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SUB-REGIONAL COOPERATION IN
SOUTHEAST ASIA: THE MEKONG BASIN1
JÖRN DOSCH AND OLIVER HENSENGERTH
Abstract. The paper analyses the security dimension of the Greater Mekong
Subregion (GMS) by taking into account traditional as well as non-traditional security issues. The Greater Mekong Subregion, which was established in
1992 at the initiative of the ADB, emerged after the Cold War in the wake of
the so-called new regionalism as one of the growth triangles within ASEAN.
Participating countries/regions are China’s Yunnan province, Myanmar,
Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The article places the discussion
of the Greater Mekong Subregion within the debate on post-Cold War subregionalism and sets out to discuss the development of regionalism in the
Mekong Basin. The article shows how economic cooperation is followed in
the pursuit of security and stability in a formerly conflict-ridden area and
assesses the relevance of the GMS towards the issue of conflict reduction in
the Mekong Basin.
1. Introduction
The wide-ranging structural changes in the aftermath of the Cold
War not only provoked an extensive academic debate on the pros and
cons of regional bloc-building but also ignited a discussion on subregionalism as either an alternative or a supplement to the former. In
this respect, Taga distinguished two different types of post Cold War
regionalism.2 He labelled the first of these ‘defensive type’ regionalism, as represented by the European Union (EU) and the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The second was called
‘positive type’ regionalism and, according to Taga, commonly found
1 The authors wish to express their gratitude to the British Academy for funding
research for this paper as part of a project on sub-regional cooperation in the Mekong
Valley. We would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers whose detailed
feedback on an earlier draft greatly helped us to improve our arguments.
2 Hidetoshi Taga, ‘International networks among local cities: the first step towards regional development’, in F. Gipouloux (ed.), Regional Economic Strategies in East
Asia: A Comparative Perspective (Tokyo: Maison Franco-Japonaise, 1994).
© Brill, Leiden, 2005
EJEAS 4.2
Also available online—www.brill.nl
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in East Asia. He cited the Yellow Sea Rim Region,3 the Greater Hong
Kong Area,4 the Singapore–Johor–Riau (SIJORI) Triangle (also
known as the Indonesia–Malaysia–Singapore Growth Triangle, or
IMSGT), and the Bath or Indochina Economic Zone5 as examples.
Since Taga published his typology more than a decade ago, one
scheme that did not even make his shortlist of promising ‘positive
type’ regionalisms has emerged among the most successful endeavours: sub-regional cooperation in the Mekong Basin.
This article will elaborate on the question whether GMS cooperation has resulted in more stable and peaceful sub-regional relations
and the emergence of what Dent labels ‘political regionalism’: that is,
‘integral formations of transnational policy-networks, the expression
of shared political interests amongst the region’s leaders, advancements in policy co-ordination and common policy enterprises, and
the creation of regional-level institutions to manage any common
“political sphere”’.6 We will first place the Greater Mekong Subregion within the academic debate on sub-regionalism before then proceeding to outline important security-related achievements and implications of sub-regional cooperation. Lastly, we will assess the level
of security-building in the Mekong Basin. Overall, the article will
show how economic cooperation is followed in the pursuit of security and stability in a formerly conflict-ridden area and will assess the
relevance of the GMS towards the issue of conflict reduction in the
Mekong Basin.
2. Historical Antecedents
The Mekong is the world’s twelfth largest river and Southeast Asia’s
largest waterway. It originates in Tibet and flows through the Chinese
province of Yunnan before continuing southwards, touching the territories of six countries (China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and
Vietnam) and ending in the South China Sea. The Greater Mekong
Subregion (GMS) covers some 2.3 million square kilometres and a
population of about 245 million. For many decades, if not centuries,
3 The coastal areas facing the Yellow Sea of North and Northeast China, North
and South Korea, and Japan.
4 Hong Kong and China’s Guangdong and Fujian provinces.
5 Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and the Indo-Chinese Peninsula.
6 Christopher M. Dent, ‘Introduction: Northeast Asia—a region in search of
regionalism?’, in Christopher M. Dent and David W.F. Huang (eds), Northeast Asian
Regionalism. Learning from the European Experiences (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon Press, 2002), p. 2.
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explorers, traders and more recently politicians have seen the Mekong
Valley as a natural geographic region, whose peoples shared not only
the resources of this mighty river but also some distinctive cultural
features. Unlike most post-colonial states of Africa and the Americas,
those of the Lower Mekong Basin were established political entities
long prior to European colonisation.7
The post World War II history of cooperation within the Mekong
Valley dates back to 1957, when the Mekong Committee was established at the initiative of the UN Economic Commission for Asia
and the Far East (ECAFE) and four riparian countries of the Lower
Mekong Basin (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and South Vietnam). The
principal policy goals of the Mekong Committee were to tackle the
pressing problems of poverty and political instability along the lower
river basin and to promote peace, progress and prosperity through the
effective joint utilisation of the Mekong’s resources.8 Prominent here
is the idea of political rapprochement through economic cooperation.
This approach was in conjunction with general development strategies at this point in time as outlined by Sewell and White in 1966:
International river basin development will undoubtedly be one of the
major means of accomplishing economic growth and social change in
the next decades, especially in the developing countries. Most of the
world’s major rivers are international rivers, and most flow through
the developing countries. Approximately 150 river basins straddle international boundaries, and together they cover almost one-half of the
world’s land surface, excluding Australia and Antarctica.9
Among the various initiatives for river basin development, the ‘Mekong project’ was one of the most ambitious in the world:
The desirability of utilizing a drainage basin as a regional unit for an
integrated development program is obvious in mid-twentieth century.
Yet, it is seldom that enterprises of this magnitude have been undertaken. The Tennessee Valley Authority, the Compagnie Nationale du
Rhone, and the Damodar Valley Corporation are among the few
examples of such enterprises.10
7 Pamela McElwee and Michael M. Horowitz, Environment and Society in the Lower
Mekong Basin: A Landscaping Review, Vol. 1. Report prepared for the Mekong River
Basin Research and Capacity Building Initiative, Oxfam America SEA 15/97–99 by
the Institute for Development Anthropology (New York: Institute for Development
Anthropology, 1999), p. 118.
8 Hiroshi Hori, The Mekong. Environment and Development (Tokyo: United Nations
University Press, 2000), p. 103.
9 Derrick W.R. Sewell and Gilbert F. White, The Lower Mekong (New York:
Carnegie Endowment, 1966, International Conciliation No. 558), p. 5.
10 Victor J. Croizat, The Mekong River Development Project: Some Geographical, Historical
and Political Considerations (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 1967), pp. 1–2.
