstream neighbours.

The consequences have been serious. For example, China’s 11 mega-dams on the Mekong River, Southeast Asia’s arterial waterway, have led to recurrent drought downriver, and turned the Mekong Basin into a security and environmental hotspot. Meanwhile, in largely arid Central Asia, China has diverted waters from the Illy and Irtysh rivers, which originate in China-annexed Xinjiang. Its diversion of water from the Illy threatens to turn Kazakhstan’s Lake Balkhash into another Aral Sea, which has all but dried up in less than four decades.

Against this background, China’s plan to dam the Brahmaputra near its disputed—and heavily militarised—border with India should be no surprise. The Chinese communist publication Huanqiu Shibao, citing an article that appeared in Australia, recently urged India’s government to assess how China could ‘weaponise’ its control over transboundary waters and potentially ‘choke’ the Indian economy. With the Brahmaputra megaproject, China has provided an answer.

The planned 60-gigawatts project, which will be integrated into China’s next Five-Year Plan starting in January, will reportedly dwarf China’s Three Gorges Dam—currently the world’s largest—on the Yangtze River, generating almost three times as much electricity. China will achieve this by harnessing the power of a 2,800-metre drop just before the river crosses into India.

What the chairman of China’s state-run Power Construction Corporation, Yan Zhiyong, calls a ‘historic opportunity’ for his country will be devastating for India. Just before crossing into India, the Brahmaputra curves sharply around the Himalayas, forming the world’s longest and steepest canyon—twice as deep as America’s Grand Canyon—and holding Asia’s largest untapped water resources.

Experience suggests that the proposed megaproject threatens those resources—and China’s downstream neighbours. China’s past upstream activities have triggered flash floods in the Indian states of Arunachal and Himachal. More recently, such activity turned the water in the once-pristine Siang—the Brahmaputra’s main artery—dirty and grey as it entered India.

About a dozen small or medium-sized Chinese dams are already operational in the Brahmaputra’s upper reaches. But the megaproject in the Brahmaputra Canyon region will enable the country to manipulate transboundary flows far more effectively. Such manipulation could leverage China’s claim to the adjacent Indian state of Arunachal, which is almost three times the size of Taiwan. Given that China and India are already locked in a tense, months-long military standoff, which began with Chinese territorial encroachments, the risks are acute.

And yet the country that will suffer the most as a result of China’s Brahmaputra dam project is not India at all; it is densely populated and China-friendly Bangladesh, for which the Brahmaputra is the single largest freshwater source. Intensifying pressure on its water supply will likely trigger an exodus of refugees to India, already home to millions of illegally settled Bangladeshis.

The Brahmaputra megaproject also amounts to a slap in the face of Tibet, which is among the world’s most biodiverse regions and has a deeply rooted culture of reverence for nature. In fact, the canyon region is sacred territory for Tibetans: its major mountains, cliffs and caves represent the body of their guardian deity, the goddess Dorje Pagmo, and the Brahmaputra represents her spine.

If none of this deters China, the damage it is doing to its own people and prospects should. China’s over-damming of internal rivers has severely harmed ecosystems, including by causing river fragmentation and disrupting the annual flooding cycle, which helps to refertilise farmland naturally by spreading silt. In August, some 400 million Chinese were put at risk after record flooding endangered the Three Gorges Dam. If the Brahmaputra mega-dam collapses—hardly implausible, given that it will be built in a seismically active area—millions downstream could die.

The Great Himalayan Watershed is home to thousands of glaciers and the source of Asia’s greatest river systems, which are the lifeblood of nearly half the global population. If glacial attrition is allowed to continue—let alone to be accelerated by China’s environmentally catastrophic activities—China will not be spared.

For its own sake—and the sake of Asia as a whole—China must accept institutionalised cooperation on transnational riparian flows, including measures to protect ecologically fragile zones and agreement not to dam relatively free-flowing rivers (which play a critical role in moderating the effects of climate change). This would require China to rein in its dam frenzy, be transparent about its projects, accept multilateral dispute-settlement mechanisms and negotiate water-sharing treaties with neighbours.

Unfortunately, there is little reason to believe this will happen. On the contrary, as long as the Chinese Communist Party remains in power, the country will most likely continue to wage stealthy water wars that no one can win.

