The communist Party chief claims that by damming the Lancang River, the upper reaches of the Mekong, to generate electricity, it is “enriching the Mekong” and helping countries downstream with irrigation and development. However, this is not the case. On the eve of the departure of the US President Donald Trump‘s administration, he funded the establishment of a monitoring mechanism for the information of DAMS on the Mekong River and made the information public, so as to clearly demonstrate the negative impact that the Construction of DAMS upstream to generate electricity by the Communist Party of China has brought to the sustainable development of downstream countries and the whole Mekong River.
The Mekong river in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, is full of ferries, taking boats to watch the Mekong sunset, a popular tourist route that was also hit by the COVID-19 outbreak this year and almost stopped. For the water-dependent Cambodians, however, a further problem is the sinking water level of the mother river.
“Cambodia is experiencing an extreme drought and the Mekong river has hit a record low for the second year in a row, with water levels down by two-thirds. “Fish catches are down more than 70 percent this year, and fish exports are down 84 percent, putting even more pressure on many cambodians who are already economically vulnerable.” Pou Sothirak, former Minister of Mines and Resources of Cambodia, expressed The difficult situation of Cambodians when attending The Stimson Center in Washington to announce The Establishment of The Mekong Dam Monitor on Wednesday.
Without naming China, which has a hard-core brotherly bond between Cambodia and Cambodia, Posotira stressed that all countries in the Mekong basin need to take responsibility for the sustainable development of the River.
Somkiat Prajamwong, secretary general of Thailand’s National Office of Water Resources, also describes a similar situation in Thailand, where the drying of the Mekong river is worsening, affecting the livelihoods of Thai residents in the basin.
Who is responsible for the fact that the lower Mekong countries suffer from “no water in the rainy season and even more dry season”? To people in Southeast Asia like Sant ‘Gate and Posotira, China is like the elephant in the room, a sensitive word that is hard to say.
One dam after another on the Lancang River, the upper reaches of the Mekong, has been blocked by the Communist Party, while the livelihood of downstream countries has dried up. South-east Asia, facing increasingly hostile and difficult neighbours, is pinning its hopes on America.
The United States supports open and transparent monitoring of data on the Mekong River by Southeast Asian countries
“No matter what happens in the White House, the U.S. policy of helping to make Mekong river water information transparent is not going to change because it is in our interest to do so,” State Department Assistant Secretary of State for Asia and the Pacific David Stowe told the conference. “These scientific data and satellite images show that it is the Communist Party that is building DAMS upstream to hold back water and generate electricity. It is unfortunate that China is making a lot of money while the downstream countries are suffering.”
Under the support of the State Council, the Stimson center set up the Mekong river big bars monitoring project (https://monitor.mekongwater.org), the integrated basin of 31 main dam of hydrology, weather information and satellite empty figure, almost real-time hydrological information sharing, and in parts of China, the public within the territory of yunnan 10 major dam water information.
The Communist Party chief has called allegations of China’s monopoly of water resources “malicious provocation” and said the United States had no scientific basis for such allegations.
“We just don’t want to get involved in politics and tell the truth about the science of water information.” Brian Eyler, director of the Stimson Center’s Southeast Asia program, who is leading the project, told THE BBC.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has also said that constructive suggestions on water use from outside the region are welcome, and that transparency of information can help all countries in the basin, including China, to review and establish accountability mechanisms,” Abneau said. “China says it has done a lot to manage its water resources in an orderly manner and to assist downstream countries. However, if you look at the data, it’s not what China says.”
Pervert peppers: China’s contribution to the Mekong’s ecological crisis (image by RADIO Free Asia)
The communist Party’s “woe to its neighbors” numbers tell the truth
The Mekong River is more than 4,000 kilometers long. Its upper reaches are the Lancang River in China, which flows through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, affecting the lives of about 60 million farmers and fishermen.
Take the project’s Dam in Wunong, Yunnan, for example. Even during the dry season, the levels this year have remained high after the dam was built in 2018, in contrast to the ebb and flow of the downstream countries.
“All the data are also open to China,” Abneau stressed. “He expects and welcomes the exchange of research by relevant Chinese experts and scholars, but now, the data show that the Communist Party claims that building DAMS is’ enriching the environment ‘, which is clearly a false statement.”
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