• Latest
  • Trending
  • All
  • News
  • Lifestyle
Water wars: Mekong River another front in U.S. thumbnail

Water wars: Mekong River another front in U.S.

July 24, 2020
Here's the late changes Republicans made to Trump's big bill thumbnail

Here’s the late changes Republicans made to Trump’s big bill

May 23, 2025
FDA won’t approve COVID shot for healthy, non-elderly population thumbnail

FDA won’t approve COVID shot for healthy, non-elderly population

May 22, 2025

Rare May nor’easter brings rain and chance of snow to New England before Memorial Day

May 22, 2025
Coinbase says recent data breach impacts 69,461 customers thumbnail

Coinbase says recent data breach impacts 69,461 customers

May 22, 2025
Resentment of ICE, backlash against its agents and mission rise alongside Democrats' condemnations thumbnail

Resentment of ICE, backlash against its agents and mission rise alongside Democrats’ condemnations

May 22, 2025
Humpback whales can give birth while migrating thousands of miles thumbnail

Humpback whales can give birth while migrating thousands of miles

May 22, 2025
New England Patriots offseason grades: Team earns high marks for supporting Drake Maye thumbnail

New England Patriots offseason grades: Team earns high marks for supporting Drake Maye

May 21, 2025
Bill Belichick asked Jordon Hudson to wear a specific outfit when their relationship was still a secret thumbnail

Bill Belichick asked Jordon Hudson to wear a specific outfit when their relationship was still a secret

May 21, 2025
Rob Gronkowski bursts out laughing at joke about Bill Belichick’s 24-year-old girlfriend Jordon Hudson thumbnail

Rob Gronkowski bursts out laughing at joke about Bill Belichick’s 24-year-old girlfriend Jordon Hudson

May 20, 2025
US charges 12 more suspects linked to $230 million crypto theft thumbnail

US charges 12 more suspects linked to $230 million crypto theft

May 17, 2025
American basketball player in Indonesia could face death penalty over alleged drug smuggling thumbnail

American basketball player in Indonesia could face death penalty over alleged drug smuggling

May 17, 2025
What the EPA’s partial rollback of the ‘forever chemical’ drinking water rule means thumbnail

What the EPA’s partial rollback of the ‘forever chemical’ drinking water rule means

May 16, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
  • Donate
Friday, May 23, 2025
66 °f
Wellfleet
58 ° Tue
63 ° Wed
68 ° Thu
61 ° Fri
  • Login
  • Register
FREE Cape Cod News
DONATE
  • FREE Cape Cod News
  • Cape Cod News
  • News
    • News
    • Massachusetts
    • Breaking News
    • Cape Cod Weather
    • Storm Watch
    • Environment
  • Politics
    • democrats
    • republicans
  • Business
    • business
    • cryptocurrency
    • economy
    • money
    • Real Estate
    • Tech
  • World
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Photos
    • Orleans
    • Eastham
    • Wellfleet
    • Truro
    • Provincetown
    • Brewster
    • Chatham
  • Videos
No Result
View All Result
Free Cape Cod News
No Result
View All Result
  • FREE Cape Cod News
  • Cape Cod News
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • World
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Photos
  • Videos
Home News Environment

Water wars: Mekong River another front in U.S.

FREE Cape Cod News by FREE Cape Cod News
July 24, 2020
in Environment
Reading Time: 5 mins read
Donate
0
Water wars: Mekong River another front in U.S. thumbnail
635
SHARES
1.4k
VIEWS
Share on TwitterShare on Facebook

BANGKOK (Reuters) – The Mekong River has become a new front in U.S.-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.

A view of the Mekong river bordering Thailand and Laos is seen from the Thai side in Nong Khai, Thailand, October 29, 2019. Picture taken October 29, 2019. To match Insight MEKONG-RIVER/DIPLOMACY REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun REFILE – CORRECTING YEAR

It’s a confrontation in which the Trump administration – which has largely maintained funding for an Obama-era environmental and development programmes in the Lower Mekong – is losing ground.

The two powers’ struggle recently moved into the realm of science – with the U.S. and Chinese governments each touting different reports about whether China’s 11 dams on the river were harming nations downstream.

China’s dams have given it extensive control of the waters that flow down to Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, which have long depended on the river for agriculture, fisheries, and increasingly for hydropower in Laos.

