India wants to counter China’s mega dam plans by building its own. It is a bad idea States of the North East have had to pay the price of the belligerence between the two countries. The Zangmu Hydropower Station across the Yarlung Zangbo/Brahmaputra river in Gyaca county in Lhoka, Tibet. | AFP While Indian and Chinese troops face each other in Ladakh, the water war between the two countries has flared up again in the eastern sector. Both nations have pulled out their favourite weapon: big dams. It began in the last week of November, when the president of Power Construction Corporation of China, a Chinese state-owned company, announced plans to develop a massive hydroelectric project, with production capacity of up to 60 gigawatts, on the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo river. The Brahmaputra is called the Yarlung Tsangpo or the Yarlung Zangbo in Tibet, where it originates.