China’s desalination exports and trust in ‘manufactured’ water

Vontron Technology says it shipped more than 30,000 seawater-desalination membranes to countries in China’s Belt and Road infrastructure programme in 2025. Saudi developer Acwa says it buys about 70% of its water equipment worldwide from Chinese suppliers.

The report also describes a less mechanical obstacle. Saleh Al Khabti, Acwa’s China president, says many people in China still regard drinking desalinated water as taboo, even while local governments want more capacity. That is one executive’s assessment of public attitudes.

I’d want to hear those concerns from the people who have them. “Taboo” is a fairly large label for an executive to put on other people’s reluctance. It doesn’t tell me whether the objection is to the source of the water, the treatment, or the people asking to be trusted. Those would be different conversations.

But the idea of “manufactured freshwater” doesn’t bother me. The phrase gives water an oddly artificial sound, as if the factory has invented a substitute for the real thing. It hasn’t. Removing salt changes whether that water can be useful to people; its industrial route isn’t, by itself, a reason to reject it.

I’d put my suspicion elsewhere: on assurances that stop at “natural,” or “advanced,” without saying what has actually been checked. I want the same clear evidence about water quality whichever source it came from. The sea seems a perfectly respectable place for water to have started.