The signing of a $204 million memorandum of understanding between a Chinese government-backed fishery company and the Papua New Guinea government to build a ‘comprehensive multi-functional fishery industrial park’ on the Torres Strait island of Daru has triggered starkly different responses in PNG and in Australia.

Daru is the administrative hub for PNG’s impoverished and underdeveloped Western Province (also known unofficially as Fly River Province). It’s one of the few islands in the Torres Strait that’s not Australian territory, and it’s only a short dinghy ride from the Australian border.

Since I wrote about the MoU in the regional Far North Queensland newspaper Cape and Torres News on 19 and 26 November, and then in The Guardian on 27 November, Jeffery Wall’s 8 December follow-up story in The Strategist triggered multiple reports, all echoing concerns about regional security, depletion of the fishery and a worsening of trade relations with China.

Canberra’s subsequent chest-thumping about Beijing’s ‘big, bad wolf-warrior’ diplomatic tack no doubt had Xi Jinping chuckling.

China’s ambassador to PNG, Xue Bing, said on 12 November that the Daru project ‘will definitely enhance PNG’s ability to comprehensively develop and utilise its own fishery resources’. PNG Fisheries Minister Lino Tom said it was a ‘priority project’.

While China’s record of unsustainable fishing practices is worrying, it’s important to note that this deal is with a PNG government in disarray. It’s only an MoU, many of which fail to evolve into anything concrete, such as the 2016 $5 billion agreement to construct two industrial parks in West Sepik Province.

The Australian National University’s Graeme Smith told the South China Morning Post: ‘An MoU signing ceremony in Papua New Guinea means almost nothing; they’re a dime a dozen.’

I discussed the implications of this deal with traditional inhabitant members of the Torres Strait fishery on the Australian side of the border. They are already suffering from the live-seafood export ban imposed by their biggest customer, China, and are concerned about the proposed development’s impact on their industry, but they are pragmatic about it.

Torres Strait Islanders have long aspired for regional autonomy and more economic independence, and managing their fishery industry is seen as the best way to do that.

Torres Strait community fisheries representative Kenny Bedford told me this week: ‘News of this MoU was always going to ring alarm bells for us.’

But he said another perspective now emerging is the trade opportunity this sort of infrastructure development could represent for the region. It is timely given that a local company, Zenadth Kes Fisheries, has just been established.

‘Finding ways to add value and better market our produce are key objectives of the new entity. This regional development could result in direct trade with China through a much closer port facility’, Bedford said.

Edmund Tamwoy, a Torres Strait fisher from the island of Badu agreed.

‘With all the chaos that’s going on, we might as well deal directly with Daru and I’m open to discussion with the Chinese. If it’s going forward then it’s about us being smarter and seeing how we can tap into it.’

The Australian quoted Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne as saying that commercial-scale fisheries would not be considered a traditional activity under the Torres Strait Treaty and would not be permitted. ‘Only residents of the protected zone are able to undertake such activities’, she said.

That is not correct.

Australia and PNG are allowed to fish commercially in the shared area of the waters known as the protected zone, which straddles the fishing zones of the two countries.

As the Australian Fisheries Management Authority website states, inside Australia’s zone, PNG boats may take 25% of the permitted tropical lobster catch and 40% of Spanish mackerel.

To date, PNG has not had the capacity to commercially fish its share of these quotas, but the deal could attract Chinese funding for PNG-flagged vessels that could fish within a couple of kilometres north of Thursday Island. That would be completely legitimate commercial activity that Australia would have no legal right to prevent.

Sources in the Torres Strait tell me there has been no application, yet, for PNG to access its share of the fishery.

When I questioned federal MP for Far North Queensland Warren Entsch, the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, the Australian Border Force, and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade about the MoU last month, I got the sense that they had either not been aware of it or not considered its implications.

It took over a week for the government departments to provide me with their similar and carefully crafted responses that all echoed the DFAT line of, ‘We expect all fishers in the Torres Strait region to follow respective Australian and Papua New Guinean laws and international obligations.’

However, a week after the MoU signing, the ABF announced that it had covertly deployed five hydrophones on the ocean floor, ‘across the Torres Strait to combat illegal activity in the region, particularly illegal foreign fishing’.

These underwater microphones are new technology developed with CSIRO that can in real time ‘listen to vessel traffic and behaviour to assist in detecting activity such as illegal fishing and the movements of vessels involved in other illicit activities’, the ABF statement said.