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jörn dosch and oliver hensengerth
In an early essay on Mekong cooperation written against the
backdrop of the Vietnam War, Black argued,
the most important aspect of the development of the Mekong Basin is
to provide a means for inhibiting violence in the region, and evoking
among the riparian countries a sense of what is possible if they cultivate
the habit of working together.11
Black’s notion that cooperation among the Mekong countries could
essentially contribute to a permanent stabilisation of the region had
many supporters in the US government who pushed the idea that
multilateral economic cooperation would set the framework for political rapprochement and reduction of tensions. This concept was put
forward as an alternative policy to safeguard US interests in the
region without the necessity of heavy military engagement. This strategy dated back to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s ‘peace initiative’
of 1965 which aimed at turning the Lower Mekong Valley—with
the help of development aid and in cooperation with the United
Nations—from a battlefield into a busy developing region as a counterbalance to China.
While military approaches to regional order-building prevailed at
the time, the vision of sub-regional cooperation as the most promising
strategy for sustained peace and stability has survived. As Adam
observes,
given the history of wars, aggressions and instability, when the Mekong
river functioned largely as a dividing line, there is a security dimension
beyond economics that touches such issues as military build-ups, border disputes, migration, environmental degradation and resource management that need to be tackled in a spirit of cooperation and good
neighbourliness.12
Similarly, Browder demonstrates that the establishment of the Mekong River Commission, which was founded in 1995, was primarily guided by security considerations, namely Thailand and Vietnam’s interest to build fruitful relations in the aftermath of the Cold
War and contain conflict on water resources.13 Overall, ‘the Mekong
resource regime is linked to more general concerns for political secu-
11 Eugene Black, The Mekong River: A Challenge in Peaceful Development for Southeast Asia
(New York: National Strategy Information Center, 1969), p. 12.
12 Erfried Adam, ‘Foreword’, in Kao Kim Hourn and Jeffrey A. Kaplan (eds),
The Greater Mekong Subregion and ASEAN. From Backwaters to Headwaters (Phnom Penh:
Cambodian Institute for Co-operation and Peace, 2000), p. 2.
13 Greg Browder, ‘An analysis of the negotiations for the 1995 Mekong Agreement’, International Negotiation, Vol. 5, No. 2 (2000), pp. 237–261.
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267
rity and stability and may in fact reflect political concerns for subregional neighbourhood maintenance.’14
A very similar point can be made in the case of the GMS. While
the GMS’s main and most visible objective is to jointly develop natural resources and infrastructure, the related security goal is political
stabilisation through economic cooperation. The Mekong resource
regime is linked to general concerns for political security and stability and reflects political concerns for ‘subregional neighbourhood
maintenance’.15 In this sense, the old rationale of the United States to
establish economic cooperation in mainland Southeast Asia in order
to pacify a war-ridden region has survived—alongside the largely
defunct remnants of the US-sponsored Mekong Committee in the
form of the Interim Committee, which was replaced by the Mekong
River Commission in 1995.
For more than three decades, however, the implementation of subregional integration was halted by war and conflict in the region. The
process only gained momentum in 1992 when, with the assistance of
the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the six riparian states of the
Mekong River, entered into a programme of formalised sub-regional
cooperation. Since then, the ADB has been the ‘catalysing force’ for
most cooperative initiatives.16 Furthermore, as Bakker comments, ‘the
river-as-resource, in a glibly bioregional metaphor, has been transformed from a Cold War “front line” into a “corridor of commerce”,
drawing six watershed countries together in the pursuit of sustainable development’.17 The GMS programme has been directed to the
facilitation of sustainable economic growth and improvement of the
standard of living in the Mekong region through factor input specialisation and greatly expanded trade and investment. One priority
has been cooperation by public and private sectors related to transportation, especially cross-border roads, as well as power generation
and distribution. Since 1992, the ADB has loaned US$ 280 million
to the priority projects and disbursed US$ 7.6 million for technical
assistance to study the suitable programmes and projects and encour-
14 Abigail Makim, ‘Resources for security and stability? The politics of regional
co-operation on the Mekong, 1957–2001’, Journal of Development & Environment, Vol. 11,
No. 1 (2002), p. 5.
15 Makim, ‘Resources for security and stability?’ p. 5.
16 Philip Hirsch, ‘Globalisation, regionalisation and local voices: the Asian Development Bank and rescaled politics of environment in the Mekong region’, Singapore
Journal of Tropical Geography, Vol. 22, No. 3 (2001), p. 237.
17 Karen Bakker, ‘The politics of hydropower: developing the Mekong’, Political
Geography, Vol. 18 (1999), pp. 209–210.
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jörn dosch and oliver hensengerth
age project consult activities. The ADB is expected to mobilise more
than US$ 2 billion for GMS assistance. Moreover, other UN organisations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and
sponsor countries such as Japan, France, Australia and the US also
support various initiatives within the broader context of GMS cooperation.18
In addition to and in support of GMS projects, the Mekong River
Commission (MRC) coordinates development efforts in the region. In
1996, the ASEAN Mekong Basin Development Cooperation
(ASEAN-MBDC) was founded to focus on multilateral infrastructure
projects and other cross-border activities in order to link ASEAN with
the development in the GMS. ASEAN-MBDC has suffered from the
Asian crisis, and to date ASEAN funding to GMS projects has not
fully recovered.
3. Sub-Regionalism: An Overview of the Debate
The new windows of opportunity for cooperation that opened in the
immediate aftermath of the Cold War resulted in a strong push for
collaboration within sub-regions. The incentives aimed at mitigating the problems of region-wide schemes such as ASEAN or APEC;
guarding against what many saw at that point in time as a possible
failure of the Uruguay Round; and easing possible disadvantages arising from the strengthening of the trading blocs of EU and NAFTA.
The emergence of sub-regional schemes was itself a ‘manifestation of
the intensified intraregional investment flows and the accompanying
trade flows in the Asia-Pacific region’.19
The idea of sub-regional cooperation in Asia is closely associated
with the concept of growth triangles (GTs), a term first used in the
late 1980s by the then Singaporean deputy prime minister Goh Chok
Tong to circumscribe the economic cooperation between Singapore,
the Malaysian state of Johor and the Indonesian province of Riau
18 Le Bo Linh, ‘Sustainable development and cooperation in the Greater Mekong
Subregion’, in Jörn Dosch, Colin Dürkop and Nguyen Xuan Thang (eds), Economic
and Non-traditional Security Cooperation in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) (Singapore:
Konrad Adenauer Foundation, 2005).
19 Chia Siow Yue and Lee Tsao Yuan, ‘Subregional economic zones: a new motive
force in Asia-Pacific development’, in C. Fred Bergsten and Marcus Noland (eds),
Pacific Dynamism and the International Economic System (Washington, DC: Institute for
International Economics in association with The Pacific Trade and Development
Conference Secretariat and The Australian National University, 1993), p. 226.
