【Epoch Times, July 29, 2025】The long-awaited Yarlung Tsangpo River downstream hydropower project has officially commenced recently. Despite many media outlets hyping that the project’s electricity generation capacity will surpass three times that of the Three Gorges Dam, making it the world’s largest super project, Chinese state media has avoided discussing the core technical data related to this.
In the current backdrop of structural power surplus in China, why is this massive project being pushed forward? What political and economic considerations lie behind it? What direction will its future fate take?
On July 19, the new central state-owned enterprise, China Yajiang Group, was established in Beijing, with the Yarlung Tsangpo River downstream hydropower project (referred to as “Yaxia Project”) under its leadership officially commencing in Nyingchi City, Tibet. According to Xinhua News Agency, the project mainly adopts a method of meandering cutting and tunnel water diversion, constructing 5 step-by-step power plants with a total investment of about 1.2 trillion yuan. The project’s electricity will mostly be transmitted out of the area, also catering to local consumption in Tibet.
Of note, apart from the total investment amount, Chinese state media has not provided any engineering data of this hydropower plant, especially the crucial installed capacity and power generation figures, which clearly contradicts the usual practices of disclosing such data in global hydropower projects.
In an economic media article, “1.2 trillion investment in Yaxia, how much economic growth will it drive?”, published by Wall Street Watch on that day, the focus was on the relationship between Yaxia Project’s investment and economic growth, omitting any mention of the core installed capacity and power generation figures. Despite mentioning three instances of official information releases, none of them included any significant engineering technical data.
In another article titled “Recreating 3 Three Gorges” by China Business, the National Audit Office data was cited, stating that the total investment in the Three Gorges project was 2072 billion yuan, with a total installed capacity of 22.5 million kilowatts and an annual power generation exceeding 100 billion kilowatt hours. However, the article did not provide any data indicating a threefold relationship between the “Yaxia Project” and the “Three Gorges Project”.
In China Business’s article on July 20, which was titled “New Central Enterprise Yajiang Group Established…”, industry insiders estimated the installed capacity of the project, stating, “Industry insiders estimate that the future hydroelectric capacity of the Yaxia hydropower project to be constructed will be between 60-70 million kilowatts, roughly three times the total installed capacity of the Three Gorges hydropower project of 22.5 million kilowatts.”
Chinese hydropower expert Wang Weiluo, residing in Germany, previously pointed out that the relevant data of the Yaxia Station mainly came from disclosures made by Yan Zhiyong, the former chairman of China Energy Engineering Group in 2020, stating, “The installed capacity is roughly equivalent to three Three Gorges stations, capable of providing nearly 300 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually.”
The river channel from Milin City within Nyingchi, Tibet, downstream to Motuo County spans approximately 200 kilometers and features the famous U-shaped bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo River, with a water level drop exceeding 2000 meters, forming a unique hydroelectric enrichment zone globally.
The design concept of the Yaxia Project involves digging a direct underground water diversion tunnel approximately 50 kilometers long with a diameter reaching 10 meters from Paizhen in Milin City to Motuo County (alternatively reported as Beibeng Township or Xirang Village), constructing five step-by-step hydroelectric stations within the tunnel, each with a drop of about 400 meters. According to popular online claims, the total installed capacity would be 60-70 million kilowatts.
Different from traditional dam-based hydropower stations, 90% of the structures in the Yaxia Project are concealed underground, with each plant embedded within the mountainside. This “underground engineering cluster” model sharply contrasts with the scale of submerging 632 square kilometers of land by the Three Gorges Dam. Additionally, while one of the functions of the Three Gorges Dam is flood control, the Yaxia Project primarily utilizes hydraulic drops for power generation.
China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of electricity, with recent trends showing an excess in power supply. As per the “2024 China Electricity Market Development Report”, in 2024, the country’s total electricity generation reached 10.09 trillion kilowatt-hours, while total societal electricity consumption was 9.85 trillion kilowatt-hours, indicating an excess of around 240 billion kilowatt-hours, exceeding the annual power generation of two Three Gorges Dams. The data clearly illustrates that China does not currently face electricity shortages. The initiation of the Yaxia Project evidently cannot be justified by “power shortage”.
According to Vice Premier of China Zhang Guoqing’s speech at the Yajiang Group establishment ceremony on July 19, the formation of the group was a major decision made by Communist Party leader Xi Jinping from a strategic and overarching perspective.
Wang Weiluo believes that the Yaxia Project is a political endeavor by Xi Jinping aimed at reclaiming China’s two soon-to-be-lost world-famous hydropower achievements.
In January this year, Wang Weiluo expressed in a post on “Radio France” that under Communist rule, China’s hydropower projects have always strived for world firsts as a political pursuit. The final determination of the water storage height and power generation capacity for the Three Gorges Dam was aimed at surpassing the then-world-leader, the Itaipu Dam located on the border of Brazil and Paraguay.
For years, the Itaipu project had a higher annual power generation than the Three Gorges project, maintaining the title of the world’s largest power generator for 13 consecutive years until 2014, when the Three Gorges Dam produced 988.19 billion kilowatt-hours, surpassing Itaipu’s 878 billion kilowatt-hours. In subsequent years, Itaipu outpaced Three Gorges in power generation in 2015 and 2016. After 2017, Three Gorges surpassed Itaipu in power generation, holding the lead until the end of 2023.
