Beijing statement silent on Brahmaputra flow diversion

New Delhi: With the Indian government as always very anxious to cover China's transgressions with respect to the Brahmaputra River, China's reaction to the furore in India over diversion of Brahmaputra waters is one of supreme contempt. In a statement it has said it will "consider'' the interest of lower riparian countries.

There is nothing in the statement that denies directly that it intended to divert the flow of the Brahmaputra.

Beijing said Tuesday it will take into "full consideration'' the interest of lower riparian countries while implementing any project.

Indian security experts point out that the Chinese foreign ministry statement is an ad nauseam repetition of a sentiments over decades even that nominally communist country quietly goes about building dams to siphon off waters from international rivers such as the Mekong, Irtysh and Illy rivers.

Indian experts also point out that China is one of the only three countries that voted against the 1997 United Nations Convention on the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, a convention which lays down norms and rules which China rejects.

While India has water sharing treaties with upstream neighbours like Nepal and Bhutan, and also water sharing treaties with downstream neighbours like Bangladesh and Pakistan.

China as the dominant riparian power in the region refuses to enter into formal water sharing deals with any of its neighbours, including India.

Indian experts point out that nearly all important international rivers in China originate in ethnic-minority homelands. All these territories were forcibly seized by Chinese communists after coming to power in 1949.