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269
(SIJORI). SIJORI was officially proposed in December 1989 ‘as a
new form of subregional economic cooperation in ASEAN through
cooperation in investment rather than through trade’.20 According to
the ADB,
the growth triangle concept refers to the exploitation of complementarity among geographically contiguous countries to help them gain
greater competitive advantages in export promotion. Growth triangles
help solve the practical problems of regional integration among countries at different stages of economic development, and sometimes, even
with different social and economic systems.21
The most comprehensive, and at the same time best compressed (and
also one of the earliest), definition of what a growth triangle must
involve to be an effective means of cooperation is given by Chia and
Lee:22
– economic complementarities (or a common resource such as a
river, which has to be exploited peacefully and effectively);
– geographical proximity;
– the policy framework, politically and economically [or in other
words political commitment and policy coordination23];
– infrastructure development to support geographical proximity; and
– access to world markets.
Tongzon adds the presence of a catalyst, for example a multilateral
institution, in order to ‘facilitate the consultative process in forming
the GT’.24 Chen and Ho also emphasise cultural affinity as a supporting (but not necessarily decisive) success factor for cooperation
between Chinese cultural regions as in the Southern China Growth
Triangle, which covers parts of Greater China.25 More importantly,
Chia and Lee, ‘Subregional economic zones’, p. 229.
Medhi Krongkaew, ‘The development of the Greater Mekong Subregion in the
APEC context’, in Kao Kim Hourn and Jeffrey A. Kaplan (eds), The Greater Mekong
Subregion and ASEAN: From Backwaters to Headwaters (Phnom Penh: Cambodian Institute
for Cooperation and Peace, 2000), pp. 34–35.
22 Chia and Lee, ‘Subregional economic zones’, pp. 232–236.
23 Min Tang and Myo Thant, ‘Growth triangles: conceptual and operational
considerations’, in Myo Thant, Min Tang and Hiroshi Kakazu (eds), Growth Triangles
in Asia: A New Approach to Regional Economic Cooperation (Oxford: Oxford University
Press for the Asian Development Bank, 2nd edition 1995), pp. 9–14.
24 Jose L. Tongzon, The Economies of Southeast Asia: The Growth and Development of
ASEAN (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1998), p. 94.
25 Edward K.Y. Chen and Anna Ho, ‘Southern China Growth Triangle: an
overview’, in Myo Thant, Min Tang and Hiroshi Kakazu (eds), Growth Triangles in
Asia: A New Approach to Regional Economic Cooperation (Oxford: Oxford University Press
for the Asian Development Bank, 2nd edition, 1995), pp. 40–41.
20
21
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most if not all sub-regional cooperation initiatives seem to have in
common the fact that economic and natural factor endowments need
to be supported by favourable government policies in order to start
and successfully develop an economic cooperation scheme, that is, a
linkage of public and private sector initiatives. For Thambipillai,
Governments play a crucial role in the planning, establishment and
implementation of policies within growth areas. Growth areas are
designated to exploit the existing natural cross-border economic and
socio-political links, with the intention of extending the range and
scope of activities.26
Table 1 gives an overview of the current growth areas in East and
Southeast Asia (leaving out the question of viability).
4. The Security Dimension of the GMS—Growing
Transparency Versus Remaining Conflicts
In accordance with these security considerations, the Mekong Basin
cooperation was established ‘in order to minimize disputes over ownership and utilization of a common resource such as a major river,
and to exploit the economies of agglomeration’.27 Grundy-Warr,
Peachey and Perry agree, in that they subsume cooperation in the
Mekong Valley under the category of ‘resource management growth
triangles … where cooperation is primarily motivated by the need
to coordinate the use of a shared resource, in this case the Mekong
River’.28 With that rationale, the element of conflict minimisation
among the Mekong countries shifts into the analytical focus, making economic development a substantial part of security considerations. ADB sponsorship of the GMS and additional funding by various OECD states, most prominently Japan, which is also the largest
shareholder of the ADB, seems to follow this logic of getting the
region closer together for the sake of conflict reduction: for example,
by one of the sub-region’s most ambitious infrastructure projects—
a road link that will connect central Thailand to southern Vietnam
through Cambodia. As part of the US$ 77.5 million project, with the
ADB contributing a $ 50 million loan, 350 kilometres of highway and
26 Puspha Thambipillai, ‘The ASEAN Growth Areas: Sustaining the Dynamism’,
Pacific Review, Vol. 11, No.2 (1998), pp. 251.
27 Chia and Lee, ‘Subregional economic zones’, p. 236.
28 Carl Grundy-Warr, Karen Peachey and Martin Perry, ‘Fragmented integration
in the Singapore–Indonesian border zone: Southeast Asia’s “growth triangle” against
the global economy’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol. 23, No. 2
(1999), p. 306.
