Inter Press Service
March 22, 2002

The six Southeast Asian countries that share the waters of the Mekong River risk being swept into a regional conflict if their governments ignore the flash points that have surfaced and do not coordinate actions that affect the river, experts say.

A potential trigger is the irregular flow of the Mekong’s waters, which experts at a discussion today marking World Water Day said was due to both natural factors and manmade development in countries upstream of the river, including dam development by China.

“Unless we have a mechanism to regulate water use and support and develop it, we are bound to witness conflicts among countries that share the river,” said Joern Kristensen, chief executive officer of the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an inter-governmental body that manages the river’s lower basin.

The most troubling period for the lower Mekong countries — Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Laos, is the annual dry season. So changes in river flows during this time hit them the hardest. “In the dry season, if one country upstream takes water for its own purpose, it affects the countries downstream,” Kristensen said at a discussion on Water and Conflict at the United Nations Conference Center.

The MRC’s research has shown that during the dry months from around November through May, the 4,400-km Mekong — which flows from the Tibetan plateau down to Vietnam and out to the South China Sea

– – is reduced to 2,000 cubic meters per second.

During the monsoon months, from around June until September, the Mekong flows at a rate of 50,000 cubic meters per second. Thus, communities dependent on the Mekong downstream, such as those in Vietnam, stand to be affected the most by any changes in the river. This is the case when the river’s natural flow drops during the dry season to allow the intrusion of salt water, which destroys the land set for agricultural use the Vietnamese along the riverbanks.

The other countries that share the Mekong’s lower river basin are Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, all of whom are MRC members. The upstream countries of China and Burma are not members of the Phnom-Penh based commission, although they are observers and have a standing invitation to join in.

More than 50 million people depend upon the Mekong and its tributaries for food, water, transport and other aspects of their daily lives.

“The river’s annual flood-drought cycles are essential for the substantial production of food crops on the floodplains and along the banks of the rivers during the dry season,” says a report by the U.S.-based International Rivers Network.

Yet Mekong River experts like Steve Van Beek, an author and filmmaker whose work has focused on the Mekong, argue that there is more than the regular shift in weather that has led to countries like Vietnam suffering from a drop in the Mekong’s water level.

“In 1997, the Chinese closed down the river for four days to enable work on a dam, thus stopping the flow of large quantities of fresh water into the Mekong delta,” revealed Van Beek, a participant at today’s panel discussion. “The Vietnamese claimed to have lost $ 100,000 a day.”

Due to such acts of unilateralism, China’s plans for its parts of the Mekong have emerged as a major worry among experts, environmentalists and activists.

“The Chinese don’t want to be told how the river should be developed,” Van Beek said in an interview. “This attitude will have serious consequences, with the potential of future conflicts.”

China has announced plans to build 37 dams along its portion of the Mekong, affirmed Van Beek. “Construction of two dams have already been commissioned.”

China’s push for more dams will exacerbate the problems faced by communities downstream needing water during the dry season, since it is the only country among the six Mekong countries that has a glacial belt.

“The Mekong is fed from two sources, the monsoon rains and the glaciers from China,” Van Beek explained. “During the dry season the glaciers melting in China feed the river, ensuring its natural flow. That’s why the dams in China are troubling.”

According to IRN, the planned Chinese dams will add to the more than 100 large dams that have been proposed in the Mekong basin over the past 10 years, plans backed by multilateral financial institutions. Laos, it adds, has been where “the pace of dam-building was fastest,” and projects have geared to supply expected demand from neighboring Thailand.

Another emerging flashpoint is the Chinese initiative to rid the Mekong of the islets in mid-stream, thus permitting easier routes for commercial navigation that it agreed last year with Thailand, Laos and Burma.

China, according to news reports, has already cleared its section of the river to enable big vessels to travel through its waters year round. Thus far, vessels could only reach until Laos from China, but the navigation accord will allow further travel southward. Thailand, Laos and Burma have still to make their sections of the river navigable.

This initiative by the Chinese seeks to build 14 ports along the river to facilitate greater economic activity in the region.

But already, complaints are trickling out of Laos about the impact the Chinese actions on the communities who depend on the Mekong for their livelihood, particularly the fishing communities.

“The Mekong River is not for Laos, Thailand, Myanmar (Burma) and China. It also flows to Cambodia and Vietnam. If the clearance plans pose problems for the countries downstream, we have to reconsider it,” a Laotian diplomat was quoted as saying by the English-language daily Bangkok Post this week.

“It is unfair,” he added, “if the project yields benefits for four countries but the others get nothing.”

Cambodia and Vietnam have also aired concerns about the dredging, saying fewer reefs could change the flow of water into their countries, posing problems for farming and other activities, news reports add. Similar worries have been raised by Thai activists in the north, who are monitoring dredging plans.

Meantime, there remains no full mechanism for coordination of Mekong development plans by all six countries, with China and Burma out of the commission. Kristensen says that more than membership or non-membership in MRC, all countries would need wider political understanding on key issues linked to the river.

The MRC does have annual dialogues with China and Burma. In end-March, the commission and China will also sign an agreement under which Beijing would give the MRC hydrological data from two of its stations in the Mekong River.

But Kristensen suggests that the involvement of regional groups — like the Association of South-east Asian Nations’ dialogue with countries like China, institutions like the World Bank and Asian Development Bank and the United Nations — would give coordination on Mekong matters a big boost.