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Fears of Mekong free-for-all as China
goes it alone
By Alan Boyd
SYDNEY - China and Myanmar have opted to stay
outside a prominent agency overseeing development of the
Mekong Basin, as six riparian states prepare to invest
billions of dollars in infrastructural projects.
Diplomats said the two countries had rebuffed
the latest overtures from the Mekong River Commission
(MRC), evoking fears that poor management controls might
lead to conflict over resources.
The MRC is
widely viewed as the grouping most suited to fill the
regulatory hole in Indochina as the growth zone of 60
million people prepares to establish a landbridge with
the rest of Southeast Asia. Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia,
Laos, Myanmar and China are expected to spend as much as
$100 billion harnessing the region's economic potential,
starting with a $1 billion package of transport,
telecommunications and energy projects.
Outside
cash will have to be found for the next phase. But
investors have been put off by the lack of a
representative body that can institute an independent
framework of checks and balances.
Although many
schemes will have an impact outside the countries where
they are sited, there is no common legal code, limited
disputes procedures and no agency capable of ensuring
that smaller states - or river communities - are not
trampled in the headlong development rush.
"Transboundary resource management requires
cooperative international mechanisms. These
international frameworks for the Mekong region are
unfortunately uncoordinated, overlapping and driven
mostly by economic and political interests rather than
environmental ones," lawyer Tashi Tsering noted in a
recent study of the Mekong's management structure.
Initial investment is being overseen separately
by the MRC and the Greater Mekong Sub-Region (GMS), an
initiative established 10 years ago by the Asian
Development Bank (ADB) to capitalize on the end of Cold
War tensions.
The MRC's main contribution has
been in the energy field, with a capital-intensive
network of hydroelectric dams that centers on a massive
exploitation of Laotian tributaries of the Mekong. Other
projects, mostly related to improved navigation, are
being devised by the Golden Quadrangle, a loose forum
between Thailand, Laos, Burma and China that was set up
in 1993.
Then there is the ASEAN-Mekong Basin
Development Cooperation, dating from 1995, with a
mandate to integrate farming, mining, forestry,
industry, transport, telecommunications, energy,
tourism, trade and investment activities.
In
addition, the ADB is promoting specific development
assistance for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia through the
Forum for Comprehensive Development in Indochina, which
dates back to 1993 and is mostly backed by Japanese aid
groups.
Apart from the ADB, at least five other
lending agencies are active in Indochina: International
Bank for Reconstruction And Development (IBRD);
International Development Agency (IDA); International
Finance Corporation (IFC); Multilateral International
Guarantee Agency (MIGA); and Global Environment Facility
(GEF).
Seven United Nations organizations have
specific programs for developing the region, as do nine
national governments. The latter generally operate
through the MRC or the various ADB plans.
Yet
none of these agencies has a monitoring function outside
its own programs, and there have been no concerted
efforts at consensus planning, a shortcoming that
concerns some aid donors.
"It is unrealistic to
suggest that aid programming should not include
significant infrastructure projects. Notwithstanding
this, the development plans for the basin advanced by
agencies such as the ADB and the MRC, if implemented,
will result in a region that has far greater potential
for serious resource conflicts," warned Australia's
state-owned AusAID in a project evaluation.
Other than the GMS schemes, development has so
far been predominantly at the behest of individual
governments, with little or no consultation being
undertaken outside their borders.
China has
constructed two hydropower dams on the upper Mekong,
which it calls Lancang, without offering compensation
for reduced water flows to farmers and fishermen further
downriver. Vietnam built the Yali Falls dam without
considering the possible repercussions on Cambodia's
important Tonle Sap system. Few impact studies have been
undertaken for Laos' 20 dam projects.
Thailand
has not invited countries downstream to participate in
planning for its proposed diversion of 2.2 billion cubic
meters of water per year from the Kok and Ing rivers in
the Mekong Basin.
The MRC has a disputes
mechanism, but it is useless without the involvement of
China and Myanmar, even though the lower four countries
comprise 77 percent of the basin's total area and
account for more than 80 percent of water flow. Myanmar
has spurned the MRC because it has only a token
involvement in the basin. China's motivations are more
complex, but are believed to be related to the body's
traditional domination by Thailand and Vietnam.
"Frankly, there is very little in it for the
PRC. The risk is that it would expose itself to closer
scrutiny by the neighbors, whereas now it can act with
total impunity in the infrastructure sector," said a
diplomat. Thailand gained the ascendency in the MRC
after an acrimonious showdown with Vietnam over water
sharing in the early 1990s that came to a head with the
proposed re-admission of Cambodia following the end of
its civil war. The outcome was the 1995 Agreement on
Cooperation for the Sustainable Development of the
Mekong River Basin, a landmark accord that laid a basis
for joint development of resources.
However, it
also ensured that this development would be undertaken
in compliance with the national objectives of its two
strongest members, while Laos and Cambodia effectively
became client states. In the most graphic illustration
of this unequal marriage, Laos was positioned as a
significant hydroelectric producer on the understanding
that almost all output would go to the Thai power grid.
"Whereas the previous agreement gave any one member
country the right to veto another's project if concerned
about adverse impacts, the new agreement only gives
member countries the right to prior notification and
consultation," said Tashi. "For example, the lower
riparian states' (the weaker states') concerns for flood
control, management and mitigation are given only
secondary importance compared to Thailand's concerns for
hydropower development under MRC's Water Resources and
Hydrology Program.
"And the commission's
relationship to its non-party members, particularly
China, reflects Thailand's relation to those states," he
said.
GMS and the Golden Quadrangle both had
their origins in attempts to bridge the dialogue gap
between the four downstream and two upstream states, but
have had only partial success.
While the GMS
encompasses all riparian states, it is weakened by the
ADB's unwillingness to act as a coordinator with the
MRC; apparently deterred by the MRC's lack of
accountability, ADB deals directly with individual
countries.
Similarly, the Golden Quadrangle has
snubbed Cambodia and Vietnam, reportedly to avoid
political strains between Hanoi and Beijing, which faced
off over Cambodia in the 1970s and 1980s. Five of the
six Mekong states are members of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), while the sixth - China
- consults regularly through the ASEAN Plus 3 dialogue.
But ASEAN has not shown any inclination to take
a leadership role in the Mekong Basin, having added
Indochina to its list of special economic zones only a
few years ago.
"ASEAN is in the unique position
of having a dual mandate - it has political clout as
well as economic - and can help close the development
gap between its northern and southern halves," said an
Asian diplomat. "It is unfortunate that some countries
prefer to take a unilateral approach, even though we
know this works against the spirit of sharing resources
[and] the overriding desire to avoid potential
conflict."
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
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