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Table 1. Growth Areas in East and Southeast Asia
Cooperation Scheme
Members
Cooperation type
IMS-GT (Indonesia–Malaysia–
Singapore Growth Triangle,
formerly SIJORI or Johor–
Singapore–Riau Growth
Triangle)
Singapore; Johor, Melaka, Negri Sembilan, Southern Pahang / Malaysia;
Riau, Jambi, Bengkulu, South and West
Sumatra, Lampung, West Kalimantan /
Indonesia
Metropolitan spill over
into the hinterland
IMT-GT (Northern Triangle,
Northern Growth Triangle
or Northern ASEAN Growth
Triangle)
North Sumatra and Aceh / Indonesia;
Kedah, Perlis, Penang and Perak /
Malaysia; Satun, Narathiwat, Yala,
Songkhla and Pattani / Thailand
Joint development of
natural resources and
infrastructure
Brunei Darussalam–Indonesia–
Malaysia–Philippines–East
ASEAN Growth Area (BIMPEAGA)
Mindanao and Palawan / Philippines;
Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku, Irian Jaya
/ Indonesia; Sarawak, Sabah and Labuan
/ Malaysia; Brunei
Joint development of
natural resources and
infrastructure
GMS (Greater Mekong Economic Subregion)
Cambodia; Laos; Vietnam; Burma;
Thailand; Yunnan / PRC
Joint development of
natural resources and
infrastructure
Golden Quadrangle or Quadripartite Economic Cooperation
Laos; Burma; Thailand; Yunnan / PRC
Joint development of
natural resources and
infrastructure
Southern China Growth
Triangle or Greater South
China Economic Zone
Hong Kong; Taiwan; southern PRC
(parts of Guangdong and Fujian)
Metropolitan spill over
into the hinterland
Tumen River Area Development Programme or Tumen
River Economic Development
Area (TREDA)
Southern Primorskie Krai / Russia; South
Korea; Rajin-Sonbong Free Economic
Zone / North Korea; southern Jilin /
PRC; plus the wider area extending from
China’s Yanbian Autonomous Prefecture
into eastern Mongolia
Joint development of
natural resources and
infrastructure
Yellow Sea Economic Zone
or Yellow Sea Economic
Cooperation
Coast of Bohai (Liaodong and Shandong
peninsulas) / PRC; South Korea; western
and northern parts of Kyushu and Yamaguchi / Japan
Common geo-political
interests and geographical
proximity
Pan-Pearl River Delta (9 + 2
initiative)
core: Hong Kong, Macao, Guangdong /
PRC; extension into Hainan, Guizhou,
Jiangxi, Yunnan, Sichuan, Hunan, Fujian,
Guangxi
Metropolitan spill over
into the hinterland
Japan Sea Economic Zone
Japan, East Russia, Northeast China,
South Korea, North Korea
Common geo-political
interests and geographical
proximity
Source: adapted from Linda Low, ‘Government approaches to SIJORI’, Asia-Pacific Development Journal,
Vol. 3, No. 1 (June 1996), p. 4; Min Tang and Myo Thant, ‘Growth triangles: conceptual and operational
considerations’, in Myo Thant, Min Tang and Hiroshi Kakazu (eds), Growth Triangles in Asia: A New Approach
to Regional Economic Cooperation (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the Asian Development Bank, 1996),
pp. 2–3; Chia Siow Yue and Lee Tsao Yuan, ‘Subregional economic zones: a new motive force in AsiaPacific development’, in C. Fred Bergsten and Marcus Noland (eds), Pacific Dynamism and the International
Economic System (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics in association with The Pacific
Trade and Development Conference Secretariat and The Australian National University, 1993), p. 227;
Jose L. Tongzon, The Economies of Southeast Asia: The Growth and Development of ASEAN (Cheltenham: Edward
Elgar, 1998), p. 85; Rafael G. Evangelista, ‘Experiences in the establishment and operation of the Brunei
Darussalam–Indonesia–Malaysia–Philippines–East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) Initiative’, AsiaPacific Development Journal, Vol. 7, No. 1 (June 2000), pp. 61–89.
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almost 100 bridges will be reconstructed. As Albab Akanda, an ADB
Principal Transport Specialist, commented,
Better roads will promote trade, tourism and economic development
not only in Cambodia but in the GMS as a whole … The increased
tourism will in turn create more jobs and help in the drive to reduce
poverty in the country. The project will also seek to reduce poverty
through rural connectivity and accessibility.29
Hence, Mekong cooperation is primarily concerned with minimising
potential conflicts over a common resource; the scheme with its
various elements works as a multi-dimensional confidence-building
measure.
Similar to Deutsch’s30 assumption on the link between growing volumes of transactions and increasing prospects for peace and stability, most achievements of Mekong cooperation are likely to have an
impact on sub-regional security, including but not limited to the following initiatives and developments within the GMS remit:31
– The 400-kilometre East–West Corridor project linking northern
Thailand, central Laos and eastern Vietnam is expected to double
container traffic to 1.6 million metric tons per year.
– In November 2001 Thailand, Vietnam and Laos agreed to build a
major highway, including a bridge over the Mekong River, to connect the three countries in order to boost economic development.
The bridge will link the Thai province of Mukdahan with Savannakhet in Laos. From there the existing road to the Vietnamese
deep-sea port of Danang will be upgraded. The highway is due
to be completed by 2006 and could later be extended to Burma.
The opening of Cambodia’s first bridge across the Mekong, a massive one-mile span, in December 2001 as part of the GMS scheme
stands as a significant symbol for the political will to bring the
countries and people of the region closer together.
– As a major step towards the joint management of the third largest
international river, China, Laos, Burma and Thailand signed an
agreement on commercial navigation on the Mekong River in
29 ADB, ‘Building vital road link in Cambodia to promote economic cooperation
in Greater Mekong Subregion’ (2002),
http://www.adb.org/Documents/News/2002/ nr2002224.asp.
30 Karl W. Deutsch et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area: International
Organization in the Light of Historical Experience (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1957).
31 See, for these and other examples, Jörn Dosch, ‘Sub-regional co-operation in
the Mekong Valley: implications for regional security’, in Christopher M. Dent (ed.),
Asia-Pacific Economic and Security Cooperation. New Regional Agendas (Houndmills: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2003).
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273
April 2001.32 After the implementation of the treaty, commercial
ships from the four countries will pass freely along an 893-kilometre
stretch of the ‘golden waterway’ from China’s Simao to Louangphrabang in Laos. The agreement will open 14 ports and docks for
commerce and will most certainly result in a further major increase
in trade and tourism. In 2000, 200,000 tons of commodities were
transported abroad from Yunnan province on the Mekong, compared to only 400 tons in 1990. This is a significant achievement
given that the ‘existence of natural barriers and the impediments
these place on easy navigation of the river underline the extent to
which the Mekong has until very recently failed to play a unifying
role for the countries that lie along its course’.33
– In 1999, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand signed an agreement to
facilitate the movement of people and goods across national borders. Cambodia, China and Burma joined until 2003. The agreement came into effect in 2004 and is supposed to simplify and
harmonise legislation, regulations and procedures governing crossborder transport.
– In 2000, the Mekong riparian states established a business forum
to promote the role of private capital in spurring intra-regional
investment. In April 2002 the Mekong Enterprise Fund (MEF) was
launched. The US$ 13 million venture capital fund aims to invest in
private companies founded and managed by private entrepreneurs,
with a focus on export industries and local service providers.34
– The increasing trade between Thailand and China, partly as a
result of GMS activities, was expected to boost intra-regional trade
within the Mekong Valley by 15–20 per cent in 2002 compared
with the previous year.35
Improvements on the economic and security side notwithstanding,
the GMS faces problems in bilateral relations between its member
states. In particular, China’s dominant economic position is viewed
with concern in the smaller countries. The above-mentioned infrastructure improvements are certainly necessary for a growing together
of the region as goods and people can pass more easily through the
sub-region. However, improved roads might result in more Chinese
32 The four countries also form the Quadripartite Economic Cooperation (QEC),
also called the Golden Quadrangle.
33 Milton Osborne, The Mekong: Turbulent Past, Uncertain Future (St Leonards, NSW:
Allen & Unwin, 2000), p. 430.
34 ADB, ‘$ 16 Million Mekong Enterprise Fund Launched’, News Release No. 061
/02 (22 April 2002), http://www.adb.org/Documents/News/2002/nr2002061.asp.
35 Xinhua General News Agency, 7 August 2002.
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exports showing up on the markets of mainland Southeast Asia, tilting the trade balance even more in China’s favour. It must be kept in
mind that the development of China’s landlocked western provinces
is one of the reasons for China’s participation in GMS cooperation.
