Fishermen and farmers in downstream countries are protesting the impact of China’s dams. But experts say that the dams also give China a huge potential for geopolitical influence.

WASHINGTON—Experts are raising concerns over the strategic implications of China’s construction of Mekong River dams.

China plans eight dams, four of which have been built. Moreover, according to Richard Cronin, head of the Southeast Asia program at the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, Cambodia and Laos are planning 11 dams on the lower half of the Mekong, four involving Chinese developers.

At issue is the dams’ interference with food fish spawning and migration, which, Cronin said, has already been observed in China’s southern Yunnan province and northern Laos since the Manwan Dam came online in 1993.

Now that the massive Xiaowan Dam has been completed, China’s ability to store or release huge quantities of water to meet changing power demands and support dry-season navigation is expected to have impacts on fisheries far down the river. The impact could reach as far as the Tonle Sap in Cambodia, if not the Mekong Delta in Vietnam.

These water levels are important because of such direct effects as their impact on downstream agriculture and potential for flooding. Downstream dams’ year-around operation and generation of electricity also depend on sufficient water coming down from China.

Marvin C. Ott, professor of national security policy at the National War College, said the project would appear to be a boon for Chinese strategists interested in increasing China’s geopolitical influence in Southeast Asia, which he believes “is a central Chinese preoccupation for its strategic community.”

Cambodian officials, for example, he said, might be relatively successfully trying to maintain a sovereign foreign and security policy, balancing the influence of surrounding countries and the United States, “but now, suddenly, China has a lever … that changes the whole calculus.”

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The change in Southeast Asian attitudes toward China’s growing economic profile in the region and its military build-up in the South China Sea is significant (See “China’s “Charm Offensive” Losing Momentum in Southeast Asia [Part I],” China Brief, April 29). In mainland Southeast Asia, governments have not only been worried about the rising tide of Chinese imports, but also the environmental impact of Chinese dams in Yunnan province that some groups claim have led to falling water levels in the Mekong River. In addition to having to respond to these accusations, Beijing has also had to contend with the political instability that continues to flare up in two of its closest partners in Southeast Asia—Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand—and the potential negative economic fallout on its southwestern provinces.

China’s Public Relations Debacle on the Mekong River

During his speech to the Jakarta-based Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretariat in January 2010, State Councilor Dai Bingguo declared China and Southeast Asia to be inseparably joined by “mountains and rivers” [1]. Yet the most important of these rivers—the 3,000-mile long Mekong, also known as Lancang in Chinese, which rises in the Tibetan plateau and flows down through Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam—has become a bone of contention in ASEAN-China relations. The root of the problem is that water levels have fallen to their lowest point in nearly half a century, and this is adversely affecting the livelihoods of more than 65 million people in the Mekong Basin who depend on the river for drinking water, irrigation, fishing and transportation. Environmentalists have blamed record low water levels on dams constructed along the upper reaches of the river in Yunnan province where the Chinese authorities have planned a cascade of eight hydroelectric dams; three are already in operation, two more are nearing completion [2]. The most controversial of these hydroelectric projects is the Xiaowan Dam, which at 958-feet is the largest arch dam in the world and the second biggest dam in China after the Three Gorges. Filling the Xiaowan’s 73-square mile reservoir began in 2009, and is expected to be completed in 2012. Critics claim the dam filling is draining water off downstream areas and wreaking environmental havoc. They accuse Beijing of being insensitive to the problems faced by the lower riparian countries.

Although the problem of falling water levels in the Mekong has been apparent for several years, regional governments—some of which have close ties to Beijing—have been reluctant to confront China for fear of losing economic aid. Yet as the situation has worsened, Southeast Asian officials have become less reticent about raising the issue with their Chinese counterparts. The most high-level expression of concern occurred in March when Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva told visiting Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Hu Zhengyue that Thailand expected China’s cooperation in dealing with the problem (Straits Times, March 8). Although Abhisit did not criticize China directly, his message was clear: The PRC must take account of regional concerns and act accordingly.

