Taipei: India’s approach to China’s dam on Yarlung Tsangpo, the upper course of the Brahmaputra River, reflects how New Delhi seeks to exercise strategic autonomy, a report has stated.
This transboundary river has been brought to the centre of Sino-Indian strategic competition with China’s launch of construction on the Lower Yarlung Tsangpo Hydropower Project, last year.
“India’s approach to the Yarlung Tsangpo is not merely a passive response to China. Rather, it reflects how India seeks to exercise strategic autonomy by responding to a changing strategic environment while redefining its regional role,” a report in ‘Taipei Times’ detailed.
It noted that India, which did not respond with a “dam for dam” engineering race, has two water governance approaches where one treats water resources as an extension of strategic capability while the other highlights institutional cooperation as a means of managing uncertainty.
“Whether during the Cold War or today’s US-China strategic competition, India’s pursuit of strategic autonomy does not imply a rejection of power politics. Rather, it is about retaining the ability to define its own national interests and choose its own development path amid major-power competition,” the report mentioned.
As much of the Brahmaputra basin lies in Indian territory, India has pursued a series of basin development projects in Arunachal Pradesh. These initiatives are intended to regulate river flow, improve flood management and enhance resilience against external shocks.
“In the past few years, India’s strategic autonomy in the Russia-Ukraine war, its security calculations during the India-Pakistan conflict and its engagement with the US amid tariff policies have each generated different narratives about Indian foreign policy. Yet the more such events unfold, the harder India becomes to understand, because events can describe India’s behaviour, but cannot fully explain the strategic thinking that underpins it,” highlighted the report, saying “The Yarlung Tsangpo offers a useful illustration of this strategic thinking at the regional level.”
(IANS)
