Tibet is a cold desert or tundra. Please don't spin this around. China has an abundant land elsewhere outside of Tibet which provides plenty of rainfall. China's intentions and justification for their relationship with Tibet is largely political and strategic.
Air is already a problem is some parts of China. So water ?
They will eventually need to choose between their industries and water. And they will choose their industries. Their gov knew this, and made a bet on Tibet.
Now, because India gets most of Tibet's water, they had to hide the plan behind something that made sense. And they did had a problem with part of the Buddhist community, so they killed 2 birds with one stone.
A territory, btw, next to india.
Ha, I guess if you can say crossing the Himalayas is next to anything. I’m trying to imagine the trans-Annapurna pipeline right now.
Also, I’ve Nepalese friends who would tell me Nepal is actually between Tibet and India.
About those blue areas though, yeah it has a Minnesota-looking tapestry of lakes spread out over 1000 miles, about 300 mi north of the mountain range.
So at first glance I don't see it. Is the concern that China is somehow going to massively redirect water flows somehow and take water away from India?
You don't need to redirect it though. You can, but you could also pipe it, pump it, bottle it, whatever.
The thing is, when you have no water, cost is no issue, because the stuff is way more valuable than gold.
The only real issue is India getting mad about it. But now that Tibet is China's territory, it has a legitimacy that will be impossible to contest peacefully.
So you have more than a billion of people that will soon need to drink on a packed polluted land. And the country has already huge social tensions, a gigantic gap between the legion of the poor and the small group of the rich, plus the nuclear weapon.
China took the himalaya for this very reason years ago. Fresh water is more important than the dalai lama.
But for india, the 3rd world war could very much start here. I wish i was joking, but i have political analysts around me that take this possibility very seriously.