News

Laos Will Open $5.9 Billion Railway as Debt to China Mounts

Laos, a nation of 7 million people wedged between China, Vietnam and Thailand, is opening a $5.9 billion Chinese-built railway that links China’s poor southwest to foreign markets but piles on potentially risky debt. The line through lush tropical mountains from the Laotian capital, Vientiane, to ...

Kurtenbach contributed from Bangkok

China could be preparing for 'water war' in Asia after completing serial dams in Tibet

Major floods in several parts of South and Southeast Asia this year are a wake-up call for countries such as India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand among others. Experts said that such floods could become a regular feature and that countries in the region must get together ...

IANS

China-backed gold mine in Laos pollutes local river, killing fish

A gold mine run by a Chinese company in southern Laos is releasing waste into a river in Sekong province, killing fish and fouling water used by villagers for drinking and bathing, Lao sources say. The Lao Kaleum Gold Mining Project began operations last year and ...

Reported by RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Richard Finney.

China has thousands of hydropower projects it doesn’t want

China is trying to wean its massive economy off coal and fossil fuels to meet its ambitious goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2060. So why is it trying to shut down as many as 40,000 hydropower plants? The answer lies deep in the nation’s troubled ...

Bloomberg

How Mekong River is turning into a new flashpoint in Indo-Pacific

For several years, US politicians have adopted the Japanese slogan of a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” calling for international law to apply over disputes in the South China Sea, where China is accused of acting aggressively. Earlier this month, during the East Asia Summit foreign ministers’ ...

David Hutt

Chinese Embassy in Cambodia refutes false report by Reuters on Mekong River data 'hacking'

The Chinese Embassy in Cambodia on Thursday refuted a false report published by Reuters, which claimed that Chinese hackers “stole Mekong [River] data from Cambodia.” The Reuters report, also published on Thursday, quoted the US Justice Department and two anonymous sources as saying that Chinese hackers ...

Global Times

China seizes two tonnes of smuggled pangolin scales from Vietnam

Customs agents in southwest China have seized 2.2 tonnes of pangolin scales and busted an endangered wildlife smuggling gang, state media reported. Two suspects were detained in the city of Yulin in Guangxi by customs officers, who also seized two kilograms of pangolin paws, the People’s Daily said ...

AFP

China’s rare earth supplies disrupted by Myanmar tumult

Fears are growing of a global shortage of rare earth minerals used in the manufacture of high-tech devices as unrest in Myanmar following the February 1 coup disrupts exports to China.  Chinese companies started complaining about delays in shipments of the minerals since mid-March, reportedly due to ...

DOMINIC OO

Advantage China, as democracy slides from view in Southeast Asia

As Myanmar’s dark era of junta rule began winding down in 2011 with the bold reforms initiated by the quiet ex-general, President Thein Sein, other events happening across Southeast Asia gave reformists hope this was not an isolated instance of democratic progress.   That year, Yingluck Shinawatra ...

Bhavan Jaipragas

Despite COVID-19 Crunch, China-Mekong Integration Continues

Earlier this week, Myanmar and China formally agreed to begin work on an important section of a long-delayed railway project running from Yunnan province to the Indian Ocean. On January 10, the state-run Myanmar Railways and the China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group (CREEG) signed an agreement to conduct ...

Sebastian Strangio

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