Project Overview and Scale

On July 19, 2025, construction officially began on the Lower Yarlung Tsangpo River Hydropower Project, which is being developed by the newly established China Yajiang Group. The project employs a development model that involves straightening the river course and diverting water through tunnels. It comprises five cascade power stations with a total investment of 1.2 trillion yuan—equivalent to the combined investment of three Three Gorges Projects—and is expected to take 10 to 15 years to complete. Upon completion, it will become the largest hydropower project in human history, with an annual power generation capacity of 300 billion kilowatt-hours. This will account for 3% of China’s total electricity consumption in 2024, meet 20% of residential electricity demand, and serve approximately 280 million people.

Within a 50-kilometer radius of the Yarlung Tsangpo River’s Great Bend, there is a natural drop of 2,350 meters, with a hydropower density seven times that of the Three Gorges Project—the highest in the world. Once operational, the project is expected to save 100 million tons of coal annually, equivalent to China’s total coal imports from Russia in 2023.

Project Development History

The concept of developing the Yarlung Tsangpo River originated from the three major strategies proposed by Sun Yat-sen in his Program for National Reconstruction: building a national railway network, coordinating the development of water resources, and integrating the economies of border regions. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the project underwent decades of feasibility studies:

  • In 1982, a joint survey team conducted the first on-site inspection of the Great Bend area to assess the feasibility of the river straightening plan
  • In the 1990s, a survey confirmed that the hydropower potential at the Great Bend accounted for 90% of the entire basin’s total
  • In 2005, following a nationwide review of water resources, a plan for constructing downstream hydropower stations was explicitly proposed for the first time
  • In 2020, the project was included in the 14th Five-Year Plan
  • In 2022, the Pai-Mo Highway was fully completed, resolving the bottleneck in material transportation
  • In 2024, the project received approval from the State Council
  • July 19, 2025: Construction officially commenced

Over decades of technical research and development, China has mastered core technologies such as damless water diversion and cascade power generation via tunnels, achieving a hydropower utilization rate of up to 85%. Additionally, seismic resistance tests for flexible concrete tunnels have been successfully completed.

Geopolitical Impact Analysis

Water Resource Impact Assessment

The Yarlung Tsangpo River accounts for only about 20% of the water resources in the Ganges River basin. Water resources in the Ganges basin primarily come from monsoon rainfall, with glacial meltwater accounting for a limited proportion; therefore, China’s development of water resources in the upper reaches will not cause catastrophic impacts on downstream countries. China’s efforts to build geopolitical influence in the region center on electricity resources rather than control over water resources.

Optimization of the Regional Geopolitical Landscape

After leaving Chinese territory, the Yarlung Tsangpo River enters the Indian state of Assam, where it is renamed the Brahmaputra River. It flows through Bangladesh, joins the Ganges River, and ultimately empties into the Bay of Bengal. Upon completion of the hydropower station, electricity will primarily be transmitted to external markets while also meeting local demand in Tibet. Once integrated into the China Southern Power Grid, it can be exported to Southeast Asian countries via cross-border electricity trade networks.

As of September 2023, China and ASEAN countries had conducted 70 billion kilowatt-hours of cross-border, two-way electricity trade via the China Southern Power Grid, with hydropower constituting the majority of this trade. The commissioning of hydropower stations in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo River will further expand China’s supply capacity in the regional electricity market, providing stable and clean power resources to countries in South Asia and the Indochinese Peninsula, and deepening regional economic cooperation.