By Jianli Yang

The region around Medog, the site of a new mega-dam, is one of the last strongholds of Tibetan cultural and ecological integrity.

In the eastern reaches of the Himalayas, where the Yarlung Tsangpo River carves the world’s deepest canyon beneath the snow-crowned Namcha Barwa, a new monument to modern ambition is taking shape. The Medog Hydropower Station, set to be the most powerful dam ever built, with triple the capacity of the Three Gorges Dam, has been unveiled as a “Project of the Century,” promising clean energy, economic uplift, and strategic might. But beneath this triumphant narrative lies a troubling silence that underlines who and what is being left out: the Tibetan people, their land, and their way of life.

To understand what is at stake, it is worth revisiting the experience of the Three Gorges Dam, once hailed as China’s most ambitious infrastructure project. The dam displaced over 1.3 million people, flooded historical and cultural sites, and restructured entire ecosystems. Despite some compensation and relocation programs, many communities were uprooted without adequate support. The social trauma still lingers today in fractured families, lost livelihoods, and a sense of disconnection from history.

Now, Tibet stands on the brink of a similar rupture, only this time, the cost could be even more profound. For Tibetans, land is sacred. The Yarlung Tsangpo is not just a river; it is a mother figure, a spiritual artery flowing from the glaciers near Mount Kailash through a sacred landscape. The Great Bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo, where the dam is being constructed, is revered as the heart of Pemako, a hidden paradise prophesied to shelter humanity in times of apocalypse. To reroute or submerge this land is not just to drown villages – it is to desecrate a living spiritual geography marked by myth and pilgrimage.

 

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https://thediplomat.com/2025/08/the-human-cost-of-progress-the-yarlung-tsangpo-dam-and-the-future-of-tibet/

 

This article first appeared in The Diplomat on August 5, 2025