So in part one of this series on Tibet, we looked at all the protests that have been
happening in Tibet since China invaded in 1950.
This time round we're going to be looking at why Tibet is so important for China in
the first place.
Why does China even want to keep hold of some remote, isolated, underdeveloped region where
the indigenous people don't even want them.
China claims that it has a right to the land in Tibet and has done since the 13th century.
The land has been in and out of Chinese hands, with Mongol invasions, a British invasion
and periods of independence and autonomy.
But in reality it's just like when Western powers send their invading forces into another
country.
It's all about the resources.
A whopping 47 percent of the world's population lives in the watersheds of rivers with sources
in the Tibetan plateau.
It's the third largest repository of fresh water in the world, and only comes in behind
the Arctic and Antarctic, which are much less conveniently situated.
It supplies the Yellow River, the Yangtze, the Mekong, the Brahmaputra, the Sutlej and
the Salween.
And China is dangerously short of fresh water.
Much of the country, especially in the north, is desert.
China has 20 percent of the world's population but only 7 percent of the world's fresh water.
And according to The Economist, in the 1950s, it had 50,000 rivers with catchment areas
of more than 100 square kilometres.
It has lost a staggering 27,000 rivers, mostly as a result of exploitation by farms and factories.
The Chinese have long-held plans for dams, hydropower and rediversion projects to help
aid it's water shortages.
And for a long time, their eyes have been on Tibet's water resources.
But it's not just water.
In 1999 an area of Tibet equal in size to California, Texas and Montana combined was
geologically mapped.
It found 16 major deposits of copper, iron, lead, zinc and other minerals worth around
130 billion dollars at the time.
In 2006 China opened a railway to Tibet.
It's brought tourists into Tibet, but it's also brought miners, prospectors, developers,
and entrepreneurs and Chinese immigrants.
China was excited by the finds, believing it would relieve its dependency on imports,
and develop their economy.
Tibetans, on the other hand, feared that the pursuit of prosperity and development would
lead to exploitation of the land, destruction of the natural beauty of their country and
the ravaging of their culture.
But let's go full circle.
The water that is so vital for so much of the world's population, is gradually being
depleted.
The glaciers have retreated by more than seven per cent since the 1960s and it's speeding
up because of deforestation, air pollution and water pollution, which itself is getting
worse as more people move into the area and exploit the resources.
China's water-management projects have diverted water away from countries further downstream.
China's built more dams in the last fifty years than the rest of the world combined.
And there are already predictions that it will lead to major environmental and water
security problems for China's near neighbours.
All of this led Jean-Pierre Lehmann, a professor of international political economy and Nina
Nikovic to issue this warning:
"Water wars could largely destabilise not just the wider Tibetan region, but also all
of Asia.
Based on current trends, the question is not "how" and "why" such conflicts would arise,
but "when"?