That control enables China to set the agenda for development linked to the waterway, and to exclude the United States from a role after decades of promoting Mekong projects as a way to exert its influence in the region.

“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 as it flows from China, where it is known as the Lancang, through Southeast Asia before emptying into the sea from Vietnam’s delta.

Last year saw record drought, with Lower Mekong river levels the lowest in decades. Fewer and smaller fish catches have been reported for years.

A U.S. ambassador in the region described China as “hoarding” water in its 11 dams on its upper portion of the 4,350-km (2,700-mile) river, harming the livelihoods of millions of people in downstream countries.

China also has been stepping up activities of its Lancang Mekong Cooperation group (LMC), a relatively new intergovernmental body that a second U.S. ambassador decried as trying to “sideline” the 25-year-old Mekong River Commission (MRC).

The MRC traces its origins back to U.S. 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.

China’s foreign ministry told Reuters any U.S. suggestion that Beijing was trying to take over the Mekong conversation was groundless.

“Countries outside the region should refrain from stirring up trouble out of nothing,” the ministry said.

‘ILL INTENT’

The U.S.-China rivalry broke into a war of words after a Washington-funded study in April concluded that China’s dams held back waters during last year’s drought.

The study by Eyes on Earth, a U.S.-based research and consulting company specialising in water, built a prediction model based on satellite imaging and MRC data that it said showed “missing” waters downstream, starting in around 2010.

U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia Patrick Murphy said he was “quite surprised” at the stark findings.

“That was the same here in the region,” Murphy told Reuters, referring to the reaction to the revelation.

“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.

China reacted with outrage, with its embassy in Thailand denouncing the study as “politically motivated, aimed at targeting China with ill intent” – a charge its author and U.S. officials denied.

Then, last week, China’s Global Times published an article about a Chinese study it characterized as disproving the Eyes on Earth report.

“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.

However, the study by Tsinghua University and the China Institute of Water Resources in fact said China’s dams could, in future, help alleviate drought, not that they actually did so in 2019, according to a copy obtained by Reuters.

“We are not meaning to compare with any other report. We aim to provide some basic facts to facilitate mutual understanding, trust and therefore cooperation in the basin,” lead researcher Tian Fuqiang told Reuters in an email.

Researchers will argue about the science, but for the Lower Mekong countries, it comes down to trust and power.

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.

“They rely on China now for a life-giving resource, and it’s very difficult for them to openly challenge the Chinese government on its dam building,” Strangio said.

Reluctant to take sides, none of the MRC countries has commented publicly in favour of either the Chinese or American study.

SEPARATE COOPERATION GROUPS

The United States has spent $120 million on its Lower Mekong Initiative since it was founded 11 years ago.

China appears to be spending more: in 2016, the Beijing-sponsored LMC set up a $300 million fund for research grants to be awarded for the five downstream countries.

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.

The Chinese-led group is taking a higher profile with an annual foreign ministers’ meeting and plans for a summit of leaders, possibly including Chinese President Xi Jinping, while less heavy-hitting water and environment officials typically go to MRC meetings, a Thai government official said.

The LMC drew criticism from the U.S. ambassador to Thailand, Michael DeSombre, who called it a “parallel organisation” to the MRC.

“We really would encourage the People’s Republic of China to work together with the Mekong River Commission, rather than trying to sideline it by creating its own organisation that it controls,” DeSombre said.

Despite the U.S. warnings, officials at the Mekong River Commission say it welcomes cooperation with the LMC and China.

One reason is that the commission and member governments want more data about operations of China’s dams, which hold back a combined capacity 47 billion cubic metres of water.

In 2002, Beijing started notifying downstream countries of when it would release water that could cause flooding.

A view of the Mekong river bordering Thailand and Laos is seen from the Thai side in Nong Khai, Thailand, October 29, 2019. Picture taken October 29, 2019. To match Insight MEKONG-RIVER/DIPLOMACY REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun REFILE – CORRECTING YEAR

But China has disclosed little else to enable downstream countries to make plans and request adjustments in the river’s flows.

China, at a February meeting of the LMC, promised more cooperation with its neighbours, but when speaking privately, regional officials are sceptical.