Mainland Southeast Asia is to be developed as a market for products
from Yunnan and Guangxi. This directly runs counter to the hopes
of Vietnam to become economically more viable through Mekong
cooperation and to mitigate the dominant position China occupies
in economic affairs. China’s emerging dominance is seen with suspicion by Japan, which exerts influence through the back door of the
ADB as it is its largest shareholder. Handley has described competition between China and Japan in the Mekong region as ‘Asia’s biggest
political long-term game’.36
For Vietnam, the GMS represents a major pillar of Vietnam’s new
foreign policy outlook as outlined in the Politburo Resolution No. 13
of May 1988, which was—at least partly—forced by the global collapse of communism and Gorbachev’s reform programme prescribed
as a policy of ‘diversification’ and ‘multilateralisation’ of Vietnam’s
foreign relations. The implementation of the Resolution has resulted
in a more transparent, predictable and responsible Vietnamese foreign policy.37 This new omni-directional foreign policy approach was
developed alongside a concept of internationalising the economy.
Both approaches have materialised not only in Vietnam’s engagement
in regional organisations (ASEAN, ARF), but also in a multitude of
sub-regional cooperation schemes in the Mekong Basin—most importantly the GMS and the Mekong River Commission. The policy of
multilateralising foreign and economic relations was designed to prevent dependence on one country or a group of countries, as happened
during much of the Cold War. Here, Vietnam’s designs to ease growing dependence on China in economics and gain more freedom of
action in foreign relations again runs counter to China’s wishes to
replace the United States in Southeast Asia and cement its influence
in the region.
GMS cooperation is hence one important element of China’s policy outlook. China’s interests in the Mekong region can roughly be
divided into two realms of importance: those of the domestic and
the foreign policy. The domestic interest consists in the development
36 Paul Handley, ‘Shadow play’, Far Eastern Economic Review, Vol. 156, No. 37 (1993),
p. 70.
37 Jörn Dosch and Ta Minh Tuan, ‘Essential changes in Vietnam’s foreign policy:
implications for Vietnam–ASEAN relations’, in Duncan McCargo (ed.), Rethinking
Vietnam (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon Press, 2004).
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of China’s western landlocked provinces and the promotion of border trade with the adjoining countries, Burma, Laos and Vietnam.
A further domestic strategy aims at narrowing the gap between the
ethnic Chinese Han population and ethnic minorities. And, lastly,
the government envisions that an economically emerging West will
reduce the internal migration from Western China to the booming coastal cities. As far as Beijing’s foreign policy strategy is concerned, GMS serves China’s interest of strengthening relations with
ASEAN in the policy areas of political, social, economic and security
cooperation and can be used as a vehicle to promote the development of the proposed China–ASEAN Free Trade Area. The support of international anti-narcotic efforts in a region that includes
the infamous Golden Triangle is a further pillar of China’s interest
in the GMS. Probably most importantly, Beijing seeks to heave its
relations with Southeast Asia on to an amicable basis in order to
counter-balance US influence in the region. The latter is part of a
general foreign policy strategy to create a multipolar world not dominated by the United States.38 After the Cold War, strong emphasis
was put on the Asia-Pacific in order to create peace and stability
in the region and to be able to carry out the domestic reform programme without disturbances, the success of which is essential to Beijing in order to maintain internal social and hence political stability.39 Economic power is thus being turned into more regional and
global leverage mostly at the expense of the US, ‘which typically sees
political and economic reform as a prerequisite for amicable relations’.40
However, cooperation within the GMS has channelled and institutionalised Thailand, Vietnam and China’s respective decades-long
attempts to pursue (sub-) regional leadership or even hegemonic
ambitions, as all of them have a stake in the GMS, be it on the economic, foreign policy or security (traditional and non-traditional) side.
The GMS states are also formally linked with other actors: Japan,
38 You Ji and Jia Qingguo, ‘China’s re-emergence and its foreign policy strategy’,
in Joseph Y.S. Cheng (ed.), China Review 1998 (Hong Kong: The Chinese University
Press, 1998), pp. 127–128; Zheng Yongnian, Discovering Chinese Nationalism in China:
Modernization, Identity, and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1999), p. 125.
39 White Paper, National Defense in 2000 (Beijing: Information Office of the State
Council of the People’s Republic of China, October 2000), foreword. Internet version: http://www.china.org.cn/e-white/2000/index.htm (last accessed 26 January
2005).
40 Mark Mitchell and Michael Vatikiotis, ‘China steps in where US fails’, Far
Eastern Economic Review, Vol. 163, No. 47 (2000), p. 22; You and Jia, ‘China’s reemergence and its foreign policy strategy’, p. 128.
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South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, various EU states, ASEAN,
ADB, the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
(ESCAP) and the MRC. As a result, the formerly rather isolated and
conflict-ridden sub-region is further integrated within the structures of
global international relations. Today, sub-regional relations are more
transparent and better monitored than during the Cold War period.41
As a resulting positive development, pragmatic thinking is continuously superimposing old patterns of behaviour and deep mutual distrust. ‘Economic development has become a priority, replacing ideology.’42 The Bagan Declaration of 2003 and the announcement of
Cambodia and Thailand to further open their border only a few
months after the sudden outbreak and the toilsome containment of
mutual hostilities in January 2003 show that residual conflicts no
longer necessarily stand in the way of fostering economic ties within
the sub-region.43 Even though pragmatism has not yet fully replaced
foe images the countries in the region make efforts to overcome political differences. Not least China and Vietnam view regional security as
a prerequisite for national security and thus domestic stability. Therefore, diplomatic action has largely replaced fighting.
Arguably, however, the conflicts between China and Vietnam are
settled outside the GMS framework. Not only was the rapprochement
process started before the GMS was inaugurated, but many of the
issues involved (such as settlement of the land border and implementation of a fishing agreement in the Gulf of Tongkin) are discussed
bilaterally instead of multilaterally and do not concern the GMS.
Economic cooperation in the Chinese–Vietnamese borderlands also
occurs outside the GMS framework but profits from infrastructure
improvements channelled through the ADB. It thus appears that
the Chinese–Vietnamese relationship remains largely untouched—at
least directly—from cooperation within the GMS. Not only does most
conflict and cooperation lie outside the GMS framework, but where
41 Kao Kim Hourn and Chanto Sisowath, ‘Greater Mekong Subregion: an
ASEAN issue’, in Simon Tay, Jesus P. Estanilao and Hadi Soesastros (eds), Reinventing
ASEAN (Singapore: The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2001).
42 Mya Than and George Abonyi, ‘The Greater Mekong Subregion: co-operation
in infrastructure and finance’, in Mya Than and Carolyn L. Gates (eds), ASEAN
Enlargement: Impacts and Implications (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies,
2001), p. 159.
