Water, Energy and Future Peace, Part IV

?In the same way that agile small businesses can outmaneuver the shifting tides of the market and the crashing waves of crisis, a small group of cities and nations are emerging in the world today to light the way for larger ships losing their way in the storm.??To some, their qualifications seem sparse and their role improbable – but it is their lightness, youth, and freedom from the burdens of broken trust from the past that position them as?third place?hubs of innovation and cross-border collaboration to draw old foes together into regional flotillas that can weather the crashing waves ahead.?

Tibet:??The Water Tower of Asia?

120 million years ago, the?Indian Plate?broke free from Africa. 70 million years later, it crashed into the?Eurasian Plate, crumpling the earth’s crust to form the 2,400 km wide Himalayan mountains that separate interior Asia from the Indian subcontinent.??

Today, the natural basin of the subcontinent contains over 20% of the world’s population in nations like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka.[1]?

The great collision 70 million years ago also created the?Water Tower of Asia?– the icy Tibetan Plateau that today is the geopolitical buffer zone between India and China – competing powers that comprise 36% of the world’s people.[1]???

Controlled by China, the Tibetan Plateau holds the largest fresh water reserves in the world outside the North and South Poles.??It is largest and highest plateau above sea level in the world. It is also the origin of great civilization shaping rivers like the Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Salween, Yangtze, and Mekong – rivers that flow across national borders to sustain the lives of 1.8 billion people in 11 downstream countries.

For China to achieve its titanic economic goals, it must create and sustain long-term access to vast amounts of energy and fresh water.??In 2003, China opened the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. The project is the largest power generation station in the world, with a capacity of over 20 GW (enough to power 18 million homes).[2]??

However, the water and energy contained in China's rivers are not enough. To realize the economic goals implicit in Xi Jinping's Chinese Dream, China has shifted its focus to the great transboundary rivers originating in Tibet.?

According to the Lowy Institute in Australia, China’s Five-Year Plan 2011-2015 revealed:

… the Chinese government planned to build 120 gigawatts of new hydropower plants on the Salween, the Upper Mekong, Upper Yangtze and the Brahmaputra [rivers] – more than one new Three Gorges Dam every year for the next five years,?and … more than any other country has built in its entire history.[3]??

The nature of these projects is such that China is able to turn the upstream flow of water on and off as it chooses.??This interference in the natural flow of water has several possible implications for downstream nations:

1)????Erratic and unpredictable flooding and water shortages.

2)????Blocks the flow of nutrient-rich sediments needed for vital agricultural activities.

3)????As downstream flows are reduced, sea water flows upstream; this can flood and destroy farmlands, communities, and local economies.

Climate change complicates and compounds these issues.??The UN estimates global warming to melt two thirds of all ice on the Tibetan Plateau by 2100.[4]??This will result in greater water flows and flooding in the short term – followed by long-term water scarcity as water flows dissipate.??

Without close cross-border coordination – if China proceeds with large-scale damming up of these rivers, the potential for economic collapse, ecosystem degradation, and the spread of disease, refugee crises, ethnic conflicts, and regional war grows.?

The Brahmaputra is a key example of a river whose flow is shaping the region’s future.??

This massive river flows 2,900 km from Tibet through China and into India before merging with the Ganges in Bangladesh.??It then flows into the Bay of Bengal at a rate able to fill 15 Olympic swimming pools every second.[5]??Bangladesh, with a population of over 165 million people (more than Russia), is totally dependent on this river system.

China is building five dams on the Brahmaputra (called the?Yarlung Tsangpo?in China).??As part of its Five-Year Plan 2021-2025, it revealed plans for a massive 60 GW project at the?Great Bend?in the Brahmaputra before it enters India.

