The dangers of China’s planned megadam

China is giving the world a dubious gift. The Great Bend hydroelectric project, which would sit on China’s contested border with India, would inflame tensions between the two giants and aggravate other South Asian nations. The ambitious new complex would have three times the power-generating capacity of the world’s current largest hydropower project—the Three Gorges Dam on China’s Yangtze River. China has already built several dams upriver, and this project would enhance China’s ability to control the river’s flows. The Great Bend project would allow China to control the timing and quantity of water flows to South Asia, with enormous consequences to the region’s agriculture and freshwater supplies.