Interesting. I’m something of a high-value fruit myself
This is why China took over Tibet, to control the headwaters for most of South and Southeast Asia. Tibet is now a country of dams with water being diverted to Western China for agriculture (much like California and the Colorado River). There are times during the year that the Me Kong looks like a mud flat, and the people who live beside it lose their livelihood.
I think you’re getting a bit confused with your geography. This article is talking about a county in the northwest of Xinjiang. What little rivers there are there mostly come from the north, from the Tian Shan mountain range, not Tibet, which is south of Xinjiang.
Most of the water in Tibet flows out south and east, not north to the Tarim basin (because north-west Tibet is extremely dry).
China is definitely not diverting the Mekong to Xinjiang, that would be impossible. Here is a watershed basin map of China where you can see where the water feeding the various river systems comes from:
(Notice the darker green strip next to the thin yellow strip in the south-west - that’s the Mekong watershed)
And here it is with the rivers labeled:
(The Lancang is the upper section of the Mekong)
And here are the boundaries of the main watershed regions flowing out of Tibet:
Sorry for the low resolution. Maybe this is clearer:
Only the narrow strip of mountains (Kunlun) to the north of Tibet feeds some of the rivers in the Tarim basin (which is pretty dry and does not get much water anyway). And a lot of that mountain range lies inside the borders of Xinjiang itself.
As for the Mekong:
Yes there are numerous dams in China on the upper Mekong, but if you look at the watershed of the Mekong river system, not that much of it comes from China/Tibet, the majority of it is fed by rivers in South East Asia (more of the water in the Mekong comes from Laos than China):
China is also not the only country diverting/building dams on the Mekong. The downstream countries do it too. And the dams that China is building don’t have that much to do with feeding agriculture (the Yunnan and Sichuan provinces have a lot of water and rivers already), they are about hydropower generation.
As for why China “took over” (restored control in) Tibet, the water question had very little to do with it. The main reason was that it was historical Chinese territory and China was reunifying.
When Tibet first became integrated into China centuries ago people were not thinking about controlling the flow of water out of Tibet. This is a modern concern.
Your map titled “The Mekong River Basin” seems a contradiction as the yellow area mentioned feeds directly into Laos.
Whether the source of Mae Khong water is the Tibetan region or the Laos, the people who live along the river blame China for the loss of flow. China is also financing the construction of dams in Laos and Kampuchea, a source of friction with Vietnam.
The pink Irrawaddy Dolphin of the Mae Khong was almost exterminated by US bombing and it looks like damming will be damning for their continued existence.
Just a note; Khong means “river” so saying Maekhong River is Mae River River, a redundancy.
Your map titled “The Mekong River Basin” seems a contradiction as the yellow area mentioned feeds directly into Laos.
Contradiction how? Yes, the yellow area just represents the upstream part of the basin (in China and a very small part in Myanmar) which feeds into the lower part.
The percentages are important. They indicate how much of the total water that ends up in the river at some point comes from each country.
Whether the source of Mae Khong water is the Tibetan region or the Laos, the people who live along the river blame China for the loss of flow.
Ok. And what do you want China to do about that? Dams by themselves don’t remove water from a river, they just regulate its flow. As long as the water being diverted for the dam still ends up in the same river.
The exception of course being if water is diverted for agriculture. But then that’s a tradeoff that needs to be considered. Improving irrigation helps people who work in agriculture. Whose wellbeing do you prioritize?
China is also financing the construction of dams in Laos and Kampuchea, a source of friction with Vietnam.
That’s good though, no? China is helping poor and underdeveloped countries develop green energy infrastructure.
In many instances dams can also be beneficial for the people living downstream, as they can prevent flooding and droughts by reducing the flow when there is too much water and increasing it when there is too little.
The Yangtze for example used to periodically have floods with devastating impacts on the people living near it before China built its dams.
The pink Irrawaddy Dolphin of the Mae Khong was almost exterminated by US bombing and it looks like damming will be damning for their continued existence.
That’s unfortunate. Perhaps a solution can be found to create some kind of alternative habitat. I read for example that China has regulation in place that any new hydroelectric dam built must include a fish bypass for migratory species. Like this.
Apparently there are also discussions about this sort of thing by the countries on the Mekong.
Just a note; Khong means “river” so saying Maekhong River is Mae River River, a redundancy.
Interesting. But there are many such cases when English borrows place names from other languages. For example: I also mentioned the Tianshan Mountains. In Chinese 天山 (Tiān Shān) just means Sky Mountain.