While China celebrated the Three Gorges project’s stronghold as the world’s largest, Africa’s Grand Inga Dam project was silently rising. Located on the Congo River in Africa, the Grand Inga hydropower plant consists of six dams with a total installed capacity of 44 million kilowatts and an annual average power generation of 300 billion kilowatt-hours, far exceeding Three Gorges in both installed capacity and annual power generation.
In response, Wang Weiluo stated in his article, “Protecting China’s two world firsts in hydropower projects is the paramount task of constructing the Yarlung Tsangpo River downstream hydropower project.”
The actual hydraulic resources of the Yaxia Project can be easily calculated. According to hydrological data from Paizhen, the region’s average annual flow is 601 billion cubic meters, with a drop of approximately 2350 meters downstream in Motuo County. Based on the hydraulic energy calculation formula, the theoretical power of this region’s hydraulic resources averages at 35.7764 million kilowatts, which is only the theoretical capacity of the hydraulic resources. The actual technical and economic exploitable capacity figures will be even lower.
If a 35.7764 million kilowatt generator operates every hour of the year, the maximum annual power generation would be 35.7764 million kilowatt-hours × 365 days ≈ 313.4 billion kilowatt-hours. If calculated at three-quarters of the maximum value of the Three Gorges project’s annual power generation, the Yarlung Tsangpo River downstream hydropower project’s annual power generation would be around 2350.5 billion kilowatt-hours.
This significantly differs from the early media promotion of a 60-70 million-kilowatt installed capacity and a 300 billion kilowatt-hour power generation, making any comparison with Africa’s Grand Inga Dam unfeasible.
According to Wang Weiluo, the political ambitions of the Yaxia Project not only overshadow its real power capacity but also hide potential environmental crises.
One of the most immediate questions is whether the 60 billion cubic meters of flow at the entrance of Paizhen will all be diverted into the tunnel or if a portion of the water will continue to flow through the original U-shaped river channel. Some media reports suggest that the project will implement green construction by preserving 30% of the natural river channel. According to this perspective, the maximum annual power generation of the Yaxia Project would be:
2350.5 billion kilowatt-hours × 70% ≈ 1645 billion kilowatt-hours, which is not far off from the Three Gorges Dam.
However, regardless of how the water is diverted, constructing large-scale hydropower facilities in the most unique natural landscape of the Yarlung Tsangpo River will cause serious ecological damage.
According to publicly available data, the project’s site selection is in the heart of the Himalayan “East Structural Belt” in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, characterized by intense geological structural movements. The 50-kilometer tunnel needs to traverse 12 active fault zones, with a maximum burial depth of 1200 meters, equivalent to construction at a depth of 400 floors underground. As the tunnel excavation depth increases, severe engineering disasters such as rock bursts and significant deformation of soft rocks induced by deep-seated high ground stresses become extraordinary threats.
Wang Weiluo pointed out that this political endeavor by the Chinese government has not undergone public evaluation and discussion.
On October 18, 2022, Engineer Fan Xiao published an article titled “The Infeasibility of Developing the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon Hydropower Project from the Perspective of Geological Risk”, which has since been suppressed. In March 2022, National People’s Congress delegate and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Zhao Jindong remarked that the middle and lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo River in the southeastern Tibetan Plateau possess globally rare natural landscapes. This area is the core of the Eastern Himalayas global biodiversity hotspot and holds world-class unique ecological value. Zhao Jindong proposed strengthening biodiversity protection in the Yarlung Tsangpo River Grand Canyon region and establishing a national park in the area.
However, the actions of the Chinese Communist Party stand in stark opposition to the recommendations of experts. In response, Wang Weiluo stated that the construction of a hydropower station in the downstream area of the Yarlung Tsangpo River violates a series of Chinese environmental laws, including the Environmental Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China, the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau Ecological Protection Law, and the Natural Reserve Regulations. It also contravenes international laws such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the World Heritage Convention for the protection of world cultural and natural heritage.
In a recent interview with Epoch Times, Wang Weiluo expressed that whether the Yaxia Project might become a failed project depends on how people define such an outcome. For example, if a project’s budget costs 1 trillion yuan and the total investment ends up at 4 trillion yuan, would it be considered a failed project? If a project aims to generate an average of 300 billion kilowatt-hours annually but upon completion, the annual electricity generation does not exceed 250 billion kilowatt-hours, would that be considered a failed project? If the answer is affirmative, then it can be said now that the Yaxia Project is likely to turn into a failed project.
China expert Wang He stated to Epoch Times that several signs indicate that since April 2024, Xi Jinping has gradually lost actual control over the highest power within the CCP, and the Party is currently undergoing a new round of power reorganization. In this scenario, the deliberate “cooling” and neglect of the Yaxia Project signals a clear intention to dissociate from the “Xi era.”
“Especially as the falsified power generation data orchestrated under Xi Jinping is considered, it can no longer flaunt in official media. With Xi Jinping’s waning influence, this super project, seen as Xi’s political legacy, faces significant uncertainty in its future. Whether it ends up as a failed endeavor depends on how the new powers handle this mess.”
On the other hand, Wang He believes that the possibility of the collapse of the CCP regime is continuously on the rise. If the CCP were to collapse in the coming years, the newly emerged regime would undoubtedly adhere to principles that respect professional opinions and emphasize ecological conservation, reevaluating and adjusting the planning direction of the Yaxia Project.
By then, a compromise could be reached that strikes a balance between ecological conservation and hydropower development. However, regardless of the final outcome, Wang He believes that the political fervor advocated by Xi Jinping to pursue “world firsts,” disregarding reality, will no longer exist.