43 The Bagan Declaration—also called the Ayeyawady–Chao Phraya–Mekong
Economic Cooperation Strategy, or ACMECS—outlines the plan for intensified
economic cooperation between Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Burma in order to
‘generate greater growth’ and ‘enhance peace, stability and shared prosperity’ among
the four countries (‘Bagan Declaration’,
http://www.boi.go.th/english/how/press_releases_detail.asp?id=230).
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it concerns issues that affect the GMS directly and would impact on
national decision-making authority, such as dam-building in the Chinese stretch of the Mekong, China steadfastly refuses to compromise
on the issue.
Other unresolved disputes in intra-regional relations among GMS
countries remain, in recent years most prominently between Thailand and Burma. As a legacy of the colonial past, the maritime
boundaries between Vietnam and Cambodia are still not defined and
parts of the land borders between Thailand and Laos, and between
Thailand and Cambodia, are indefinite. The most recent attempt
at solving the long-standing Vietnamese–Cambodian border dispute
failed in November 2001. While the large-scale military conflict that
goes beyond occasional skirmishes at the Thai–Burmese border, for
example, seems to be unlikely among ASEAN member states, it cannot be ruled out in Vietnam–China relations, given both countries’
involvement in the dispute over conflicting territorial claims in the
South China Sea. Most importantly, the uncoordinated construction
of power plants and irrigation systems by the upper Mekong countries, particularly China, which plans to build more than a dozen
power plants, poses a serious challenge to intra-regional cooperation
since it could result in a potentially explosive competition between the
upper and the lower Mekong states for water resources. In spite of the
general cooperative mood in intra-regional relations as far as official
foreign policy agendas are concerned, some even predict a rise rather
than a decline of conflict. McElwee and Horowitz, for instance see
‘ethnic tensions … on the rise in the Mekong Basin, although they
have always been high between Khmers and Vietnamese, because
of the feeling that the Vietnamese have encroached on traditional
Khmer lands in the Delta’.44
Weatherbee discusses whether the bureaucrats of the ADB have
raised expectations for community-building within the GMS too high
and pushed governments too fast.45 The complexity of GMS cooperation constitutes a certain obstacle for a faster path of sub-regional
integration. More specifically, several different donor agencies are
usually involved in funding the same projects partially resulting in
the inevitably time-consuming process of having to conclude multilateral agreements before projects can be carried out.46 This adds to
McElwee and Horowitz, Environment and Society in the Lower Mekong Basin, p. 120.
Donald E. Weatherbee, ‘Cooperation and conflict in the Mekong River Basin’
Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 20 (1997), p. 182.
46 Keiko Sakai, ‘Economic cooperation in the Greater Mekong Subregion: an
overview’, in Kao Kim Hourn and Jeffrey A. Kaplan (eds), The Greater Mekong
44
45
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the multifarious cooperation schemes found within the GMS, which
essentially make the GMS look more like many Greater Mekong Subregions instead of one cohesive sub-region, experiencing varying participation of GMS member countries in the respective projects.
A further stumbling block is the very limited societal involvement
in intra-regional affairs. So far, GMS activities are predominantly
centred on the rather small political elites of the Mekong riparian
states. An Oxfam-sponsored NGO forum on ‘Greater Mekong Subregion and ADB’, which took place parallel to the GMS Summit in
November 2002, laid the charge that,
[t]en years into the ADB’s GMS programme, more than 65 million
people whose way of life is being radically changed are still shut out of
the process. Despite all the claims, the GMS programme has brought
little benefit to local people, but massive advantages to consultants,
corporations and local elites.47
Furthermore, these elites do not seem to have developed extensive
shared political interests beyond the functional GMS agenda, which
would justify the classification of Mekong cooperation as political
regionalism as defined by Dent.48
As a result, the GMS is unlikely to play any decisive part in shaping
or altering regional realpolitik from the realist’s point of view.
Environmental Security
If we understand security in a broad sense as including the fields of
soft or non-traditional security (i.e. the broad area of comprehensive
security covering non-military areas such as human and environmental security), the importance of GMS cooperation goes beyond the
scope of economics and national security.
The Mekong River Basin has long experienced flooding, salt-water
influx, depletion of forests, deterioration of groundwater, water pollution and other problems. Among the most pressing environmental
issues are:
– Flooding: in 2000 alone more than 800 people died and over US
$ 400 million of property was damaged as a result of floods. While
during the dry season salt water can wash 500 kilometres inland to
Subregion and ASEAN: From Backwaters to Headwaters (Phnom Penh: Cambodian Institute
for Cooperation and Peace, 2000), p. 17.
47 Cited in Alex Renton, ‘Whose Mekong is it? NGOs call on region’s leaders to
open the doors’, Global Policy Forum (11 November 2002),
http://www.globalpolicy.org/ngos/int/other/2002/1111mekong.htm.
48 Dent, ‘Introduction: Northeast Asia’.
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damage crops, during the monsoon season the Mekong’s flow can
increase as much as 30 times to flood 12,000 square kilometres of
the river delta.49
– Deforestation: approximately 50 per cent of the entire Lower Mekong
Basin was covered by forests some three decades ago. Since then
forests have been pushed back as the result of population growth
and a significant increase in logging. Forests now cover no more
than 27 per cent of the Lower Mekong Basin. The rapid pace of
deforestation has resulted in serious problems, for example in Thailand and Cambodia, involving a sharp increase in flood damage,
soil erosion and the depletion of fishery resources.50
– The legacy of the war: during the Vietnam War most coastal mangrove areas of the Mekong Delta were defoliated to eliminate military hideaways for the communist forces.51
Various agreements deal with the task of reducing the environmental
risks and threats and increasing the degree of environmental security. Most prominently, the 1995 Agreement on the Cooperation for
the Sustainable Development of the Mekong River Basin, the founding document of the Mekong River Commission, aims to ‘protect the
environment, natural resources, aquatic life and conditions, and ecological balance of the Mekong River Basin from pollution and other
harmful effects resulting from any development plans and uses of
water and related resources in the Basin’.52 In November 2001, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam signed an agreement to deal with
the annual flood problem in the Mekong area. Under the Flood Management and Mitigation Agreement, the four governments will coordinate land-use policies, share water-management information and
resources and intensify cooperation in cross-border flood-rescue operations. The Chinese government has agreed to provide the downstream countries with information on river levels during the flood season. As marginal as it seems at first glance,
with international conflicts over river water becoming more frequent,
there is concern that the Mekong could become a serious source of
tension unless the six states can agree on rules for developing the river.
That is why China’s agreement in April to send the readings from
two monitoring stations on its section of the Mekong, more than 1,000
New Scientist, 13 July 1991.
