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Korea, creating a wide path of destruction and killing six people. It was unclear if the
mercurial North had done so by accident or to provoke its neighbors.
Despite these riverine tensions, researchers at the London School of Economics say
that rivers have historically provided a good example of “asymmetrical cooperation”
between nations of different sizes and strengths.
The Nile is a vast river that has tributaries extending over a tenth of Africa's surface,
and a watershed that encompasses ten nations and 160 million people. The largest na-
tions along the river—Egypt, Sudan, Uganda, and Ethiopia—hold the most sway, but
these neighbors have spent centuries developing water-sharing agreements, and a water
war is unlikely.
More worrisome is the prospect of an outsider's disrupting the established order. Ch-
ina, for instance, has been negotiating with Ethiopia, which lies upstream of Egypt, for
use of its agricultural land; one day, China might attempt to divert Nile water to the
fields it plants in Ethiopia, which would almost certainly raise tensions.
Indeed, it is nations such as China, India, Pakistan, and the rising “Tigers” of South-
east Asia—nations finding economic success while faced with increasing demands for
water and food—whose potential for conflict seems most real.
CONFLICT/COOPERATION
Whiskey's for drinking, water's for fighting.
—attributed to Mark Twain
The Chinese character for “political order” is based on the symbol for “water,” and the
meaning is clear: those who control water control people. In 1950, China invaded Tibet
in part to gain control of the water stored in its Himalayan glaciers. China is planning to
create nearly two hundred miles of canals to divert water from the Himalayan plateau
to the parched Yellow River. The fate of Himalayan snowmelt is particularly sensitive
because it supplies the rivers that bring water to more than half a dozen Asian coun-
tries. A large-scale diversion of these waters will lead to a spike in regional tensions.
“Once this issue of water resources comes up—and it seems inevitable at this point
that it will—it also raises emerging conflicts with India and Southeast Asia,” writes El-
izabeth Economy , director for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Affairs.
Worldwide, a lack of water leads to low productivity, weak governments, and violent
protests that can spill across borders. In 1995, Ismail Serageldin , the World Bank's lead-
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