This new hydropower dam is three times the size of the Three Gorges Dam (which is already the largest in history).??The dam’s site is also less than 100 km from the epicenter of the magnitude 8.6 Assam-Tibet earthquake of 1950 – the largest ever recorded earthquake caused by continental collision.[6][7]

This massive project positions China to eliminate 100% of its carbon emissions by 2060.??Given its complexities, however, several analysts call the project the “riskiest of all time.”??With other clean energy sources available, the dam's real purpose is questioned.??China has assured India that its upstream dams are only for hydropower - but India is not convinced. The massive new dam and others upstream enable China to re-channel large volumes of water into its interior - water that currently flows into India. [6]

Between 1980 and 2020, China’s urban population grew from 19% to 63%.[8]??This spectacular rate of urbanization – together with climate change and severe pollution of its rivers and groundwater – means China needs huge volumes of new fresh water.?As its demand for water grows, cross-border tensions between India and China are increasing.??In 2020, a violent border face-off led to 20 Indians and 43 Chinese killed.??

Some fear the dam and others China is planning will be used to “weaponize” water by enabling it to dictate India’s sovereign choices by threatening to cut off water flows or flood downstream areas as it chooses.?

Meanwhile, India is building dams to generate hydropower on the Ganges.??As Bangladesh’s access to water is blocked by China and India, refugees are forced to displace – leading to ethnic conflicts and the vicious domino effect of the?Paradigm of Scarcity.

Climate change, rising sea levels, and the inward migration of refugees fleeing ethnic conflict in Myanmar compound the perilous lose-lose position of Bangladesh.??Its government has admitted that 1 in 7 of its people will be displaced by climate change by 2050, gripping Bangladesh in the deadly crosshairs of mother nature’s forces, regional power competition, and broken trust.[9]

The dark fate approaching the people of Bangladesh at the confluence of the Brahmaputra and the Ganges - the great Ganges Delta - is where broken trust, lack of vision, and the eroding forces of the fear-driven?Paradigm of Scarcity?are leading us.??It is a dark future that is not inevitable – but one that only clear vision and strong leadership can alter.??

2,900 km to the southeast of Bangladesh – the length of another Brahmaputra – is a pulsing beacon of hope.??As clouds form and thunder rolls across the horizon, the little red dot of Singapore is a blueprint of how we can change.??A path to renewal – the energy circulating in Singapore is the flow we have another chance to follow.?

?As Sun Tzu told us 2,500 years ago:

Those who are victorious plan effectively and change decisively.??They are like a great river that maintains its course but adjusts its flow.

Singapore: Four Taps, Third Force and Third Place

Amidst the smoldering hot coals of depletion, division and distrust across the world, some glittering blue diamonds of renewal and unity stand out.??Singapore is one of these.??

In 1978, when China’s record shattering economic rise was barely a dream, Deng Xiaoping – the visionary pioneer who succeeded Mao Zedong as China’s leader and championed the reforms that unshackled the dragon – visited Singapore.??He was stunned into silence by the magnificence of the clean, lush, cosmopolitan, and economically vibrant?Garden City?that the people of Singapore had created following its expulsion from Malaysia and precarious position in the region only 13 years before.??

On this short visit, Deng’s perceptions of Singapore imprinted a palette of bold colors into the vivid daylight dreams in his mind.??In a few short years, these colors reappeared in the massive mural that China would soon become. Before flying home, Deng complimented his host over dinner.??Lee Kuan Yew (LKY) – the legendary founding father of Singapore – gave him a simple, skillful, and prophetic response:

I thanked him, but added: “Whatever we have done, you can do better because we are the descendants of the landless peasants of south China.??You have the scholars, scientists, and specialists.??Whatever we do, you will do better” … he looked at me with his piercing eyes and switched the subject.[10]???

LKY looked back on Deng’s visit to Singapore as a “seminal moment” in China’s history.?In a famous tour of China’s southern region 3 years later, Deng told his local leaders: “Learn from the world and, in particular, learn from Singapore – and do better than them.”[10]??

When Singapore became independent of Malaysia in 1965, Malaysia’s Prime Minister told the British ambassador it could “keep Singapore under its thumb” by turning off its water.??Lee Kuan Yew recounted the words he shared with Malaysia’s future leader, Mahathir Mohamad, shortly after this:?

