News

With far-reaching implications for the upcoming elections in Myanmar and with the US tentatively wading into river governance, the Mekong region has become a contentious staging ground for China’s wider goals in Southeast Asia.  Sebastian Strangio’s new book In the Dragon’s Shadow: Southeast Asia in the Chinese Century draws ...

China last week agreed to share year-round data from the upper Mekong River with downstream countries, where its dams are being blamed for muting the natural rhythms of one of Asia’s great waterways and adding to the pain of recent droughts. For the past 18 years, ...

  Seen from the Thai side, facing the jungle-covered hills of the Laotian bank, the great river bordering the two countries ebbs continuously, like a body of water symbolizing the eternal course of life. The melancholic and beautiful flow of the Mekong, so steady and slow, ...

The Australian government is reportedly preparing to bolster its aid programs in Southeast Asia, as concern in Canberra mounts about China’s growing influence in the region. According to an October 12 report in The Age, Australia is finalizing a Southeast Asian aid package that would inject of ...

The Mekong River in Southeast Asia flows for 4,350 kilometers from China to Vietnam through Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia. China’s construction of large hydropower dams to feed the country’s growing energy needs is causing problems downriver, including dire impacts on the waters and fertile ...

The Mekong River Commission (MRC) released new guidelines yesterday assessing the risks of hydropower development through an assessment of five major themes. This is the third volume of Hydropower Mitigation Guidelines, and the themes include river hydrology and downstream flows, geomorphology and sediments, water quality, fisheries ...

Ministers from South Korea, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam will meet virtually today at the 10th Mekong-Republic of Korea (ROK) Foreign Ministers meeting. Today’s ministerial meeting will evaluate the development of Mekong-ROK relations since the establishment of the 2019 Mekong-ROK Summit. The Summit elevated relations from ...

Hydropower is the world’s largest source of energy generation. It is commonly assumed that hydropower reservoirs retain nutrients, and this nutrient reduction significantly reduces primary productivity, fishery catches and food security downstream. An international research team, including Prof. Jef Huisman from the University of Amsterdam, ...

On September 11, the United States and the five lower Mekong nations launched a new framework for multilateral cooperation amid rising concerns about China’s expanding influence in mainland Southeast Asia. In announcing the new Mekong-U.S. Partnership at a meeting in Hanoi, the U.S. State Department pledged  at ...

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 ...