“China hasn’t shared any constructive data,” said a Vietnamese official who declined to be identified.

Additional reporting by Gao Liangping in Beijing, David Stanway in Shanghai, Prak Chan Thul in Phnom Penh and Phuong Nguyen and Khanh Vu in Hanoi; Writing by Kay Johnson; Editing by Robert Birsel

Tags: environment

FREE Digital Newspaper Subscription!
Sign up for your free digital subscription. The FREE Cape Cod News

Unsubscribe
FREE Cape Cod News

FREE Cape Cod News

Free Cape Cod News is what's happening in the Cape Cod, U.S and World & what people are talking about right now. Local newspaper. Stay in the know. Subscribe to get notified about our latest news.

Related Posts

Risk-factor changes could prevent the majority of sudden cardiac arrests thumbnail
Environment

Risk-factor changes could prevent the majority of sudden cardiac arrests

by FREE Cape Cod News
April 30, 2025
Genetic mutations linked to Marek's disease in chickens identified thumbnail
Environment

Genetic mutations linked to Marek’s disease in chickens identified

by FREE Cape Cod News
March 29, 2025
An arachnid in your orchid? Ornamental plant trade risks spreading invasive species thumbnail
Environment

An arachnid in your orchid? Ornamental plant trade risks spreading invasive species

by FREE Cape Cod News
March 22, 2025
The end of the EPA’s fight to protect overpolluted communities thumbnail
Environment

The end of the EPA’s fight to protect overpolluted communities

by FREE Cape Cod News
March 18, 2025
Load More
Please login to join discussion

Follow Us on Twitter

FREE Cape Cod News - Your source for local Cape Cod news, latest breaking U.S. and World news. Every day, all day. Subscribe for your favorite categories.

  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest
Here's the late changes Republicans made to Trump's big bill thumbnail

Here’s the late changes Republicans made to Trump’s big bill

May 23, 2025
What the EPA’s partial rollback of the ‘forever chemical’ drinking water rule means thumbnail

What the EPA’s partial rollback of the ‘forever chemical’ drinking water rule means

May 16, 2025
Republicans Introduce Plan to Tackle Climate Change, Energy Crisis thumbnail

Republicans Introduce Plan to Tackle Climate Change, Energy Crisis

June 4, 2022

Rare May nor’easter brings rain and chance of snow to New England before Memorial Day

0
FDA won’t approve COVID shot for healthy, non-elderly population thumbnail

FDA won’t approve COVID shot for healthy, non-elderly population

0
Here's the late changes Republicans made to Trump's big bill thumbnail

Here’s the late changes Republicans made to Trump’s big bill

0
Here's the late changes Republicans made to Trump's big bill thumbnail

Here’s the late changes Republicans made to Trump’s big bill

May 23, 2025
FDA won’t approve COVID shot for healthy, non-elderly population thumbnail

FDA won’t approve COVID shot for healthy, non-elderly population

May 22, 2025

Rare May nor’easter brings rain and chance of snow to New England before Memorial Day

May 22, 2025

FREE Cape Cod News On Twitter

Today’s News

  • Here’s the late changes Republicans made to Trump’s big bill May 23, 2025
  • FDA won’t approve COVID shot for healthy, non-elderly population May 22, 2025
  • Rare May nor’easter brings rain and chance of snow to New England before Memorial Day May 22, 2025
  • Coinbase says recent data breach impacts 69,461 customers May 22, 2025
  • Resentment of ICE, backlash against its agents and mission rise alongside Democrats’ condemnations May 22, 2025
FREE Cape Cod News

Copyright © 2024 Free Cape Cod News

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
  • Donate

Follow Us

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist

No Result
View All Result
  • FREE Cape Cod News
  • Cape Cod News
  • News
    • News
    • Massachusetts
    • Breaking News
    • Cape Cod Weather
    • Storm Watch
    • Environment
  • Politics
    • democrats
    • republicans
  • Business
    • business
    • cryptocurrency
    • economy
    • money
    • Real Estate
    • Tech
  • World
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Photos
    • Orleans
    • Eastham
    • Wellfleet
    • Truro
    • Provincetown
    • Brewster
    • Chatham
  • Videos
  • Login
  • Sign Up

Copyright © 2024 Free Cape Cod News