Kurt
Junior Member
Sounds like you expect China to go on a rampage and conquer the world. Lake Baikal is on the southern Russian fringe and Mongolia is hardly a challenge to get there with armed forces and secure the source. Siberia is the most important treshold to supply China in any emergency cases. If you don't get resources from Siberia it doesn't matter whether you have the water to irrigate your farms or not, the Chinese industry would be screwed and China would have to concede defeat in such a constellation of conflict because the Chinese naval access is even easier to block by Russia as well as other possible parties of conflict.
China sure has water and is a very densely settled part of the world with much industry. Lake Baikal has much less sources for pollution, especially in comparison to its size. I understand that a minimum supply of drinking water should be possible with local sources because all connections can fall prey to troubles. But there's hardly a reason not to use the cheaply clean waters from Siberia to extend Chinese agriculture that has a tremendous output per hectare. Additionally all sources within China could as well be employed for that purpose in order to increase the wealth and food safety. Food safety especially means taking care of ecological dangers and avoiding food production in regions that have been contaminated by industry and need to be cleaned to be safe again. Otherwise China will pay a terrible price of handicapped children being born. Other than planning a future war on Russia there's no reason against using water from Lake Baikal to improve the Chinese living standard and economic security and while it's pretty sure that Russia has no intention of war and conquest directed against China, their future best customer and source of wealth.
China sure has water and is a very densely settled part of the world with much industry. Lake Baikal has much less sources for pollution, especially in comparison to its size. I understand that a minimum supply of drinking water should be possible with local sources because all connections can fall prey to troubles. But there's hardly a reason not to use the cheaply clean waters from Siberia to extend Chinese agriculture that has a tremendous output per hectare. Additionally all sources within China could as well be employed for that purpose in order to increase the wealth and food safety. Food safety especially means taking care of ecological dangers and avoiding food production in regions that have been contaminated by industry and need to be cleaned to be safe again. Otherwise China will pay a terrible price of handicapped children being born. Other than planning a future war on Russia there's no reason against using water from Lake Baikal to improve the Chinese living standard and economic security and while it's pretty sure that Russia has no intention of war and conquest directed against China, their future best customer and source of wealth.