Hori, The Mekong, pp. 51–52.
51 McElwee and Horowitz, Environment and Society in the Lower Mekong Basin, p. 119.
52 MRC, ‘Agreement on the cooperation for the sustainable development of the
Mekong River Basin’ (1995), http://www.thewaterpage.com/mekong.htm.
49
50
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kilometres upstream from Phnom Penh, is seen as a … significant
improvement in managing one of Asia’s biggest and least polluted
rivers.53
On the basis of the technical cooperation agreement between the
Mekong River Commission and China of April 2002 (implemented
since 2003), China has been sending 24-hourly water level and 12hourly rainfall data to the MRC to help forecast floods. On China’s
side of the river, a result of the cooperation was the establishment
of a Data Centre at the Provincial Bureau of Hydrology and Water
Resources in Kunming and improvement of the two hydrological stations in Yunnan. In addition, Burma has signalled willingness to share
hydrological data from its own station on the Mekong.54 The design
of an early flood-warning strategy (EWS) ranks very high on the
agenda of both policymakers and donor organisations. Various initiatives have been taken, especially since the 2000 and 2001 Mekong
floods, on national levels. Particularly the Cambodian government
and its partners, such as NGOs, have been engaged in developing disaster mitigation and management capacities in the country. However,
sub-regional initiatives have been less successful so far given both the
technical and institutional complexities of a cross-border EWS. There
seems to be little agreement among the riparian states with their different systems of governance as to whether warning systems should
fall in the realm of the state or rather involve the active participation
of NGOs and local communities. Furthermore, a Mekong-wide EWS
will only be efficient if information freely flows across borders and,
equally important, warning indicators are standardised and accurately interpreted by the multitude of actors involved in the warning chain.55 While these complex issues are indeed being addressed,
there has been a tendency among the GMS members to focus primarily on the broader picture of environmental security, as it is easier
to reach consensus on key goals. For example, in January 2002, representatives from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, together
with donor institutions, organised a workshop on sustainable development of the Mekong River Basin, including the discussion of issues
such as fish production, food security, irrigation, agriculture and agroforestry.
International Herald Tribune, 30 October 2002.
MRC, ‘Mekong River Commission to increase technical cooperation with China and Myanmar’, Press Release MRC No. 14/04 (26 August 2004).
55 Bastien Affeltranger, ‘User-based design of socially efficient flood warnings’,
concept paper for the Lower Mekong Basin, presented at the Mekong River Commission Meeting on Flood Forecasting and Early Warning Systems, 24 February–1
March 2002.
53
54
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Despite these and other initiatives, however, most environmental
problems continue to occur in the river basin. These include the
depletion of natural resources, overpopulation of the cities, resettlement of refugees, and social problems such as the relocation of inhabitants and the securing of their employment accompanying the establishment of infrastructure. The GMS states face the dilemma of having to balance ‘the need for increased food production and other
development needs against the maintenance and management of
resources in the Mekong River Basin, where the population is growing rapidly’.56
Energy Security
Compared with rivers of a similar size like the Nile and the Mississippi, the Mekong is still relatively untouched. The first Mekong
bridge (between Thailand and Laos) was only opened in 1994 and
the first mainstream dam, the 1,500 MW Manwan, only completed in
1995 in Yunnan, China. Since then hydropower has been one of the
main priorities of international river development in general and the
GMS project in particular. One GMS infrastructure project, the 210
MW Theun Hinboun Hydropower Project in Laos, was completed
in 1998, and various others are under implementation or are being
studied. However, according to Bakker,
the figures given for hydroelectric … potential vary widely, depending on the area, the institution, and the optimism of the consultant
involved, but there is general agreement that Laos and Yunnan have
the greatest hydropower potential. Figures on numbers of planned
projects vary, due in part to the speed with which new sites are being
added to the lists of feasibility studies.57
In the late 1990s, Laos had
60 dams planned or being built and Vietnam had 36. China planned
15 on the Mekong itself and an unknown number on tributaries. There
are currently 17 hydropower dams under consideration for Cambodia
on at least a dozen of its rivers, in addition to a number of energy,
infrastructure, and telecommunications projects.58
With few exceptions, such as the relatively small hydropower exports
from Laos to Thailand, the six countries have so far based their
energy development on a self-sufficiency approach. In the case of
Vietnam, for example, the country’s hydropower generation already
56
57
58
Hori, The Mekong, p. xx.
Bakker, ‘The politics of hydropower’, p. 214.
Bakker, ‘The politics of hydropower’, p. 214.
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approaches a share of 40 per cent of the total national power capacity
of 11,400 MW.59 Since the founding days of the GMS, the ADB has
promoted a shift to a more integrated approach, particularly in the
electric power subsector through grid interconnection, and in the gas
subsector through gas trade. This
would bring a number of important benefits to the subregion, resulting from such areas as the complementarity of energy resources, load
diversity, hydrological diversity, exchanges of base energy for peak
energy, increased supply reliability, reduced reserve capacity requirements and reduced system losses. It is important that the shift from
self-sufficiency to an integrated approach be gradual so that mutual
trust and experience may build up.60
Since the 1960s a myriad of scientific studies has outlined the economic advantages of dam construction beyond energy production,
including the significance for food security. As an early assessment
on dam-building along the Mekong estimated,
Once mainstream dams are built and the river is regulated and once
irrigation canals are in operation an additional means is created for
heightened fish production: the very special circumstances of the Great
Lake make possible an average per hectare harvest of between 40 and
50 kg … Few natural water areas in the world can boast comparable
yields per unit of surface.61
At the same time, energy security in particular and economic development in general involving the construction of high dams has become an increasingly contentious area. As Gosling’s study of 1979
warned, the numerous dams that have been built in developing countries during the last 20 years
appear to have generated real economic returns to the economies concerned, although there is conflicting evidence about the level of their
economic impact. In at least some cases, the benefits have fallen significantly short of the benefits predicted by economic feasibility studies.
Similarly, the costs of some dam projects have increased during the
59 Do Manh Hung, ‘Vietnam and the sustainable development of the Mekong
River Basin’, in Jörn Dosch, Colin Dürkop and Nguyen Xuan Thang (eds), Economic
and Non-traditional Security Cooperation in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) (Singapore:
Konrad Adenauer Foundation, 2005).
60 ADB, Economic Cooperation in the Greater Mekong Subregion. Toward Implementation,
Proceedings of the Third Conference on Subregional Economic Cooperation among Cambodia,
People’s Republic of China, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Burma, Thailand and Viet Nam,
Hanoi, Viet Nam, 20–23 April 1994 (Manila: Asian Development Bank, 1994), pp. 10–11.
