US-backed institutions’ hyping China’s ‘dams threat’ in Mekong River riddled with loopholes: expert
Meddling by the US in Mekong River water resource issues is an attempt to contain China in the region by hyping China’s “dam threat,” while citing only weak evidence and sources given by the US-backed institutions that blame China for downstream disasters, Chinese observers found.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian on Tuesday slammed the US for hyping issues of the Mekong River resources to sow discord between Mekong regional countries, after David Stilwell, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific, recently smeared China for “manipulating” water to fill China’s reservoirs, which US-funded “Eyes on Earth” says have a combined capacity of more than 47 billion cubic meters.
The capacity of China’s largest reservoir on the upper reaches of the river is only 42 billion cubic meters, said Zhao. “We advise US diplomats to be cautious about citing such a report that many global hydrological experts say is faulty and has little scientific value,” Zhao said.
Chinese experts carefully evaluated a report by US climate observers Alan Basist and Claude Williams, and found that research models used in their report had obvious errors and loopholes, resulting in unreliable and misleading results.
Hu Yuwei and Lin Xiaoyi