He [Mahathir] was direct and asked what we were building the Singapore Armed Forces for.??I replied equally directly that we feared that at some time or other there could be a random act of madness like cutting off our water supplies, which they had publicly threatened whenever there were differences between us … in an emergency, we would have to go in, forcibly, if need be … and restore the water flow. I was putting my cards on the table.[11]

LKY was years ahead of his time and possessed the rare three-dimensional gift of leadership: vision, the power to inspire, and strict strategic discipline – all grounded in the fertile soil of integrity that grew trust in him, his people, and his nation. The authors of the?Singapore Water Story?explain how LKY was the only Prime Minister in modern history to take a “special and continuing interest in water” throughout his 31 years in office.?In one generation, he transformed a poor, culturally splintered, and dangerously isolated island that lacked its own water, energy, and food into what it is today – a global model of cross-cultural unity with the world’s second highest GDP per capita and its most competitive economy.[12]

Today, Singapore is a global magnet for talent, innovative technologies, and investment.

Inspired by LKY, this water scarce island has transformed itself into a?Global HydroHub?– a world leader in water resource innovation and management.??Today, Singapore enables the world’s water technology innovators to test, iterate, demonstrate, and finance their technology solutions in its future-focused innovation ecosystem.??

Integral to Singapore’s success has been a clearly defined, disciplined, and holistic strategy that harmonizes its water policies with the natural circular flow of the earth’s hydrological cycle.??Singapore’s?Four National Taps?strategy relies upon four primary sources of water.??[13]

Singapore’s?circular water?program – NEWater – produces high-quality potable drinking water from wastewater. This world-leading?circular economy?model maximizes the economic value of every drop of water while eliminating waste, regenerating the ecosystem, and ensuring the strategic security of the nation’s most critical essential resource.

The evolution of Singapore’s NEWater program is a case study in the DNA of the nation.??It also offers a preview of why the unique “Singapore formula” is so relevant to the world today.??

Water recycling made no economic sense in the 1970s, but LKY looked across the globe and into the future, connected the dots, and prioritized the creation of an environment that accelerated technology innovation in an area he knew was critical to the nation’s economy and security.??

Within the context of his vision to attract foreign investors from across the globe, he positioned Singapore as a bridge between East and West by combining:

1)????The individualistic pioneering spirit and entrepreneurial flare of the West.

2)????The culture of community, discipline, and long-term thinking of the East.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Singapore identified and tested emerging membrane and other water technologies from across the globe, including the United States.??In 2000, it built a 10 million liter per day plant to produce drinking water from sewage.??

Three years later, it launched NEWater to its public.??Today, this sewage recycling program is a source of national pride in Singapore - a world standard of how to combine technology innovation, education, policy change, and society buy-in to to secure strategic water resources in a world of rapid change and growing uncertainty.

Singapore is currently able to supply?40% of its total water demand?from recycled water and 25% from desalination.??By 2060, its total water demand will double, but these two sources will be able to serve 85% of that demand – making it virtually independent of the fresh water it once depended completely upon Malaysia to provide.[13]????

Critical to Singapore’s success was LKY’s ability to grow a powerful “culture of community” in which the?whole-of-society?rows in the same direction.??Today, Singapore is possibly the world’s best example of how?whole-of-society?buy-in (within its borders) and regional cooperation (across its borders) around water can grow trust, enable economies, and enhance security for all who connect to the collaborative platform it has created.??In a world of growing inter-national?and inter-cultural?division, isolation, and distrust – sustainable access to clean water is an irrefutable shared interest of all people, everywhere.??

Instead of closely guarding its water innovation secrets – Singapore has positioned itself to accelerate the flow of valuable knowledge, technologies, and talent from the?little red dot?on the map to other nations in the region and the world.?

While harder to measure, Singapore is uniquely effective in its ability to harness the combined power that flows from several cultures, languages, and religions working together within a shared ecosystem - all while preserving the integrity of their distinct beliefs.