61 John E. Bardach, Mainstream Dams on the Mekong and Commercial Fisheries,
SEADAG Papers on Problems of Development in Southeast Asia No. 35 (New York:
The Asia Society, 1968), p. 4.
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course of the projects to levels far above those predicted. Also, the environmental impacts of the dams have differed markedly, qualitatively
and quantitatively, from those predicted.62
Further,
Dams are good examples of development projects where the immediate costs and benefits may be unequally distributed. The principal economic result of poorly planned and under-financed resettlement projects is that the evacuees personally shoulder disproportionate amounts of the real costs of the dam project; they have less valuable assets, are less productive and have less income than would have
been the case had they not been flooded. One man’s gain, therefore,
in terms of irrigated fields or cheaper electric power, will directly be
another man’s loss in terms of a flooded home and farm and resulting
decreases in productivity and general ‘satisfaction’.63
While some more recent studies have confirmed these findings, the
main concern today is less the economic viability of hydro-energy
than the long-term environmental impact of dam-building. Yunnan
province alone is said to have a potential of producing more than
90,000 MW of electricity. A cascade of dams on the Mekong River,
the Lancang Cascade, is directly affecting the parts of the Mekong
flowing in the downstream countries. The cascade, when finished,
will encompass eight dams, taking advantage of a 700-metre drop
in the 750-kilometre stretch in the middle and lower Mekong.64 The
lower part of the Mekong, from the ‘Golden Triangle’ seaward,
contains a catchment area of 606,000 square kilometres or 77 per
cent of the whole basin area and covers almost the entire territories of Laos and Cambodia, one-third of Thailand and one-fifth of
Vietnam.65 Naturally, politicians and senior officials from the lower
Mekong states have regularly expressed concerns about China’s proposed dam-building activities, albeit more indirectly and in private
than openly and in official inter-governmental meetings.66 Some per62 Peter Gosling, ‘The resettlement of reservoir populations: an introduction’, in
Peter Gosling (ed.), Population Resettlement in the Mekong River Basin, Papers of the
Third Carolina Geographical Symposium (Chapel Hill: Department of Geography,
University of North Carolina, 1979), p. 6.
63 Gosling, ‘The resettlement of reservoir populations’, p. 8.
64 Gavan McCormack, ‘Water margin: competing paradigms in China’, Critical
Asian Studies, Vol. 33, No. 1 (2001), pp. 15–18.
65 Do Manh Hung, ‘Vietnam and the sustainable development of the Mekong
River Basin’.
66 Le Van Sang reports a rare case of—almost—explicit criticism of China at an
official occasion. At the Mekong Sub-Regional Conference which was held on 5–
6 July 1999, Cambodian Prime Minister, Hun Sen and other representatives from
Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar indirectly criticised the Chinese plan for
building a huge dam for a hydroelectric power plant at the upper reaches of the
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ceive China’s ambitious hydropower plans as a zero-sum game in
which China’s economic gains would be paid for by the lower Mekong states’ environmental costs, mainly falling water levels and its
manifold implications such as declining fish stock (e.g. in Cambodia’s
Tonle Sap) and rising salinity levels (e.g. in Vietnam’s agriculturally
indispensable Mekong Delta). At the same time, however, there does
not seem to be a more cost-effective or environmental friendly alternative to hydropower in the case of the riparian states of the Mekong.
Overall and on balance, within the GMS hydropower seems to be the
most feasible solution for the enhancement of energy security.
5. Conclusion and Outlook
If the GMS is to be allocated a role in regional peace and stability, it
is an indirect one. Similar to ASEAN, the political rapprochement
processes take place within a loose consultative framework, which
does not exert influence out of itself through a dense network of rules
and regulations, but benefits from regular informal meeting groups—
be they specialist deliberations or consultative meetings by ministers
and heads of state—which facilitate regular information exchange
and better access to information for each of the actors, a precondition
for growing trust and confidence. From this point of view, the value
of the GMS regarding economics and traditional security is not to be
seen in direct interference through independent influence, which the
institution is unable to exert, but rather in the particular importance
each of the actors attaches to it, which is why diplomacy has largely
replaced military endeavours. Indeed, the declaration that ‘our most
important achievement has been the growing trust and confidence
Mekong River in the Yunnan district. Although Hun Sen did not directly speak
on China’s hydroelectric plant, he mentioned the previous proposal for a project
outlined by Cambodia’s dictator, Pol Pot, in 1977. He highlighted Pol Pot’s plans to
channel water from the Mekong River into Cambodia’s big irrigation system and to
dig a canal to the sea. If realised, this project would destroy water sources in Vietnam.
Hun Sen judiciously concluded, ‘I think we should abandon such dangerous thinking
because if Cambodia has the right to change the streamline of the Mekong River,
then all countries at the source also have the right to do the same. In the end,
Cambodia would become a victim of itself.’ He also charged that conflicts over water
resources were harmful to the current spirit of cooperation in the GMS as they would
most likely engender unexpected regional clashes.
Le Van Sang, ‘The role of external actors toward the Greater Mekong Subregion’,
in Jörn Dosch, Colin Dürkop and Nguyen Xuan Thang (eds), Economic and Nontraditional Security Cooperation in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) (Singapore: Konrad
Adenauer Foundation, 2005), p. 144.
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among our countries’—from the Joint Statement at the first GMS
Summit in November 2002—is more than political rhetoric.67 The
apparent absence of military conflict in the sub-region was made
possible by the lifting of the Cold War structure. The possibility to
return to pre Cold War patterns of trade—best exemplified by the reopening of border trades—ignited political rapprochement processes,
which have made the sub-region a less conflict-prone place than it
used to be a couple of decades ago. Although old conflict patterns
rose again and new issues turned up to bedevil cooperation in the
sub-region, the importance of economics and human security for
national security, and societal and hence political stability, have led
to the absence of military conflicts in the sub-region. So far, GMS
cooperation has been driven by states’ interests and is a tool for
economic and foreign policy and security purposes. Whether or not
cooperation in the Mekong Basin will evolve into a firmly pacified
sub-region on the state and societal levels, prevent new conflicts from
escalating into military violence, or simply institutionalise the present
asymmetric distribution of power in the sub-region in China’s favour,
including the traditional underlying antagonisms, will depend on two
main factors: first, the willingness of state actors to develop a wider
set of integrative formal and informal institutions (e.g. agreements,
treaties, codes of conduct, commissions, regular high-level meetings
on various issues and policy areas) using the existing and politically
promising institutions built within the GMS framework as a nucleus;
second, a more prominent participation from societal actors, ranging
from the private sector to NGOs. It remains to be seen whether these
will transpire in a full and effective sense.
Department of East Asian Studies
University of Leeds
[email protected]
[email protected]
67
Asia Pulse, 7 November 2002.