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“China’s “Charm Offensive” Losing Momentum in Southeast Asia [Part I]

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Lakes and freshwater wells in central Burma are drying up, fuelled by hot weather and abnormal river flows resulting from hydropower projects.

A local in Sagaing division’s capital, Monywa, said that wells were drying up in every ward of the city. “The well in our ward dried up and now everyone is out of water,” he said.

Water levels on the Irrawaddy river and its largest tributary, the Chindwin river, which flows through Sagaing division, are low, and sand banks are appearing with increasing frequency.

The Mekong river, which supports millions of people from China to Cambodia, is at its lowest level in nearly half a century, largely as a resulting of heavy damming by the Chinese.

Residents of Pyin Oo Lwin, in central Burma’s Mandalay division, said that villages located south of Myit Nge river were also suffering water shortages because a hydropower dam recently built upstream had blocked the channel.

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YANGON, April 27 (AFP) – A series of grenade blasts hit a hydropower project in Myanmar Tuesday, wounding four workers in the latest unrest in the military-ruled country, officials said.

The attacks occurred at the Thaukyegat hydropower plant under construction in Bago Division, about 220 kilometres (137 miles) northeast of the country’s main city Yangon, a local official told AFP.

“Four workers were injured during three grenade attacks at the Thaukyegat hydropower project site,” the official said, asking not to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The Myanmar company behind the project, Asia World Construction, was also involved in a controversial dam project in Kachin State where there was a series of bombs blasts earlier this month, injuring one engineer.

Three other bombs on April 15 hit a water festival in Yangon, in the city’s worst attack in five years. The death toll from that attack has now risen to 10 people, with at least 170 people wounded.

Myanmar authorities have arrested some suspects in their search for the perpetrators of those blasts, officials said, but they did not give any further detail as the investigation is still underway.

Myanmar has been hit by several bomb blasts in recent years which the junta has blamed on armed exile groups or ethnic rebels.

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Attachments:

1. Statement to the Chinese Government “Third Complaint to Chinese Government” (http://www.mekonglover.com/news_pop.asp? NewsId=151)

2. Study titled “Two Important Lessons from Mekong Mainstream Dams in China” (http://www.mekonglover.com/news_pop.asp? NewsId=141)

3. Book titled “Local cultural ecology and natural resource management in the Mekong Basin: A Case Study of the Mekong River-Lanna area”

Since the People’s Republic of China built four dams on the upper Mekong River, the people in downstream countries, namely Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, have suffered impacts on their ecosystems, food security, culture, economy, and society. The Peoples Republic of China has constantly ignored the petition letters from affected downstream communities.

We, the network of affected people, who have monitored the impacts of dams on the upper stretch of the Mekong River for over a decade, deliver a petition letter to the Chinese Government in the attached package and proposals to the Chinese government as follows:

1. The Chinese Government must stop building all dams on the upper Mekong River’s mainstream.

2. The Chinese Government must stop pursuing the Mekong River Rapids Blasting Project.

3. The Chinese Government must release data that details their operation of the upper Mekong dams and the past records of the river conditions before the dams were built.

4. The Chinese government is urged to ratify the ‘UN Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses’ and to encourage other Mekong countries to also ratify it. This would ensure that the future utilization of the river’s resources guarantees the sustainability of the ecosystem and shares the benefits in a just way

5. The Chinese government must cooperate with other Mekong governments to establish a joint committee, in which people affected by dams and blasting projects from each country are represented, to study and seek ways to manage the river in a just and sustainable way

6. The commission’s mission is also to revise the management of the four completed dams on the upper Mekong River and to seek approaches on managing their reservoirs without causing impacts to the downstream communities. The commission should also assess damage from the implemented projects and explore ways for the Chinese Government to compensate in the form of a fund to restore the ecology, culture, economy and society of the downstream communities.

