Signal A $137bn Chinese mega-dam met by a $77bn Indian counter-dam programme

Summary

In 2025 China started construction of a $137 billion mega-dam at the Great Bend of the Brahmaputra in Tibet, which Eurasia Group describes as the largest hydropower project in the world. No treaty governs how much water flows downstream to India and Bangladesh. India has answered with its own $77 billion plan to build more than 200 counter-dams. The report reads India's rapid dam-building as a sign that Delhi expects Beijing to use water as leverage. Because China also sits upstream on the Indus, it holds leverage over Pakistan as well, so any future border crisis could spill into water.