When LKY took power, race riots between ethnic Chinese and Malays resembled the flammable cocktail we see across the globe today.??As tensions over water grow between China, India, and others on the Asian mainland – ethnic Chinese, Indians, and Malays work together to solve shared water challenges in Singapore.??After work, they attend their different places of worship, celebrate one another’s cultures, watch their children learn and grow together, and reminisce about the great man who led the creation of this inspirational cross-cultural oasis in Asia.?

Today, Singapore is also a barometer.??Its leaders detect the sparks of regional tension more accurately than most, and they have detected the high-pressure storm brewing in the Pacific.??They are worried – they don’t want to be sucked into a zero-sum game between the dragon and the eagle.??

But it is the?East-West bridge?in Singapore’s psyche and the?third force?in the nation’s DNA that makes it so disproportionately powerful as thunder rolls across the Pacific.

The Collins Dictionary defines a?third force?as “a?third element, group,?bloc, etc functioning as a counterbalancing, neutralizing, or moderating force or influence in a struggle between two established [first and?second force] powers.”[14]

Across history, certain nations have remained neutral in times of conflict – offering distrustful competing forces neutral territory and a?third force?to seek alternative paths to the narrow options otherwise available in the zero-sum game dictated by the laws of the jungle.??In World War II, Switzerland played this role.??In the Cold War, the Helsinki Accords to ease East–West tensions were signed in Finland.??Recently, the low-profile nation of Oman has mediated between the United States and regional competitors Iran and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East.??

As the temperature of great power competition between China and the United States rises, several overwhelmingly powerful forces of nature have introduced a different set of realities to complicate the simplistic binary calculus between today’s?first?and?second force?powers.??In 2022 – as the tide of COVID-19 ebbs and the devastating realities of climate change flow within humanity’s collective consciousness – a new?third force?is emerging to offer an alternative path.??

It is the flow of water.

Most of the world manages water like we manage oil – as a finite stock.??However, as South African water thought leader Anthony Turton explains, water is neither finite, nor a stock.??It is a flux – an infinitely renewable resource that flows in a naturally circular cycle across time and space.??

Wise leaders like?Yu the Great?in China 4,000 years ago, and Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore four decades ago, demonstrated to the world the power of harmonizing economic policies with the circular flow of water to grow great nations - despite the presence of powerful and threatening forces around them.

The flow of water is an immensely powerful, variable, and omnipresent force of mother earth that no human can control.??Like the cacophony of noise pollution produced by a band of uncoordinated instruments – it can leave disharmony and colossal damage in its wake.??But when a sophisticated conductor introduces clear vision and brings all the instruments onto the same sheet of music – a?symphony of technologies?acting in harmony with the circular flow of mother earth’s water cycle can create a powerful resonating tune that enables economies and inspires others to bridge divisions, rebuild broken trust, and work together to renew the ecosystem upon which our shared future as a species depends.?

These?leaders of water?have also been able to harness the mysterious spiritual power that flows from a united people when cultures, communities and nations work together to ensure sustainable shared access to this most fundamental of all resources.??Water is our ultimate common denominator – a?third force?that whispers a message of hope – inspiring us to open our tightly clamped fists.??It flows across all the boundaries we have drawn on maps and divisions we have drawn in our own minds.??

In today’s global climate of fear, division and distrust – nations like Singapore are our lighthouse and?third place?in the storm - our beacon of hope to follow.?

American sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term?third place?to describe the?neutral ground?– like a local community coffee shop – that people go to escape the isolation and pressures of home (the?first place) and work (the?second place). In a third place, we can relax, unwind, connect, meet new people, open the mind to new ideas, and co-create ideas with others.??

In 1989, Oldenburg explained how the?third place?was losing traction as public spaces became more consumerist – resulting in an “ever increasing retreat into privacy.”[15]??

This?consumerist linear economy?model is directly related to the "ever increasing retreat into privacy” we have witnessed across the globe in the last ten years. Burdened with the heavy weight of broken trust that flows from the?Take, Make, Use, Waste?linear economy, many nations and cultures have retreated into the isolation and barricaded privacy of their national and cultural?first place?homes.??

