Latest news with #MekongRiver
South China Morning Post
18-06-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Thai rivers threatened by Myanmar's unregulated mining boom: ‘don't want to eat the fish'
A sprawling new mine is gouged into the lush rolling hills of northeast Myanmar , where civil war has weakened the government's already feeble writ, and pollution levels are rising downstream in Thailand. Advertisement The complex is one of around a dozen extraction operations that have sprung up in Shan state since around 2022, in territory controlled by the United Wa State Army (UWSA), one of conflict-wracked Myanmar's largest and best-equipped ethnic armed groups. A few kilometres away across the border, locals and officials in Thailand believe toxic waste is washing downstream from the mines into the Kok River, which flows through the kingdom's far north on its way to join the mighty Mekong. Thai authorities say they have detected abnormally high arsenic levels in their waterways, which could pose a risk to aquatic life and people further up the food chain. The price fisherman Sawat Kaewdam gets for his catch has fallen by almost half, because locals fear contamination. 'They say: 'There's arsenic. I don't want to eat that fish,'' he said. Thai fisherman Sawat Kaewdam sorts his fishing net along the banks of the Mekong River in the Golden Triangle region in northern Thailand's Chiang Rai province. Photo: AFP Tests in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai by a government pollution agency found levels of the toxic element as high as 49mcg per litre (0.26 gallon) of river water – nearly five times international drinking water standards.
Bloomberg
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
China and Its Neighbors Are Ravaging the Mekong
The Mekong River is more than the sum of its nearly 3,000 miles. It's one of the world's most valuable waterways and has been vital to political power in Southeast Asia for centuries. As a prized strategic and financial asset, commerce and violence have marked the basin's story. The French tried — and failed — to re-engineer the river to anchor their imperial rule. American soldiers fought fiercely in its delta, and the Khmer Rouge casually meted out atrocities not far from its banks. Today, the river is again under siege. Dams may provide electric power to boost economic growth, but extract a terrible toll on the flora and fauna that villages have depended upon for millennia. Statecraft is colliding with major power tensions and national development goals, and the Mekong is coming off worse. Rarely, if ever, has the river's future been more embattled. Co-operation is in short supply, just as it's needed most.
Japan Times
10-06-2025
- Business
- Japan Times
Catastrophe on the roof of the world
The Tibetan Plateau is home to vast glacial reserves, which amount to the largest store of fresh water outside the Arctic and the Antarctic. It is also the source of 10 major Asian river systems — including the Yellow and Yangtze rivers of mainland China, the Mekong, Salween and Irrawaddy rivers of Southeast Asia and the Indus and Brahmaputra of South Asia — which supply water to nearly 20% of the global population. And, now, it is the site of a slow-burning environmental calamity that is threatening the water security, ecological balance and geopolitical stability of the entire Asian continent. For over two decades, China has been engaged in an aggressive and opaque dam-building spree, centered on — though not limited to — the Tibetan Plateau. Yet China's government has refused to negotiate a water-sharing treaty with any of the downriver countries, which must suffer the consequences of their upstream neighbor's whims. Already, Chinese-built megadams near the Plateau's border have brought water levels in the Mekong River to unprecedentedly low levels, with devastating effects on fisheries and livelihoods across Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. As the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam retreats — driven partly by Chinese dams — rice farmers are being forced to abandon their traditional livelihoods, instead farming shrimp or growing reeds. Yet China's dam ambitions continue to grow. The Three Gorges Dam, which runs along the Yangtze River, is the largest in the world. But it will be dwarfed by the dam China is now building on the Yarlung Zangbo river, also known as the Brahmaputra, in a seismically active region of the Tibetan Plateau. If completed, this project would drastically alter water flows into India and Bangladesh, threaten the region's food security and ecological balance and increase China's geopolitical leverage over downstream countries. The specter of water weaponization looms large. In fact, water is fast becoming the new oil — a strategic resource with the potential to trigger conflicts. Already, water disputes within and between countries are intensifying. But China's assault on the Tibetan Plateau extends beyond water. Its avaricious mining of Tibet's mineral-rich lands — which boast critical resources like lithium, gold and copper — is contributing to deforestation and producing toxic-waste discharge, while providing cover for China's militarization of the Plateau. It is impossible to know the full extent of China's destruction. The area is off limits to international observers and efforts by members of indigenous Tibetan communities — whose cultural reverence for nature has underpinned a long history of sound environmental stewardship — to sound the alarm are quickly quelled, often through imprisonment or exile. But there is no doubt that the Tibetan Plateau's ecosystem is becoming increasingly fragile, especially given its heightened vulnerability to climate change. The Plateau is warming at twice the global average rate and its ice is melting faster than at the poles — trends that are reducing its water-storage capacity and reshaping river flows. The implications are far-reaching. The