International rivers as national borders: the functional complexity of border river governance with a case study of the Khorgos river

ABSTRACT

Current research is concerned more with transboundary river interactions among the asymmetric riparian parties, lacking analyses on the influence of borders and bordering processes. Given that rivers that also form national borders have particular geopolitical features that are distinct from transboundary rivers, this paper approaches border river governance with the functional complexity of security and development. Affected by heterogeneous water-related issues and their interdependent relations, border river governance reflects nonlinear functions of security and development, respectively or collectively. Taking the Khorgos River as an example, we argue that, although the river governance was confined to water distribution because of the Sino-Soviet Split and the Sino-Kazakh boundary negotiations in the 20^th century, friendly inter-state relations and increasing cross-border mobility have encouraged China and Kazakhstan to adopt a hybrid approach to water distribution, water monitoring, data exchange, riverbank protection, and water infrastructure for both water utilization and flood control since the 21st century. In response to water supply challenges made by increasing economic agglomeration and complex administrative divisions on China’s side, the local government has decided to take new measures to keep water security and development in recent years.

KEYWORDS:

• International river
• functional complexity
• border river governance
• Khorgos river

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Major Program of National Social Science Foundation of China under Grant [20&ZD138]; National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant [42371230].