We hereby present you with this letter with the aim of peacefully achieving a joint solution

Thai Peoples’ Network for the Mekong; Mekong-Lanna Natural Resources and Cultural Conservation Network; Chiang Kong Conservation Group; Eco- Culture Study Group/ Isan Human Rights and Peace Information Center; Hug Nam Khong; Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance (TERRA); Mekong Energy and Ecology Network (MEE Net); Living River Siam (SEARIN)

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India’s state-owned National Hydro Power Company Limited (NHPC) will increase its investment in Burma to the tune of an extra $US5.6 billion as Burma aggressively expands its energy sector.

The head of the NHPC, S K Garg, told the Wall Street Journal the company was “inching towards Myanmar [Burma]. We have already sent our team to Myanmar for further survey and investigation for two projects.”

Little is known of the location of the projects, but the Wall Street Journal suggests that they could be two new 510-megawatt and 520-megawatt dams.

The NHPC already has a major presence in the country, primarily at the Tamanthi dam on the Chindwin river in Burma’s northern Sagaing division. The project has a capability of providing 1200 megawatts of electricity, 80 percent of which it is believed will go straight to India.

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BANGKOK, Apr 6, 2010 (IPS) – Lost in the deluge of accusations that China’s dams are the culprit in the Mekong River’s unusually low levels is the fact that Beijing has actually become much less tightlipped about thorny issues with its neighbours than in the past.

Some years ago, China would have been unlikely to discuss such matters at a multilateral, official forum where it would be found fault with.

There was a time in the mid-nineties when just about the only response South-east Asian nations could get from China about the high-profile dispute at that time – the spat over the Spratly islands in the South China Sea – was a statement saying it wanted only bilateral fora to discuss it.

Those days are far different from China’s current diplomatic offensive in South-east Asia, as downstream Mekong communities angrily blame it for pushing the river to record low levels and exacerbating the worst drought they have seen in decades.

The sight of dry, cracked earth and sandy stretches of riverbed is now common in north-east Thailand and Laos down to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. China’s south-west Yunnan province, where its Mekong dams are located, is itself hurting from the drought.

“It is as if the river has gone mad,” said Niwat Roykaew of the Chiang Khong Conservation Group in northern Thailand.

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Sixty villages in Kachin, the northernmost state in Burma, are being forced to relocate to make room for a Chinese dam.

The Myit Sone dam, will produce between 3600 and 6000 MW of power for export to China and will be the first and largest in a series of 6 other Chinese dams eventually to be built. It will be built by the China Power Investment Corporation along the Irrawaddy River and its main tributaries, according to environmental groups.

Construction began December 21, 2009, and is expected to generate up to 500 million USD (368 million euros) per year for the Burmese junta, the ones that signed off on the deal. The dam won’t benefit the locals in any way.

In fact, a local pro-autonomy political organisation called the Kachin Development Networking Group says that 47 villages, located in the world’s eighth most bio-diverse region of the world, will be flooded because of the dam.

The dams threaten those who rely on the Irrawaddy for fishing and farming, no to mention the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin, but no impact assessments have been conducted, according to Burma Rivers Network.

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It’s a triple whammy that is currently being visited upon communities in the Irrawaddy region of Burma.

Not only is a contentious dam to be constructed on the Irrawaddy River, necessitating the forced removal of local villagers.

The regime is also handing out permits to Chinese and other companies to dig out the area’s gold, before it’s flooded.

This is both undermining the land and destroying people’s timber resources.

Gold mining precedes dam construction on Irrawaddy River.

Written by Kachin News Group

Gold mining activity has begun in areas to be flooded by the dam on Burma’s famous Irrawaddy River confluence in Kachin State before the contentious dam construction starts, said local sources.

Seven large companies including the Burma-Asia World Company, the prime contractor for constructing the dam project and Yuzana Company have swung into full-scale gold mining activities. Dozens of bulldozers, power shovels, trucks and other mining machines are in evidence since December 4, said local residents.

Many new camps, tents and huts for gold miners have been constructed near the mines in the dam project site and around the Irrawaddy confluence village Tang Hpre, 27 miles north of Myitkyina. The gold mining activities are on day and night, according to Tang Hpre’s villagers.

