Southeast Asian nations on the shrinking lower Mekong River began talks with China yesterday amid fears that its dams are further depleting the waterway’s lowest levels in decades.
A Chinese delegation was due to hold talks in the Thai coastal town of Hua Hin ahead of a meeting today to be attended by Beijing’s Vice Foreign Minister Song Tao and the prime ministers of Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.
Leaders will discuss management of the vast river, on which more than 60 million people depend, amid a crippling drought in the region and controversy surrounding the role of hydropower dams, summit spokesman Damian Kean said.
“This is to reaffirm the countries’ political commitment to transboundary cooperation on managing the water resources of the Mekong basin,” Kean said.
“New challenges such as climate change and new hydropower dams” are high on the agenda, said Kean, of the inter-governmental Mekong River Commission that was organizing the first summit in its 15-year history.
Leaders began arriving in Hua Hin yesterday morning and were due to gather for a gala dinner ahead of today’s meeting, where they are to sign a joint declaration of their aims, organizers said.
Myanmar will also participate as a dialogue partner at the top-level talks.
The MRC has said that the health of the Mekong Basin and the river’s ecosystems could be threatened by proposed dams and expanding populations.
China is expected to staunchly defend its own dams, which activists downstream blame for water shortages, after the Mekong shriveled to its lowest level in 50 years in Laos and Thailand’s north.
The crisis has grounded cargo and tour boats on the so-called “mighty Mekong” and alarmed communities along what is the world’s largest inland fishery.
Nations in the lower Mekong basin are likely to press China for information on the river as well as financial help, said Anond Snidvongs, director of the Southeast Asia START Regional Center, which researches environmental change.
China — itself suffering the worst drought in a century in its southwest, with more than 24 million people short of drinking water — said the reason for water shortages is unusually low rainfall rather than man-made infrastructure.
It said the dams, built to meet soaring demand for water and hydro-electricity, have been effective in releasing water during dry seasons and preventing flooding in rainy months.
The Chinese Embassy in Bangkok last week said China would “never do things that harm the interests of [lower Mekong] countries” and has agreed to share water level data from two dams during this dry season.
Yet questions remain over the impact of the eight planned or existing dams on the mainstream river in China.
Vice Minister of Water Resources Liu Ning (劉寧) said on Wednesday that more dams were needed to guarantee water and food security, while 12 dams in lower Mekong countries have also been proposed.
Thailand has invoked a tough security law and has deployed thousands of troops in Hua Hin to ensure protesters do not disrupt the summit, in light of mass anti-government “Red Shirt” rallies in Bangkok since the middle of last month.
A year ago, regional leaders were forced to abandon a summit of ASEAN nations because of protests.
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