Tibetan Plateau, which towers over the rest of Asia (rising into the troposphere), profoundly influences Asian climatic, weather and monsoonal patterns and even affects atmospheric general circulation — the system of winds that transports warm air from the equator toward higher latitudes — in the Northern Hemisphere. Its degradation will exacerbate droughts and floods, accelerate biodiversity loss, contribute to agricultural collapse and fuel mass migration across Asia and beyond. Despite these risks, the international community, from global climate forums to multilateral institutions like the United Nations and World Bank, has been deafeningly silent about Tibet. The reason is not ignorance, but fear: China has used its clout to suppress meaningful criticism of its actions on the 'roof of the world.' Given the stakes, the international community cannot afford to let itself be cowed by China. Countries must relentlessly press for transparency about China's activities on the Tibetan Plateau. Specifically, China must share real-time hydrological data and submit its projects for international environmental assessment. Independent environmental researchers and monitors must be granted unfettered access to the Plateau to gather vital data and conduct unbiased analyses. China must also be held accountable for its violations of the rights of indigenous communities — including the nearly 1 million Tibetans who have been forcibly relocated from their ancestral lands since 2000. Western governments and multilateral institutions have leverage here. By tying environmental transparency, respect for indigenous rights and equitable management of shared river systems to trade agreements and climate cooperation, they can compel China to change its behavior. Direct support for indigenous Tibetan voices and civil-society networks would also help boost transparency. Ignoring the unfolding crisis on the Tibetan Plateau might seem expedient; after all, China has plenty of economic and geopolitical clout — and it is not afraid to use it. But the costs of inaction would be staggering. Tibet is Asia's ecological lifeline. China must not be allowed to use it in ways that threaten to upend the lives of people throughout the continent and beyond. Brahma Chellaney, professor emeritus of strategic studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research and fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin, is the author of "Water, Peace, and War: Confronting the Global Water Crisis" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2013). © Project Syndicate, 2025
South China Morning Post
09-06-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
China backs probe into Mekong pollution after reports point finger at mining operations
China's embassy in Thailand said it was 'closely monitoring' the situation after claims that heavy metal pollution in northern Thai rivers was linked to suspected Chinese mining activities in neighbouring Myanmar. A post on the embassy's official social media account acknowledged recent comments by the Thai government on the matter. 'China is closely monitoring reports about the heavy metal pollution incident in a tributary of the Mekong River in Thailand. We have taken note of the recent test reports released by the Thai government and relevant local authorities,' the statement said. The embassy said Thailand and Myanmar should work together to discuss the issue and set up scientific investigations into the problem. It added that China was 'willing to work closely' with all Mekong basin countries to protect its ecology and water quality. It did not mention any company by name but said 'China has always required Chinese companies overseas to abide by the laws of the host countries and operate legally in compliance with regulations'. Last week, Thailand's Pollution Control Department said sediment samples taken from rivers in the north of the country had found unsafe levels of heavy metals, which it said had been caused by upstream mining operations. Some of the highest levels of contamination were detected in the Sai and Kok rivers. Lead levels in the latter peaked near the Thai-Myanmar border in the Mae Ai district of Chiang Mai province.
South China Morning Post
30-05-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Vietnam's Mekong challenge: balancing ties with China amid build up of dams, canal projects
China-backed projects on the Mekong River may complicate ties with Vietnam, analysts warn, as Hanoi navigates the delicate balance of cooperation with Beijing while maintaining a strategic presence in neighbouring Cambodia and Laos. At a recent online forum on May 27, the discussion centred on Vietnam's complex security challenges and how Hanoi can maintain relations with its three neighbours while protecting its interests, especially amid China's growing economic influence in infrastructure projects, such as dams in Laos and Cambodia. China has embarked on extensive dam-building activities in the Mekong area, operating 12 mainstream dams and 95 tributary dams that pose an upstream threat to Vietnam, according to Phan Xuan Dung, research officer at ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute and a PhD candidate at Australian National University. 'These dam projects have been developed unilaterally without consultation with the lower Mekong countries,' Phan said, adding that the dams have significantly reduced water flow and sediment reaching the Mekong Delta. The Mekong Delta serves as Vietnam's agricultural powerhouse, supporting some 80 million people and contributes to one-third of the country's gross domestic product, Phan said. Workers use excavators to dig the Funan Techo canal along the Prek Takeo channel that runs into the Mekong River in Cambodia. Photo: AFP Meanwhile, Laos operates 77 dams with 61 more planned, including seven on the mainstream Mekong, as it furthers its ambition to become the 'battery of Southeast Asia' by exporting hydropower energy.