Meanwhile, foreign and local visitors to the confluence are being disturbed by the gold mining work. One of the most popular places to relax in the country is turning ugly because of the gold mines, said locals.

About 2000 Chinese labourers under the Asia World Company are also into logging, gold mining and digging tunnels at the dam project site. They have been secretly transported to the site at night in groups from China through the border in Kachin State since late October, said sources among them.

The junta has granted special gold mining permits in the zones to be affected by floods to the two ethnic Kachin armed groups that dissolved their organizations and came under the control of the Burmese regime recently. They are the former New Democratic Army-Kachin (NDA-K) and Lasang Awng Wa Peace Group (LAWPG), said sources in the two groups.

Before the gold mining grants were handed out, former NDA-K leader Zahkung Ting Ying and former LAWPG leader Lasang Awng Wa submitted proposals to the military leaders in Naypyitaw asking for gold mining permits in the predicted flood zones of the Irrawaddy dam, said sources close to the two leaders.

The proposals stated that digging out gold from the dam’s flood zones is better than wasting it in flood waters, and that the revenue from the gold can be used for development projects, according to local companies.

Local companies desirous of getting gold mining blocks in the dam project sites were told to apply to the junta under the names of former NDA-K and LAWPG by the military authorities in Myitkyina, said company sources.

People of Tang Hpre and other residents around Irrawaddy dam sites have been increasingly persuaded or pressurized in different ways to relocate by the military authorities after Burma and China signed in Beijing in June to implement the Myitsone hydropower project and other hydropower projects in Mali Hka River and N’Mai Hka River in Kachin State, said local residents.

Before the latest agreement, officials of the Chinese government-owned China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) and the Asia World Company were into inspection activities on the confluence as of 2006.

Kachin people has appealed to the junta to put a halt to the confluence dam project since 2007 because ethnic Kachins are worried the flood waters from the dam will damage their invaluable natural heritage— the Confluence, or Mali-N’Mai Zup in Kachin. It is known for its beauty and is historically linked to ancient Kachin civilizations in northern Burma.

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June 18, 2009

In a bold outpouring of public concern for Southeast Asia’s Mekong River, more than 16,000 people from within the six-country Mekong region and around the world have signed a “Save the Mekong” petition urging governments to abandon plans for hydropower development along the river’s mainstream. The petition – written in seven languages – will be hand-delivered to Thailand’s Prime Minister H.E. Abhisit Vejjajiva on 18 June in Bangkok, and sent to other government leaders within the region.

Despite strong government backing for dam building on the Mekong River, over 10,000 people from within the Mekong region have signed the petition addressed to the Prime Ministers of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Vietnam urging them to keep the river flowing freely and to pursue less damaging electricity options. The petition is signed by fishers and farmers living along the river’s mainstream and tributaries, as well as by monks, students, city-folk and even some of the region’s well-known celebrities. Another 6,000 people around the world signed the postcards and an online petition.

Most postcard signatories wrote personal messages to the region’s leaders:

“Don’t let hydropower dams block our children’s future!” Wang Dezhi, Yunnan, China

“Don’t build the Mekong dams. The existing dams in Thailand already make brothers and sisters fight against each other!” Mak Vangdokmai, Roi et, Thailand

“I love my country. I don’t want to see some people destroy my home country for greed. So I would like to do my best to protect our Mekong!” Sneampay, Vientiane, Laos

“If the dams happen, where will all of us go to live?” Villager, Stung Treng province, Cambodia.

“Saving us, saving our resources! Electricity is not everything!” Nguyen Thanh Hang, Hanoi, Vietnam

“I have traveled the Mekong River from Laos to Thailand to Cambodia and dams will destroy the river, environment and tourism.” M. Higgs, London, England

In the lead-up to this week’s Save the Mekong launch, citizens groups have organized a number of events over the past few months to rally public support for the river:

* Bangkok’s Central World department store, Thailand, March 2009: An exhibition by award-winning Thai photographer Suthep Kritsanavarin highlighted the threat to Mekong fishing from the Don Sahong dam planned for Southern Lao PDR. The exhibition prompted thousands of Bangkokians to sign the petition postcard.

