Navigating the Mekong River: between Geopolitics and Climate Change
The Mekong River is the key to the livelihoods of more than 60 million people living on its shores from China and through Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. The river fosters rice agriculture and fisheries, it is the main trade route and sustains the local economies as well as the survival of the villages’ traditions. Yet several threats are weakening the ecosystem of the River and its people. The intense construction of dams along the Mekong and the race of hydropower, is eroding the regional ecosystems while looming over the communities. Down the river, the rising sea levels are poisoning the rice cultures, threatening the health of the Delta. The rising stakes in human security has pushed China, the riparian countries and external actors to cooperate to achieve a fair and sustainable governance of the river.
The multifaceted threats around the Mekong River uncover how the proliferation of international institutions hinders the coherence and efficiency of each organisation. A closer look at the involved actors reveals how the Mekong is part of a broader pattern of international rivalry. Between regional geopolitical ambitions, international tensions and climate change, the Mekong River is entering uncharted waters.
The Damned River
The regional race for hydropower has driven the different states to build impressive dams along the 4,35o km of the Mekong. China alone has constructed 11 hydropower dams within its borders and two of them are large storage dams. As of 2019, Chinese hydropower represented a production capacity of 21,310 MW, with an estimated value at $4 billion per year. Dam construction is also part of the riparian states’ economic and development strategies. There are 89 hydropower projects on the Mekong stream with a total production capacity of 12,285 MW split between the different countries. The most prolific builder is Lao PDR with 65 hydropower projects, followed by Vietnam with 14 important infrastructures, Thailand (7) and Cambodia (2).
Despite the heavy infrastructures already built on the river, the prospect of hydropower is pushing the countries to invest further in dams and other hydro-projects. According to the Mekong River Commission, the plans for 2040 are the construction of 11 more hydropower dams on the main current and 120 dams on tributary rivers. This burdensome development should allow these South-East Asian countries to gain approximately more than $160 billion from the river. Laos is the main instigator, and with the direct funding and support of China, it is aiming to become the “battery of Asia” and expects to export 2/3 of its energy from hydropower. China is effectively sponsoring the design of additional dams along the river and its tributaries, which is part of its Belt and Road Initiative launched in 2013. Half of the Laotian hydro-electric infrastructures are owned by a dozen Chinese power companies
The heavy construction of dams and the irregular flows of water from upstream are irrevocably damaging the livelihoods of the people, the wildlife and the flora. International Waters issued a report in 2019 about worrying foresights in the Mekong river caused by the dams construction and management. At this rate, by 2040, 97% of the sediments of the river will disappear. These sediments are protecting the water quality, agriculture and the fisheries which ultimately support the local economies. Additionally, food insecurities are looming. The disrupted flows of water are perturbing the migrations of fishes and their sustainability. International Water foresees a reduction of 40 to 80% of the fishery biomass in 20 years, Thailand would lose 55% of its current catches, Laos 50%, Cambodia 35% and Vietnam 30%. This situation risks stressing the populations as fishes are their main source of protein and crucial to the local economy.
Human Rights Watch is also highlighting how the dams of the Belt and Road Initiative are a “rights disaster” for the villagers along the river and especially the indigenous and ethnic groups in Cambodia. The NGO interviewed the inhabitants coerced to leave the lands of their ancestors with poor compensations, inadequate to replace their income or their house. They are finding that the construction of the Lower Sesan 2 dam (up the Sesan and Srepok Rivers, two tributaries of the Mekong River) displaced approximately 5,000 people. Nat Sota, a 64-year old inhabitant of Srekor, a Cambodian village emptied because of the dam, said “I cannot leave my ancestors here. I can’t abandon their spirits. If I do that, I will lose my identity. If I abandon them, I won’t know who I am.”
