China agrees to share Brahmaputra river data with India

China on Wednesday said it has agreed to share the Brahmaputra river water data with India, which it had withheld last year after the Doklam military stand-off.

The announcement by the Chinese Foreign Ministry came a day after India and China held talks over the trans-border rivers in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou.

"The 11th meeting of the India-China Expert Level Mechanism was held in Hangzhou and the two sides reviewed the achievements made by the previous meetings as well as bilateral cooperation on emergency response and hydrological information provision," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said.

"The two sides agreed to continue with such cooperation on the grounds of humanitarian principles, and on the basis of bilateral relations, China will continue with its cooperation with the Indian side on the provision of hydrological information and emergency response cooperation," Lu said in a response to a question by the Indian media.

The Brahmaputra originates from China's Tibet and flows into Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. For India, hydrological data is helpful in preparing for the floods its northeast states.

India had complained that it did not receive hydrological data from China.

Under an agreement, Beijing is supposed to share the river data with India, but it stopped last year after the two armies had a 73-day face off at Doklam in the eastern sector of their border.

Although Beijing said that it was unable to do that because of the renovation of the data sharing stations, experts say it was a water war waged by China due to Doklam.

Meanwhile, the 11th meeting of the India-China Expert Level Mechanism (ELM) on Trans-Border Rivers concluded on Tuesday.

The Indian side was led by Teerath Singh Mehra, Commissioner (B&B), Ministry of Water Resources, and the Chinese side by Yu Xingjun, Consul, Department of International Cooperation Science and Technology, Ministry of Water Resources.

The meeting reviewed the progress made since the earlier meetings of the ELM and their continued cooperation on the provision of hydrological information and emergency management in respect of trans-border rivers, the Indian Embassy said in a statement.

The officials also reviewed the data utilisation report upon provision of hydrological information provided by China to India in flood season on Brahmaputra and Sutlej rivers.

(Gaurav Sharma is the IANS correspondent in Beijing. He can be contacted at gaurav.s@ians.in)

--IANS

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