As urgent global problems like climate change and water, energy and food security become more interconnected than ever before, it is neutral ground?third place?nations like Singapore that call us out of isolation to work together.?

In the same way that agile small businesses can outmaneuver the shifting tides of the market and the crashing waves of crisis, a small group of cities and nations are emerging in the world today to light the way for larger ships losing their way in the storm.??To some, their qualifications seem sparse and their role improbable – but it is their lightness, youth, and freedom from the burdens of broken trust from the past that position them as?third place?hubs of innovation and cross-border collaboration to draw old foes together into regional flotillas that can weather the crashing waves ahead.?

In the shifting tides and breaking waves of history, Singapore is a lighthouse among these.?

6,000 kilometers from Singapore – high above the desert and the shifting sands of time – the eagle and the dragon are circling above another?third place.??An oasis in the layered, complex, and violent human storms in its region – Dubai is the Singapore of the Middle East.??Like Lee Kuan Yew, the visionary leaders of Dubai – and the United Arab Emirates of which Dubai is part – have looked into the future and seen things others cannot.??Like LKY, they have acted early and boldly.??Today, Dubai offers hope and inspiration to millions.??

In the nightmare of what has unfolded in the Middle East and greater Central Asia in the last twenty years – Dubai is a dream of the future that does not evaporate with the sun in the morning.?

Part V to follow ...

[1]?Chu, Jennifer.?India Drift: MIT researchers?explain mystery of India’s rapid move toward Eurasia 80 million years ago.?MIT News, May 2015. Retrieved from - https://news.mit.edu/2015/india-drift-eurasia-0504

[2]?Council on Foreign Relations (2016). Water Clouds on the Tibetan Plateau. Retrieved from -??https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/water-clouds-tibetan-plateau

[3]?Singh, A, et al.?India-China relations and the geopolitics of water. Lowy Institute: The Interpreter, July 2020. Retrieved from - https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/india-china-relations-and-geopolitics-water

[4]?Vince, G. The world has a third pole – and it’s melting quickly. The Guardian, Sept 2019.??Retrieved from - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/15/tibetan-plateau-glacier-melt-ipcc-report-third-pole

[5]?Wikipedia. List of rivers by discharge. Retrieved from - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rivers_by_discharge

[6]?Graham, Ben.?China’s mind-bending megadam plan could see international tensions explode.?News.com.au, May 2021. Retrieved from - https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/chinas-mindbending-megadam-plan-could-see-international-tensions-explode/news-story/c145f4f2f4800bd58f7f854291b75c33

[7]?USGS (2016). Historic Earthquakes: Assam-Tibet, 1950 August 15 14:09 UTC 8.6M. Retrieved from - https://web.archive.org/web/20161110034028/https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/events/1950_08_15.php

[8]?The World Bank (2018).??Urban population (% of total population) – China.??Retrieved from - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS?end=2020&locations=CN&start=1980

[9]?Displacement Solutions (2021). Retrieved from - https://displacementsolutions.org/ds-initiatives/climate-change-and-displacement-initiative/bangladesh-climate-displacement/

[10]?Lee Kuan Yew (2020).?One Man’s View of the World.?Singapore: Straits Times Press.

[11]?Clifford, Mark. (2013). The Singapore Water Story: Sustainable Development in an Urban City-State. The Asian Review of Books. Retrieved from https://thirdworldcentre.org/2013/07/book-review-the-singapore-water-story-sustainable-development-in-an-urban-city-state-2/

[12]?Wikipedia. (2021). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore#Economy

[13]?Retrieved from - https://www.pub.gov.sg/watersupply/fournationaltaps/newater

[14]?Retrieved from - https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/third-force

[15]?Perfect Daily Grind (2021). The third place: What is it & how does it relate to coffee shops? Retrieved from - https://perfectdailygrind.com/2021/06/the-third-place/