By Wu Peng 21st Century Economic Herald. April 30, 2008.
Source: http://intl.ce.cn/zgysj/200804/30/t20080430_15323918.shtml
Countries on a narrow strip of water have been carrying grudges for decades. But now, they are moving towards a positive direction.
“In April, we have made substantial progress in the cooperation between neighbouring countries, on anti-drug, anti-human trafficking, as well as transport issues. The ‘Second Decade’s Greater Mekong Sub- region project planning strategic framework’, which was developed three years ago, is being implemented step by step,” Jin Cheng, director of the Yunnan provincial government’s Office of international and regional cooperation told the reporter on April 29.
And a month ago in Vientiane, at the “Third Summit of the Greater Mekong Sub-region Economic Cooperation”, the “2008-2012 GMS Development’s Vientiane Action Plan” was approved by leaders of the six countries, and unanimously decided to implement substantive cooperation in transportation, energy, agriculture, tourism and environmental protection.
“Under the expansion of the global supply chain, accelerating regional integration and strong economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region, we should strengthen our cooperation,” which was stressed in the “Declaration of the leaders” adopted by the meeting.
Mekong River, a 4,800 km-long river of abundance, which connects China’s Yunnan, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam and Laos. These six Mekong basin countries and regions now have a unified name: Greater Mekong Sub-region (the initials GMS).
This is a total area of 2.57 million square kilometers with a population of about 320 million, which contains abundant water resources, biological resources, mineral resources, great economic potential and development prospects. In China, the Mekong River is called Lancang River.
“Although the meeting was already over, but the concrete implementation of regional cooperation has just begun. The Lao section of Bangkok-Kunming Highway just entered into force of the agreement, but the improvement of process in the Mekong River water resources usage and the controversy among the six countries over China’s construction of the hydropower stations has not yet been silenced,” said Hong Yaoxing, the Deputy Director of the Yunnan provincial government Research Center’s Public Relations Department.
Six countries in water dispute
Mekong River Basin “water dispute” has an extremely complicated reasons.
“On the same river, different basin countries have different agrees of dependence. Just like a family collected one kilogram of apples, some say to eat, some say to press for apple juice. Everyone’s rights are natural, but what can we do?” said Jin Cheng, director of the Yunnan provincial government’s Office of international and regional cooperation.
For China, the Lancang River basin has high mountains and wide valleys, with limited farmland and extremely little irrigation water, but rich hydropower resources. The river possesses excellent conditions and advantages for hydropower construction, so China sets cascade hydropower development as the river’s development goals.
Laos possesses the most water resources in the Mekong river basin, accounting for 35 percent of the total run-off of the Mekong River. So Laos as a landlocked country hope to develop shipping.
Thailand hopes that the river can irrigate its largest arid areas in its north-eastern region.
Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake is the largest fresh water lake in Southeast Asia, which is also the most important flood-drought natural adjustment area in the Mekong River Basin. They want to ensure a considerable amount of flood-water from each of the upper reaches countries to flow downstream during the wet season, and therefore increase soil fertility.
Vietnam, situated in the Mekong River Delta, worried that during the annual dry season, if not enough river run-off, intrusion of sea water will be inevitable, creating saline-alkali soil. So it is necessary to increase about 2000 cubic meter per second water on top of natural run- off during the dry season.
“Under such circumstances, if you want a fair and reasonable consumption and allocation of this river’s water resources, to solve the contradiction between its use and distribution, there must be a basin-wide framework of the cooperation mechanism,” Jin said.
But the reality is not as such. Although the four countries of the lower Mekong River, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand, has set up the “Lower Mekong River Basin Research and Coordinating Committee,” “Interim Committee” and “Mekong River Commission” (MRC) (hereinafter referred to the MRC) since 1957, and issued the “Joint Declaration for the principles of usage of the lower Mekong River Basin”, and signed in 1995 the “Agreement for Sustainable Development of the Mekong Basin Development Cooperation”, because of the long historical reasons and differing political systems, socio-economic, environmental interests and values, the implementation of close cooperation among the six countries is still rather difficult.
“Comprehensive basin-wide planning is lacking, which is due to not only the fact that the MRC as an international organization lacks the right of arbitration and that funding relies mainly on foreign aid, but also that the criteria proposed to China to join MRC are not acceptable. So even now, we can only maintain our observer status, and only as a dialogue partner in this organization,” Jin said. The purpose of the invitation to join MRC remains out of the interest for the water resources of the lower reaches countries, which is not so relevant to the interest of the upper reaches countries.
Agreements to be converged
In addition to competition, there is also cooperation.
“At present, Yunnan Province fully makes use of the land-based communication with the Pacific and Indian Ocean, linking the unique geographical advantages of China, Southeast Asia and South Asia, and actively participates in international and regional economic cooperation. It has formed an entity with neighbouring countries as a basis, Sub-region as the core which covers the ASEAN and South Asia, and formed a multi-level and wide-ranging regional framework for international cooperation, and therefore our participation in international and regional economic cooperation is entering a new era,” Hong Yaoxing told the reporter.
“Those mechanisms of cooperation which are related to the Mekong River Basin includes, GMS (Greater Mekong Subregion Economic Cooperation), AMBDC (United Nations Asia-Pacific Economic and Social Council), MRC and the Mekong Institute, which is located in Thailand and specialized for the training of human resources in GMS,” Jin said.
Framework has been set up, but concrete cooperation requires convergence.
“The reality is that on the long border of Yunnan Province, customs in a number of ports of the neighbouring countries has yet to be established, so we have to start from scratch,” Jin said, “and for the so-called cross-border trade, many places still remain its primitive state, so now the Yunnan Province and the other Mekong River countries still needs a standardization process of the cooperation mechanisms.”
It is understood that there are 11 class-1 ports on the border of Yunnan Province includes Hekou (rail crossings) and Ruili, 10 class-2 ports, and more than 90 inter-city channels. In addition, the 1,800 km of Kunming-Bangkok highway was established in April 2007, which is now the international channel that connects China’s Yunnan and Southeast Asia.
Between March 31 to April 1 2008, the “Third Summit of the Greater Mekong Sub-region Economic Cooperation”, which was held in Vientiane, made progress in the most critical “free movement of persons and goods” among GMS cooperation issues.
“On top of the original four pilot ports, two pairs of ports joined the cooperation scheme. Since 1996, the negotiations of “cross-border transport of goods agreement” have resulted in a lot of agreements, including 17 Annexes, three protocols, but since the legislation of the six countries are not unified, the process has been largely delayed. At present we can only say the first procedure was just completed, but there are still many problems and obstacles. The Lao section of Kunming-Bangkok Highway have a number of contradictions because the agreement has not entered into force. But this is only a technical problem.”
Despite the obstacles, Yunnan Province has been making use of Kunming- Bangkok Highway, to catch the fast lane of “economies of scale”. A tourism project called “the Pearl of the Mekong River” has become popular along the Mekong countries, which connects a series of scenery tourist sites. In July and August of this year, China’s largest “Thai goods distribution center” will also open in Kunming.
“Yunnan’s core strategy is to rely on Kunming-Bangkok Highway, build industrial parks and the economic corridors along the highway, and activate the transformation of trade and industrial structure,” Liu Zhi, the Dean of the Faculty of International Relations of Yunnan University, told the reporter.
[Ed-Apologies to Wu Peng at 21st Century Economic Herald for full quote. This piece has been translated using google translate beta with additional translation from newsgroup members and widely circulated. Thanks to all for bringing this piece to English speakers]