However, all of the commentary to date has avoided the elephant in the room—that there’s been a presumption PNG will remain an underdeveloped backwater indefinitely.

Anyone, including Australian commercial interests, could have cut the same deal with Daru, but in the last four decades of this fledging nation’s history nobody has done that. Now we want to cry wolf-warrior diplomacy at both our neighbour’s aspirations of prosperity and our biggest trading partner’s willingness to facilitate it?

Might Australia have been asleep at the helm in the Torres Strait?

The contrast between Australia’s open system of government and China’s authoritarian system was put on graphic display yesterday through Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian, when he tweeted a fake image and criticised Australia for human rights abuses in Afghanistan—and not in any way that plays to Beijing’s advantage.

Zhao used a doctored photo of an Australian soldier to support a statement that Beijing was ‘shocked’ by the alleged unlawful killings of Afghans by Australian special forces personnel. And he then called on our government, which of course knows of the alleged abuses, to hold Australian officials (soldiers) to account.

The effect of Zhao’s intervention is likely to be something he and his audience in Beijing, the senior Chinese Communist Party leadership, could have predicted, but seem not to have: it will simply cause more governments, more civil-society organisations and more citizens in multiple countries to inquire into the mass-scale abuses that Beijing’s authorities are committing every day in Xinjiang and now in Hong Kong.

So, Zhao’s actions will only further harm China’s already collapsing soft power internationally and make others question the assumptions they have made about engaging economically and politically with the Chinese state. That’s all bad news for Beijing.

There’s some good news for Zhao, though. What he’s called for—accountability of Australian officials who have committed crimes or abuses—is exactly what the Australian government is already in the process of doing. Let’s remind ourselves why.

The world knows about the alleged unlawful killings of 39 Afghans because of a forensic inquiry conducted by Australian authorities, whose findings were publicly released.

In contrast, the world knows about the more than 1 million Uyghurs in detention camps in China only through first-hand accounts of escapees, leaked Chinese government documents, and analysis of satellite imagery.

The Australia government’s response to allegations of special forces misconduct was to initiate a  comprehensive, four-and-a-half-year-long investigation, and to foreshadow criminal charges for Australian personnel.

Beijing’s response to allegations of mass-scale abuses of its Uyghur citizens has been denial and misrepresentation.

At first, Chinese government officials said there were no camps. When it became impossible to sustain that argument, they shifted to their current explanation that the mass detention camps are ‘vocational education’ centres. This is simply untrue.

Zhao is absolutely right in saying that governments must be accountable for abuses committed by their officials.

The key question he has not answered (and almost certainly won’t and can’t if he’s to survive in his role) is, when will Beijing take responsibility for its acts in Xinjiang and Hong Kong with a level of accountability approaching that Australia is taking for the abuses in Afghanistan?

It seems to make no sense for Beijing to call attention to its own appalling human rights behaviour, so why is its foreign ministry doing so?

The first reason is that this performance is not mainly for the international community; it’s another case of Chinese diplomats engaging in aggressive ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy to demonstrate to Xi Jinping that they are doing what he wants—showing strength and engaging in China’s ‘struggle’ with the rest of the world. Zhao is performing for the members of the CCP’s politburo and probably for other senior party members in Beijing who control careers and success for people like him.

The second reason is based on a miscalculation: Beijing seems to assess that bullying and intimidating the Australian government and using trade as a weapon are the best ways to undo Australian decisions that go against Beijing’s interests.

It should be getting obvious to Beijing that this is an error, and that any further effort along these lines will only harden Australian public opinion and support the analysis that underpinned Australian decisions on foreign interference, foreign investment and digital technology. It will also make other governments and policymakers much more interested in Australia’s decision-making, as we have seen on 5G technology.

Maybe even more importantly, it will reinforce a growing move by Australian businesses to diversify away from all-in bets on the Chinese market, as we heard so clearly in the case of Treasury Wine Estates this week.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison was right in politely but clearly calling on the Chinese government to apologise for and remove Zhao’s tweet about the alleged unlawful killings by Australians in Afghanistan.

That won’t happen, but Morrison’s clear response will help others understand that the issues here are all in Beijing, not Canberra. He’s also telling Beijing that Australia has respect for itself and for the soldiers who fight in our name.