The Rising Waters
Further south, in the Mekong Delta, the most populated area on the river, climate change is creating new challenges and exacerbating the existing ones. The repeated droughts and the rising sea levels are replacing freshwater by salted water which is poisoning the rice paddies. The equivalent of 42,000 football fields of rice cultivation have disappeared but also lands for vegetables and fruits cultivation. Salt is threatening the “rice bowl” of the whole region which will critically weaken the lives of the population, food security-wise but also economically, the Mekong Delta being an important rice exporter. Global warming is also impacting the source of the Mekong, and the Himalayan glaciers are melting faster than expected and one can wonder until when they will have the resources to sustain the whole river.
This year the Mekong environmental leader and activist Newt Roykaew (Thailand) won the Goldman Environmental Prize. After a decade of campaigning and resistance, he managed to make the Thai government stop the Upper-Mekong rapids blasting project and avoid the destruction of 248 miles of the Mekong. Despite the South-East Asian tendency to undermine environmental activists, new voices are rising and the governments can’t ignore the importance of the Mekong’s health.
The Institutionalized River
To tackle those multifaceted threats, cooperation across the River is crucial to share and coordinate the governance of the Mekong to ensure the sustainability of the water and the people but also to preserve the interests of each country. A closer look at the institutional actors operating in the region reveals a pattern of great power rivalries beyond the immediate environmental and human insecurities and beyond South East Asia.
The most prolific and active governing institution to manage and monitor the river is the Mekong River Commission (MRC). Established in 1995 under the aegis of the United Nations, the RMC regroups the riparian countries and aims to monitor, manage and gather data from the basin for forecasting and promoting good governance. The RMC is mainly financed by the US, the EU, Australia, Japan and the World Bank. In parallel to the RMC there have been a dozen partnerships, summits and cooperation around the Mekong River. They involve the riparian countries and external actors such as India, South Korea and Japan. China launched its own initiative in 2016: the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC). With Lancang referring to the Chinese name of the upper River, China is arguing that the LMC is the only institutional body that involves all the countries the Mekong is crossing. China also has the natural advantage to have the source of the River within its borders.
This LMC is sustained by a Chinese “special fund” and additionally to the principles of good governance, the organisation emphasizes on “political and security” issues and it is directed by the Chinese ministry of Foreign Affairs. Four years later in 2020, the United-States also initiated an enhanced Mekong-US Partnership with an 2021–2023 action plan currently running. The mission statement is also highlighting the importance of “non-traditional security”. The mutual exclusion of either the US or China from each other’s institutions can reveal an attempt to influence the Mekong River countries in the landscape of a broader rivalry between the two powers. The Mekong River countries are then involved in a careful hedging strategy between the US and China.
This can be further explored by looking at a report from the American Stimson Centre, entitled “How China Turned Off the Tap on the Mekong River”. The report argues that the severe drought during the 2019 wet season was induced by Chinese inconsistent dam management. It finds that the “snowmelt and rainfall was normal to high for much of China’s portion of the basin for the entirety of 2019” while the downstream countries suffered abnormal levels of aridity and the worst drought in decades. The report also finds that after the construction of the Dachaoshan dam (2002) and the Nuozhadu dam (2014), Chinese dams are also suddenly releasing heavy volumes of water. These abrupt releases are overflowing the villages and the agriculture zones downstream which harm the population and the environment.
While Chinese Foreign minister Wang Yi attributed the low levels of the Mekong simply to low levels of rainfall and denied the claims of the Stimson report. None of the riparian countries have reacted to those findings and the political and security implications of the report’s conclusion. After the publication of the Stimson report, only a call for more transparency about the River water data has been made.
The Mekong seems to attract the attention of different powers and the different sources of fundings will be directed to a better management of the River. Yet, the multiplicity of institutions and the similarity in their missions and engagement can hinder an effective and efficient governance of the Mekong. Climate change is exacerbating the urgency to coordinate all the different policies, there is little time left for talks, summits and agreements. The countries of the Mekong must start to act coherently and consistently together to safeguard their river and navigate cleverly between the United States’ influence and China’s ambitions.
