Russia and China’s “friendship without limits” was announced ahead of the Beijing Olympics in 2022, three weeks before the invasion in Ukraine. It has been unclear what China’s quid pro quo for this friendship is. Partly, there is a geopolitical advantage in keeping the US militarily focused on Europe. However, intelligence circles now speculate that the pipeline project from Lake Baikal is once again under consideration. The project could provide much-needed revenue for Russia but would increase Putin’s domestic political risk. Conversely, it could secure China access to the most critical resource of all: clean drinking water.
China lacks clean drinking water
In 2016, China and Russia signed a Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) agreement to build a 1000-kilometer-long pipeline from Lake Baikal to the Chinese city of Daqing. The $15 billion pipeline will take 10-15 years to construct. It will have the capacity to transport up to 100 billion cubic meters of clean drinking water per year for more than 100 years. Lake Baikal holds 20% of the planet’s surface freshwater capacity (excluding groundwater and ice).
Conversely, China has a significant and urgent water problem.
- 18% of the world’s population lives in China, but the country has only 6% of freshwater resources.
- The shortage is mainly due to the unequal distribution of water relative to the population. Every fourth Chinese citizen lives in the northern provinces, where only 4% of the country’s freshwater reserves are located.
- China’s rapid industrialization meant that it never invested in thorough infrastructure for wastewater treatment and reuse. Water consumption is still largely based on groundwater.
- Climate change will worsen the replenishment of China’s groundwater reserves.
- A 2016 government study found that 80% of China’s groundwater quality is “significantly polluted” with heavy metals like arsenic. Thus, it is unsuitable for drinking water and can only be purified at great expense.
- China became acutely aware of the freshwater shortage during the summer of 2022. The drought affected more than 900 million people in China and 2.2 million hectares of agricultural land. In many provinces, emergency bottled water supplies and bathing water rationing were necessary.
- If a freshwater pipeline takes 10-15 years to build, it is urgent for China.
However, the project risks destroying Lake Baikal’s sensitive biosphere. This would trigger an ecological disaster for the half a million Russians whose livelihoods depend on the lake. Therefore, the original BRI project was halted in 2017 following intense local protests. Putin’s long closest ally, Sergei Shoigu, is from the Tyva province, which borders Baikal. But in the spring of 2024, Shoigu was demoted from the Defense Minister post.
The project poses many risks for Russia
The project is geopolitically risky for Russia. If China builds its existential dependence around the life-critical water resource from Baikal, many geopolitical risks between Russia and China increase. Moreover, Russia’s internal risk from Eastern Russia rises.
- First, China will militarily defend its access to clean drinking water (survival).
- Second, the project risks rekindling China’s claims to the area that until 1860 was called Outer Manchuria.
- China’s claims to territories like Hong Kong, Tibet, and Taiwan all trace back to the period in Chinese history known as the “Century of Humiliation,” from the start of the First Opium War in 1842 to the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949.
- In the 1850s, Russia occupied Outer Manchuria. The area includes the current cities of Khabarovsk and the strategically important port city of Vladivostok. It was humiliatingly sealed with the Peking Agreement in 1860.
- Thus, Russia secured access to the Sea of Japan and nearly ice-free navigation for its Pacific fleet for 10 months a year.
- But China lost its access to the same. Today, this means that China’s navy cannot defend itself from multiple directions simultaneously, especially against Japan.
- Today, there are about 8 million inhabitants in all of Eastern Russia, 4.5 million of whom are in Outer Manchuria.
- Conversely, more than 100 million people live in the three easternmost Chinese provinces. They make up the remaining part of the original Manchuria.
- Eastern Russia is believed to have large oil and gas reserves underground. China, on the other hand, lacks these. The exact extent of the reserves is not publicly known and is likely not thoroughly investigated. Russia has so far oriented itself towards the west and partly south. It has been economically unviable to extract energy so far away from sea transport.
- Moreover, the largest and most important mines for metals and minerals are located in Eastern Russia. These are metals that are necessary for manufacturing climate technologies, such as Lithium, Nickel, Platinum, and Palladium.
Geopolitical choices are strategic
In intelligence circles, there are rumours of dialogue between China and Russia on resuming the Baikal pipeline project. If this happens, the geopolitical risk increases that Russia and its fleet loses its (almost) ice-free access to the Pacific Ocean.
- Regarding the Ukraine war, this would further increase Russia’s dependence on Sevastopol in Crimea.
- St. Petersburg is strategically fragile to depend upon (e.g., the Great Belt).
- From Murmansk, an ice-free channel also needs to be ice broken for 2-3 months a year.
- If China starts supplying military equipment to Russia, it could mean, according to the CIA, that the Baikal project will be resumed.
In geopolitics, there are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests. When Russia invaded Ukraine, they had the support of many countries. Today, the picture has changed. This can lead to desperate decisions.
