China denies report of plan to build tunnel to divert Brahmaputra waters

TIL Desk/World/Beijing/ China on Tuesday rejected as “false and untrue” a media report that it was planning to build a 1,000-kilometre long tunnel to divert water from the Brahmaputra river in Tibet close to Arunachal Pradesh to the parched Xinjiang region.

Hong Kong-based newspaper on Monday said that Chinese engineers were testing techniques that could be used to build the tunnel, the world’s longest. “This is untrue. This is a false report,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing when asked about the report.

China will continue to attach great importance to cross-border river cooperation, she said.According to the report, the proposed tunnel, which would drop down from the world’s highest plateau in multiple sections connected by waterfalls, would provide water in China’s largest administrative division, comprising vast swathes of deserts and dry grasslands.