The Maldives has received a Chinese donation of 1500 metric tons of glacial water from Tibet, according to an announcement by its government on March 26. The gift of more than a million bottles of water comes amidst growing bilateral ties between the two countries and immediately after the signing of a military assistance pact between them in early March.
Experts have described China’s donation as both a diplomatic tactic and an attempt to capture the thirst-driven market in the island nation. The supply of fresh water in the Maldives, where 25 percent of the gross domestic product comes from tourism, is precarious. The only available natural water resources in the islands are rain and groundwater, which is severely depleted.
The Beijing-appointed chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), Yan Jinhai, met with Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu in the nation’s capital of Male last year and expressed an intention to provide water to the archipelago nation, according to a March 27 report by Maldivian media outlet The Edition.
“At the time, it was deliberated to donate water that is produced out of frozen water procured from glacial regions which is highly clean, clear, and rich in minerals,” The Edition said.
Mr. Muizzu has been in the news for his pro-China stance since he visited Beijing in January and signed 20 agreements with China. The news of China’s water aid to the Maldives was discussed on social media in that context, with some even speculating that the water was for Mr. Muizzu’s consumption.
However, the Maldives’s foreign minister denied these allegations in a statement, according to a report by The Times of India.
Water and Diplomacy
The Maldives’ water shortage has been worsening for many years and is connected to rising sea water levels in the low-lying archipelago. Its groundwater reserves are almost depleted and the country relies on desalination plants for public consumption.An expert told The Epoch Times that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is using its water aid to the Maldives as a diplomatic tactic to win support for its harsh policies in Tibet and Xinjiang.
“[Communist] China has utter disregard for ethics, law, consensus, environment and this epitomizes the identity of China,” K. Siddhartha, India-based earth scientist and author, told The Epoch Times in an email.
The Maldives, a South Asian Muslim-majority country of about 518,000 people, has been the stage of a recent tug of war between China and India, its immediate neighbor. The last water aid to the Maldives was provided by both Beijing and New Delhi in 2014 after a water purification plant in Male caught fire, leaving the country without drinking water.
However, no such incident was reported before last week’s donation. Instead, the shipment of 90 sea containers of water from Tibet was framed simply as a gift. “The Chairman of Xizang Autonomous Region announced his wish to donate 1,500 tonnes of drinking water ... during his official visit to the country in November,” a statement from the Maldives foreign ministry said.
Occurring amidst increasingly close relations between Male and Beijing and immediately after the signing of a military assistance pact between the two countries, the donation gave rise to much analysis.
Moreover, the military assistance pact happened immediately after Indian troops pulled out of the archipelago following Mr. Muizzu’s persistent calls for their removal.
Winning a Market for Premium Bottled Water
However, an expert of Tibetan origin believes that China’s donation of “highly clean, clear and rich in minerals” water to the Maldives is also a means to create a market for China’s mineral water companies, which are largely based in Tibet. The Maldives’ need for quality water—not just for its population but also for its high-end tourism industry—could prove very lucrative for China.Dechen Palmo, a research fellow at the Tibet Policy Institute’s Environment and Development Desk, told The Epoch Times that the TAR started an initiative called “Sharing Tibet’s Rivers with the World” in 2014 and signed a contract with 16 major companies to expand the water bottling industry in Tibet.
Reports about China’s bottled water industry based out of Tibet started to appear after October 2015, when the TAR government released a 10-year plan, the “Tibet Autonomous Region Natural Drinking Water Industry Development Plan.”
According to Chinese state media Xinhua, the plan aimed to develop “middle and high-end consumption water” while “relying on plateau biological resources, focusing on the development of plateau specialty drinks.”
The plan aimed to reach production of 5 million tons by 2020. Ms. Palmo, who studies Tibet’s transboundary rivers, said there isn’t any specific information about the source of the water donated to the Maldives.
“However, the Maldives’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs talked about Tibet’s high-cost premium brand of water. So I think that they were talking about 5100 water bottles,” Ms. Palmo said, referring to Tibet 5100, a premium mineral water brand produced by Tibet Water Resources Ltd. The company, formerly known as Tibet 5100 Water Resources Holdings Ltd., is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the first company from Tibet to do so.
The gift of water from Tibet’s high-elevation springs could be a potentially profitable strategy to expand its market there, she said.