In the medium and long terms, as Australian businesses respond to the growing risk in the closing China market, and as Beijing’s bullying scores it more own goals internationally, Morrison’s stance will create what Beijing says it wants most: a foundation for a mutually respectful relationship.

Such a relationship will be possible only if, along with retaining our self-respect, we reduce the economic leverage Beijing has over us. Selling 20% of our annual lobster catch to Chinese consumers, instead of the 90% we do now, would be an example of that sensible future. Beijing is doing what it can to help this trade rebalance happen.

Chinese President Xi Jinping recently told the People’s Liberation Army Marine Corps to ‘put mind and energy on preparing for war’ as the United States announced plans to sell three advanced weapon systems to Taiwan, an island China considers to be its ‘lost province’ following the Nationalists’ defeat in the Chinese civil war. In his speech, given in Guangdong Province only a few hundred kilometres from Taiwan, Xi emphasised that the Chinese marines are an ‘elite amphibious combat force’ responsible for ensuring ‘territorial integrity’. The message was clear: the PLA Marine Corps would be vital in an invasion of Taiwan.

China has dramatically upgraded its military arsenal in preparation for this and other maritime confrontations in the Indo-Pacific, alarming countries worldwide that have security and shipping interests in these waters. Beijing is showing with these actions that it is ready to challenge a rules-based world order and pressure nations that do not accede to its will. The global shocks caused by the Covid-19 pandemic have helped unmask the Chinese Communist Party’s ambitions to establish itself as a world power, but at the same time, the CCP also faces uncertainty over China’s chances of achieving Xi’s strategic targets to ‘comprehensively build a moderately prosperous society’ by 2021.

Wary of a new world order revolving around China’s authoritarian regime, the US, Japan, Australia and India have reactivated the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue after more than a decade of somnolence. The Quad is an informal grouping that involves summits and information exchanges and this year will include combined military drills known as the Malabar exercises. By inviting Australia to participate in the Malabar drills, New Delhi has upgraded its security relationship with Canberra, even though building such alliances antagonises Beijing.

The promise of ‘win–win’ solutions for all who participate in China’s peaceful pursuit of prosperity has been replaced by an extensive military build-up, growing control of global shipping lanes, and efforts to secure Chinese naval access in contested maritime regions. China has also been putting economic pressure on a number of nations, some of which have responded by banding together to stand up to its attempts at coercion.

The improving ratio of Chinese versus American warships, missile arsenals, nuclear reach and technological capability sees China emboldened and ready to further assert its will over global affairs. The recent sabre-rattling over Taiwan is just another indication. China dangles the promise of access to the vast riches of its markets, but penalises nations that criticise it by imposing punishments including ultra-high tariffs, denial of market access, predatory economics and even imprisonment of foreign citizens, among other coercive tactics.

Against this ominous backdrop, the Quad presents itself as having a positive agenda—a diplomatic network that assists democracies, as Australian Foreign Minister Payne puts it, ‘to align ourselves in support of shared interests … governed by rules, not power’.

The Quad formed in 2006 as a discussion forum on the rise of China and India and maritime issues in the Indo-Pacific. It met once in 2007, but the informal alliance became dormant due to Australia’s and India’s reluctance to undermine what had been healthy bilateral relations with China. Beijing’s moves since 2012, however, have altered the calculus in how much and how far to challenge China.

The US, Japan, Australia and India now share the common challenge of deteriorating relations with China. India faces border clashes in the Himalayas; Australia experiences economic and political coercive pressure; Tokyo is in dispute with Beijing over Chinese vessels patrolling near the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands, which China claims. Australia, Japan and the US have also spoken out against China’s crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, mass detention of ethnic Uyghurs in Xinjiang, and contested claims in the South China Sea. These nations’ relations with China are at rock bottom. But they can sink further; China has already denounced the Quad as an ‘elite clique’ attempting to contain its rise.

That China finds the Quad as such a challenge reveals a fragility to its ascendancy as it seeks to alter the world order to reflect its interests. For its part, the US has embraced the Quad as a way to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific and to promote and retain a liberal world order, policy goals articulated in its 2017 national security statement. In addition to these goals, Japan, Australia and India seek a balancing of approaches to China’s coercive policies in the region.

As China rapidly rewrites international rules to better reflect its desires, it’s hardly surprising that others are responding by protecting their own interests. Already, geostrategic and military alliances beyond the Quad are being worked out. Looking ahead, a space alliance between Quad members may also become feasible. The ‘Quad-Plus’—the four Quad nations and Vietnam, South Korea and New Zealand—has already met to discuss coordinated responses to the pandemic.

