An environmental protection group yesterday said that Kinmen County could become overly dependent on China after the county signed a landmark water agreement with Chinese authorities on Monday.
Purchasing water from China means that Beijing would have increased control over the region, Taiwan Water Resources Protection Union director Jennifer Nien (粘麗玉) said, adding that Beijing could use the deal to coerce Kinmen into submitting to its demands by severing water supplies or increasing prices.
She urged the Kinmen County Government to build seawater desalination plants, preserve its groundwater reserves and carry out regular reservoir dredging work so that the county can retain a degree of water sovereignty in the event of a worst-case scenario.
Under Monday’s agreement, China is to deliver 15,000 tonnes of water per day to Kinmen, with the amount gradually increasing over time to 34,000 tonnes per day starting from the 10th year of the arrangement.
The pact also poses a risk to Kinmen’s environment and quality of life, Nien said, citing concerns over the construction of an underwater pipeline connecting China’s Fujian Province and Kinmen, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2017.
The quality of the water from China is also questionable, as water in Chinese reservoirs often contains high concentrations of impurities, she said.
“People in many Chinese provinces do not bother to boil tap water. Instead they use water dispensers and buy drinking water from private firms,” she said.
Citing Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yang Ying-hsiung’s (楊應雄) pledge to push for Kinmen to be allowed to purchase electricity from China as well, Nien said that if utilities on Kinmen come under Beijing’s control, it would bring Kinmen closer to China and compromise its status as Taiwan’s military outpost.
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