China's damming of the world's highest river near the disputed border on the Tibetan plateau with India appears to be high on the agenda during Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to New Delhi next month.
Xinhua reported at the weekend that hydroelectrical engineers had blocked the middle reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River on Friday, paving the way for construction of the first dam on the waterway, which originates in the Tibetan plateau and flows into India as the Brahmaputra.
Billed as a landmark project for the development of Tibet , the 7.5 billion yuan (HK$8.7 billion), 510 megawatt dam is meant to ease power shortages in central Tibet once completed in 2014, Xinhua said.
But the announcement, which analysts say has underlined Beijing's ambition to tap the enormous hydropower potential in Tibet, has already raised quite a few eyebrows in both India and China.
Top Indian diplomats, including External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, who are visiting China this week to make final preparations for Wen's visit, will inevitably raise concerns about the thorny issue, according to Indian media.
The damming of the Yarlung Zangbo has long been a source of dispute and tension between the two countries, as New Delhi fears Beijing's dams on the upper reaches would harm downstream flow and put it at a strategic disadvantage in the management of the waterway.
The announcement was the first time China has shed further light on the Zangmu hydropower project. Beijing confirmed Indian media speculation in April that a dam was being built in Shannan prefecture, about 325 kilometres southeast of Lhasa .