Quad members and others must now confront a key decision: whether to have difficult conversations about and with China, or hope that win–win outcomes can still be achieved by effective diplomacy and mutually beneficial trade relations. At this stage it is apparent that the latter strategy has been ineffective and that stronger combined measures are required.

Established in 2012, the 17+1 initiative was Beijing’s flagship effort to promote China’s economic relations with the nations of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). It’s largely perceived as an extension of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Some in Europe are worried about the subversive effects the 17+1 might have on the European project, while others think that it’s already unravelling. After a decade of cooperation between the CEE countries and China under the 17+1 mechanism, many of the CEE countries now have strong misgivings about partnering closely with China due to three key trends that are taking shape.

First, despite its major promises at numerous 17+1 summits, China has invested little in CEE countries. In 2012, Beijing pledged to provide the CEE with an A$17 billion credit line to drive new development in infrastructure, technology and renewable energy. Its failure to deliver any significant investment has turned the tide for most CEE countries. To date, only four of the 40 or so projects conceived under the 17+1 proposal have been successfully executed: the Port of Piraeus in Greece, the Pupin Bridge and expansion of the Kostolac power plant in Serbia, and a major highway in Montenegro.

After several years of 17+1 summits, few tangible outcomes have materialised for most CEE nations, and many have expressed disenchantment at the prospect of future economic engagement with Beijing. In January 2020, the Czech Republic decided to snub the ninth summit scheduled for April, citing lack of actual investments by China—a major blow for Beijing as Czech President Milos Zeman once hailed the initiative as ‘the flagship of Chinese investment’ for Prague. The summit was later postponed indefinitely due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The 17+1’s leading project, the Budapest–Belgrade high-speed railway line, is still slated to proceed. The clear absence of major projects actually coming to fruition has elevated distrust between China and the CEE countries. The economic downturn resulting from the pandemic will make it more challenging for Beijing to commit to CEE projects as it prioritises its own domestic recovery. BRI projects are likely to reduce in size as the focus moves towards targeted strategic acquisitions. China may also recompense CEE countries that have remained supportive.

Second, most of the CEE countries are re-evaluating the political consequences of their interdependence with China. At the 17+1 initiative’s inception, the EU expressed concerns that enlisting CEE countries could potentially split Europe. At one point, China alarmed several members of the EU by hosting the Visegrad Group of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia and praising these nations as a ‘dynamic force’ despite their clashes with Brussels over immigration and fundamental rights. With its growing economic power, China had accumulated enough clout to exercise considerable influence over the CEE countries’ policies towards Beijing. For example, the EU’s statement to the UN denouncing China’s human rights abuses was blocked by Hungary and Greece, with Athens characterising it as ‘unconstructive criticism of China’.

But CEE countries are now increasingly shifting the focus of their engagement with China from economic opportunities to potential political and security risks. In May, Romania terminated its joint venture with a Chinese firm to construct a nuclear power plant. Latvia declared China a national security threat after its intelligence agency announced its concerns over cyber spying. These and other developments led most of the CEE countries, with the exceptions of Greece, Hungary and Serbia, to opt out of a BRI videoconference in June. In August, Beijing was infuriated by Czech Senate speaker Milos Vystrcil’s trip to Taiwan to promote business links, suggesting that Prague will pay a ‘heavy price’.

Third, the tension between the US and China has prompted many of the CEE countries to re-evaluate the risks of alienating their other allies. The technology war between Washington and Beijing has concentrated minds on China’s 5G strategy in the CEE region. So far, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia have put in place measures to restrict Huawei from building their 5G networks. The US has encouraged allies to join its ‘Clean Network’ program, which is intended to protect the US from cyber intrusions by the Chinese Communist Party. In September, the Polish government put forward a draft bill to exclude telecommunications suppliers regarded as a potential threat to its cybersecurity. If passed, the legislation would effectively ban Huawei from constructing Poland’s 5G infrastructure.

The CEE countries’ loss of confidence in their future engagement with China could spell the end of the 17+1 framework. If that happens, Beijing will certainly have difficulty reconciling the costs incurred in its failure to capitalise on the opportunities and benefits the initiative might have delivered.