NEW DELHI—The Chinese communist regime’s infrastructure development in Tibet is happening so quickly that Asian scholars worry it will lead to ecological disasters and large-scale displacement of people from the neighboring countries that share a fragile ecosystem with Tibet.
China’s infrastructure projects include the construction of roads, airports, and dams.
“We are political refugees today. Tomorrow there could be many environmental refugees,” said Penpa Tsering, the president of the Central Tibetan Administration, also called the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, at a conference on “China’s Tibet Policy Under Xi Jinping” in New Delhi on June 27.
The Tibetan plateau provides multiple ecosystem services to a broader region comprising South Asia and Southeast Asia. The most important is Asia’s water tower, the Hindu Kush Himalayas, which supplies freshwater, food, and energy to China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma (Myanmar), Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Pakistan….