* Phnom Penh, Hun Sen Park, Cambodia, June 2009: A stall at the World Environment Week’s eco-festival in Phnom Penh highlighted the risks from the mainstream dams to Cambodia’s fisheries and urged hundreds of concerned citizens to add their signatures to the Save the Mekong on-line petition.

* Ubon Ratchathani province, Thailand, June 2009: Local groups, students, academics and photographers organized a series of public events, dubbed “the Mekong weeks”, and collected over 4,000 petition signatures. The events highlighted the value and natural beauty of the “Three Thousand Wells” stretch of the Mekong River, where it forms the border between northeast Thailand and Lao PDR. The area is an increasingly popular ecotourism destination that is now threatened by the proposed Ban Koum dam.

* Phnom Penh, Cambodia, June 2009 Local groups and fishing community leaders organized a national workshop about the importance of the Mekong’s fisheries for local livelihoods and the environment, and to discuss the food security impacts that the Don Sahong mainstream dam could have on Cambodians.

Mekong fisheries provide a critical source of food and income for millions of people along the river. Recent official estimates place the annual value of the river’s wild capture fisheries to be worth up to US$3 billion. Mainstream dams will block the massive fish migrations that count for up to 70% of the river’s commercial fish catch and that ensure regional food security. Experience around the world demonstrates that there is no way to mitigate the fisheries impacts of such large dams.

Civil society groups in the Mekong region and internationally have been sounding the alarm about plans to build eleven hydro dams on the Lower Mekong mainstream for many years, in what is often described as an uphill battle.

China’s dam construction on the Upper Mekong mainstream (Lancang) has already caused serious environmental problems, in the form of declining fish stocks, riverbank erosion, and hazardous water level fluctuations in downstream Burma, northern Thailand and northern Lao PDR. The Save the Mekong coalition and those that signed the petition are very concerned that similarly severe cross-border impacts could create cross-border disputes.

When meeting Prime Minister H.E. Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Save the Mekong coalition representatives will present him with the Save the Mekong petition and ask him to work with regional leaders to protect the Mekong River. Thai representatives will raise their concerns with the Prime Minister about the Thai-Laos Ban Koum and Pak Chom dams and ask for clarification on the government’s position on these projects.

Thailand’s Minister of Energy recently spent 60 million baht on a feasibility study for the Pak Chom dam and a feasibility study for the Ban Koum dam study has been prepared by Italian-Thai Company. In addition, in Lao PDR, Thailand’s Chor Khanchang company and Charoen Energy and Water Asia company are the lead developers of the Xayaboury and Lat Sua mainstream dams respectively. Much of the mainstream dams’ hydroelectricity is anticipated to feed into Thailand’s power grid.

The largely donor-backed inter-governmental Mekong River Commission, meanwhile, has failed to disclose its assessment of the Don Sahong dam, prepared in 2007, despite repeated requests from civil society groups, and is now positioning itself as a “facilitator” among the region’s hydro developers. The MRC has skirted some of the most critical issues, including on ensuring transparency and public participation, and protecting regional food security.

Despite the limited space for public debate, the Save the Mekong petition aims to make heard the people’s voices for protecting the Mekong as a giant food chain and cultural lifeline for millions of people.
Media Contacts:

Premrudee Daoroung and Chonticha Tangvoramongkhol, Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance (TERRA) Tel. +66 2-691-0718-20, +66 81-4342334, +66 87 553 9689
email: fer@terraper.org ; www.terraper.org

Carl Middleton, International Rivers, Tel: +66 84-6815332 Email: carl@internationalrivers.org; www.internationalrivers.org

Tonn Kunthel and Ame Trandem, NGO Forum on Cambodia, Tel: +855 23 214 429, email kunthel@ngoforum.org.kh and ame@ngoforum.org.kh ; www.ngoforum.org.kh