On Dec. 25, Beijing announced it would build a dam on Tibet’s longest river, which Beijing calls the Yarlung Zangbo.

The project, which will generate an estimated 300 billion kilowatt hours of electricity each year, will have almost three times more installed capacity than what is now the world’s largest hydroelectric project, China’s Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River.

The announced cost is $137 billion. The Economist calls the new dam “the world’s most expensive infrastructure project.” And perhaps it is the world’s most controversial one as well.

“The project is dangerous in a wide variety of ways, including the proven risk of triggering seismic activity that could affect the integrity of the structure itself,” Cleo Paskal, senior fellow of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told me. “So why does Beijing want the expensive and unstable project so badly? One reason is that it is a weapon as much as it is a hydro project.”

India, Paskal notes, is worried that China, by releasing waters, can create floods. "Bangladesh will also be affected,” she states, “and unrest in Bangladesh has a way of spilling over into India.”

Downstream countries have reason to be concerned. The dam will be........

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