BANGKOK: The Mekong River has become a new front in US-China rivalry, environmentalists and officials say, with Beijing overtaking Washington in ...
Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam all battled severe drought in 2019 as the tide of the Mekong River fell to record lows – exposing rocks, killing fish and threatening millions of livelihoods. BANGKOK: The Mekong River has become a new front in US-China rivalry, environmentalists and officials say, with Beijing overtaking Washington in both spending and influence over downstream countries at the mercy of its control of the river's waters.
"This is becoming a geopolitical issue, much like the South China Sea, between the United States and China," said Witoon Permpongsacharoen of the group Mekong Energy and Ecology Network.The state of the Mekong is an urgent worry for the 60 million people who depend on it for farming and fishing. The MRC traces its origins back to US efforts to promote development during the Cold War. It works with the governments of Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam to foster the sharing and sustainable development of the river and its resources.
"To learn that a primary source for the diminished level of the Mekong, and changes in the Mekong in the Lower Mekong region, is what's happening upstream in China - with essentially the hoarding of water," Murphy said. "River dams in China helped alleviate drought along Lancang-Mekong, research finds," read the headline in the newspaper published by the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party.
Sebastian Strangio, author of a book on Southeast Asia's relations with China,"In the Dragon's Shadow", said China's downstream neighbours almost certainly trust China's narrative less - but Beijing's regional might can't be ignored. The LMC did not respond to requests for an interview nor to questions about its 95 proposed projects, planned or underway, that are on a list reviewed by Reuters from its first Ministerial Meeting in Beijing in December.
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