Inside the Grassroots Fight Against Chinese Monopolization of the Mekong River
Along the northern border of Thailand and Laos lies the sleepy town of Chiang Khong, Thailand. It is a lovely village of friendly people where you can get a cup of Thai iced tea, shop at the local night market, go temple hunting, and enjoy a riverfront view of Laos right from your hotel room. Chiang Khong is also the home of the Mekong River School, a grassroots organization of people standing up to the Chinese businessmen who want to dam the Mekong River for financial gain.
The Mekong River School may not look like much— it boasts four open huts and one long, plain wooden table, but the unassuming wood is the main stage where advocates negotiate with their opponents.
While working in Thailand, I was lucky enough to meet with two of the Mekong River School’s leaders and get a tour of the river from the locals. This is what I learned:
The Mekong River’s importance is twofold. First, the biodiversity of the river is key. There are around 1,100 different species of fish, 20,000 species of plant, not to mention the thousands of species of birds, reptiles, and amphibians making it one of the most diverse habitats in the world second only to the Amazon. It’s also the home of the region’s famous and endangered giant catfish which can grow up to 4 meters in length and weigh almost 800 pounds. Secondly, the river isn’t just an environmental sight to behold, it’s also a way of life with over 60,000 people who rely on the Mekong to sustain their livelihood. The river itself is massive, around the size of Texas and Arkansas combined, and it accounts for about 25% of the world’s freshwater fish industry. It’s the heart of the local wildlife and agriculture. Without the Mekong, forests disappear, families go hungry, and animal populations shrink and even disappear completely.
But what specifically are advocates like those at the Mekong River School up against? In Southeast Asia, China’s economic power and presence is immense. Dependence on Chinese imports and growing foreign direct investment keeps a tight leash on SE Asia’s development, especially in rural areas like Chiang Khong. In 2014, the number of disadvantaged people in Thailand’s rural communities numbered around 7.3 million despite economic growth in the country’s urban areas and the situation is similar in other Southeast Asian countries.
Here’s where China comes in. Chinese investors have long since viewed Southeast Asia as a perfect place to make a quick buck. Investors go to the governments of a Southeast Asian country and offer to rent land and everything on it for a set amount of time. For the government, it’s a profitable exchange, so ultimately they agree to give the Chinese investors the run of the place and China can essentially colonize the area to their liking, taking all the revenue from economic prosperity that grows there as they long as they control it. Most recently, you may have heard about the civil unrest in Vietnam over China’s agreement with the Vietnamese government to rent “special economic zones” (SEZs) of Vietnamese land for the next 99 years.
Similarly, China is seeking to control land, communities, and resources along the lower Mekong by building a series of dams. The dams would not only give them more freedom to overfish the river and drive up the price of partaking in the benefits for locals, but they would also provide hydroelectric energy for China giving them a considerable economic boost while leaving Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia high and dry. If their plans are approved, they would hold the lives and jobs of tens of millions of people in the palm of their hands.
However, the dams aren’t a new threat. A few have already been built and their presence has already begun to be felt. For example, one of my guides, Chak Kineessee, explained that before the dams, the banks of the river in Chiang Khong were a great nesting place for some species of birds once the water recedes in the dry season. However, for the past two dry seasons, the dams have been opened, flooding the banks and causing none of the birds’ eggs to survive from the past two years. And that’s only one of the many negative effects that could be magnified by further damning the river.
How do you fight it? As I said before, the Mekong River School is a tiny organization without a lot of resources like a lot of other environmental NGOs, such as the WWF or Greenpeace, but they stare down China, a global superpower on a regular basis. It isn’t easy, and frequently, it isn’t safe, but the Mekong River School knows there are some things worth standing up for, even at the risk of your own person.
One huge part of the river school is that for a small organization, it doesn’t work to rely on a few heavy hitters or only professional activists. They don’t use that type of a pyramid structure, so instead, they put their time and resources into making the average person into an advocate in their own right. They build up local people until they can speak of their own working knowledge of the issue instead of focusing on hiring a smaller number of career organizers.
The new generation is especially important because they are easy to train into researchers on issues like water quality and safety testing that can also teach the older community members. Then, when the youth grow up, they’ll hopefully pass their environmental knowledge to their children, creating a sustainable systemic appreciation for the Mekong and its gifts.
Secondly, I learned to not underestimate the simple stuff. “Talk and tea”- otherwise known as Mr. Chak’s way of saying sitting down and negotiating with your opponents is just as important than other ‘larger’ actions like massive protests (especially in a region when protesting is more likely to get you hurt or killed than it is to get you want). Talk and tea is especially impactful if you host the talk and tea in the heart of the issue, which is why the river school hosts their guests on the one wooden table outside right alongside the river where you can’t ignore its majesty.
Finally, change doesn’t happen in the blink of an eye. My guides tell me about an old Thai proverb they use: “Be sharp like water, not like a knife.” Over the years, water will cut a stone, so slowly at times that the stone doesn’t even know that the water is slicing away at it, but it does not destroy. As much as it hurts, as much as you must always push for change, sometimes you must be content with knowing that you are cutting like water, not like a knife, and always remember that starting is your biggest success because it means you had the courage to not stand still.
Look below for photos of my time at the Mekong River School.
