How Southeast Asia can leverage China’s new Silk Road

In the deep valleys of northern Laos, the Nam Khan River – a major tributary of the mighty Mekong – slices through extraordinary scenery. Towering, mist-covered mountain ranges; a sublimely preserved Unesco heritage-listed city that was once a royal capital; rippling rice paddies and fishing villages are just some of the dreamy scenes along its banks. Since 2015, though, it has also flowed through two massive, Chinese-built hydropower dams, the last of which was completed one year ago.

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