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Abstract
The so-called ‘nexus’ approach has recently been promoted as addressing externalities across the water, food and energy sectors, thus helping to achieve ‘water/energy/food security for all’, ‘equitable and sustainable growth’ and a ‘resilient and productive environment’. While these are noble goals, this article argues that the reality on the ground appears to be taking a different direction, at least when it comes to China and its neighbours in South and Southeast Asia. There, a new era of large-scale water infrastructure development is creating several security-related problems, which represent serious challenges to the nexus goals. These challenges include food–energy tensions, human security threats and ecological risks. These challenges can also be linked to rising friction surrounding the management of water, food and energy resources in the region. The article argues that, in order for the nexus goals to be achieved in China and the countries on its southern periphery, there must first be increased awareness of this nexus among policy-making elites.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to Darrin Magee and Heike Holbig for providing valuable comments on earlier drafts of this article. He would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers.
Notes
1. Beddington, Food, Energy, Water, 1.
2. Andrews-Speed et al., The Global Resource Nexus, vii.
3. Bird, “Water Resources Management.”
4. Stockholm Environment Institute, “Understanding the Nexus.”
5. Ibid., 16.
6. Foran, “Node and Regime,” 655.
7. Ibid., 656–657.
8. Foran, “Node and Regime,” 656–657; and Allouche et al., “Technical Veil, Hidden Politics,” 611.
9. Allouche et al., “Technical Veil, Hidden Politics,” 618.
10. Economy, “The Great Leap Backward?,” 43.
11. Hofstedt, “China’s Water Scarcity,” 72–73.
12. Ford, “28,000 Rivers wiped off the Map.”
13. Nickum, “The Upstream Superpower,” 227, 230.
14. FAO, “Aquastat Main Country Database.”
15. EIA, China; and EIA, India.
16. EIA, China; and EIA, India.
17. Smil, “China’s Energy and Resource Uses,” 937.
18. BP, Statistical Review, 2008, 38; and BP, Statistical Review, 2011, 36.
19. Hennig, “Energy, Hydropower, and Geopolitics,” 122.
20. EIA, India.
21. Kuenzer et al., “Understanding the Impact,” 577.
22. Chellaney, Water, 45.
23. Ibid., 85.
24. Ibid., 34–35.
25. Wishnick, “Food Security,” 245.
26. Zha and Zhang, “Food in China’s International Relations,” 457–458.
27. Koch-Weser, “China in International Food Markets,” 92.
28. Chellaney, Water, 85.
29. Wishnick, “Food Security,” 249.
30. Chellaney, Water, 31.
31. Ibid., 216.
32. MRC, “Agriculture and Irrigation.”
33. Wishnick, “Food Security,” 249.
34. McCormack, “Water Margins,” 9.
35. Worldometers, “Current World Population.”
36. UNDESA, World Population Prospects.
37. WEF, Water Security, 111.
38. Ibid., 113.
39. Pomeranz, “The Great Himalayan Watershed,” 37.
40. Morton, “Climate Change,” 123.
41. Lewis, “Climate Change,” 1196–1197, 1200.
42. For example, Suhardiman et al., “Scalar Disconnect.”
43. Nickum, “The Upstream Superpower.”
44. Biba, “Desecuritization,” 25. On the plus side, the same author also shows that China has agreed to information sharing – for example, in the form of the provision of hydrological flood season data. Such agreements have been inked with Mekong downstream riparian countries and India.
45. Uprety and Salman, “Legal Aspects of Sharing.”
46. Noble, “China’s Foreign Exchange Reserves.”
47. McDonald et al., “Exporting Dams,” S295–S296.
48. Hennig, “Energy, Hydropower, and Geopolitics,” 137.
49. Dent, “Renewable Energy,” 568.
50. Koch-Weser, “China in International Food Markets,” 102.
51. “Global Desalination Capacity”; and WEF, Water Security, 56.
52. Wong, “Desalination Plant.”
53. WEF, Water Security, 56–57. Additionally, I am indebted to one of the reviewers for mentioning the aspect of brine disposal.
54. International Rivers, “China.”
55. Biba, “Desecuritization,” 34.
56. Magee, “China Fails to Build Trust.”
57. “China builds World’s Highest Dam.”
58. Watts, “Chinese Engineers.”
59. International Rivers, “China Moves to Dam.”
60. Walker, “China gives Green-light.”
61. Kuenzer et al., “Understanding the Impact,” 567, 573.
62. Hilton, “It’s Time for a New Era of Cooperation.”
63. Grumbine and Pandit, “Threats from India’s Himalaya Dams,” 36. So far, however, few of India’s hydropower projects have been commissioned. This is primarily the result, among other things, of an absence of capital and of non-existent infrastructure. See Hennig, “Energy, Hydropower, and Geopolitics,” 131–133.
64. Water Technology, “South-to-North Water Diversion Project.”
65. Ibid.
66. Buckley, Meltdown in Tibet, 79–80.
67. For example, Sinha, “Examining China’s Hydro-behaviour.”
68. Chellaney, Water, 210.
69. Cai, “Water Stress,” 16.
70. De Fraiture et al., “Biofuels,” 71; and Yang et al., “Land and Water Requirements,” 1876, 1878.
71. Hofstedt, “China’s Water Scarcity,” 75–76.
72. Goh, China in the Mekong, 4–6.
73. Rahaman and Varis, “Integrated Water Management,” 67.
74. Matthews, “Water Grabbing,” 401.
75. “Chinese Vice Premier.”
76. Chellaney, Water, 66.
77. Gleick, “Water and Conflict,” 93.
78. See, for example, Ying, “The Story of the Dahe Dam”; and Habich, “Dam-induced Resettlement.”
79. Babel and Wahid, Freshwater under Threat, 11.
80. MRC, Planning Atlas, 13.
81. Jacobs, “The Mekong River Commission,” 356.
82. MRC, “Agriculture and Irrigation”; and MRC, “Fisheries.”
83. EarthRights International, I Want to Eat Fish.
84. Matthews, “Water Grabbing.”
85. Gurría, “Sustainably Managing Water,” 396.
86. Johnson-Reiser, “China’s Hydropower Miscalculation.”
87. Morton, “Climate Change,” 123–124.
88. Grumbine and Pandit, “Threats from India’s Himalaya Dams,” 36.
89. MRC, State of the Basin Report 2010, 42.
90. “Deforestation threatens Mekong.”
91. Biba, “From Securitization Moves to Positive Outcomes.”
92. Ibid.
93. Wolf et al., “International Waters.”
94. Andrews-Speed et al., Global Resource Nexus, 50.
95. Allouche et al., “Technical Veils, Hidden Politics,” 611.