Chapter Three: Development Cooperation and Regionalism

Abstract

In Southeast Asia, China's growing economic and political strength has been accompanied by adept diplomacy and active promotion of regional cooperation, institutions and integration. Southeast Asian states and China engage in ‘strategic regionalism’: they seek regional membership for regime legitimation and collective bargaining; and regional integration to enhance economic development, regarded as essential for ensuring national and regime security. Sino-Southeast Asian regionalism is exemplified by the development plans for the Mekong River basin, where ambitious projects for building regional infrastructural linkages and trade contribute to mediating the security concerns of the Mekong countries. However, Mekong regionalism also generates new insecurities. Developing the resources of the Mekong has led to serious challenges in terms of governance, distribution and economic ‘externalities’. Resource-allocation and exploitation conflicts occur most obviously within the realm of water projects, especially hydropower development programmes. While such disputes are not likely to erupt into armed conflict because of the power asymmetry between China and the lower Mekong states, they exacerbate Southeast Asian concerns about China's rise and undermine Chinese rhetoric about peaceful development. But the negative security consequences of developing the Mekong are also due to the shared economic imperative, and the Southeast Asian states' own difficulties with collective action due to existing intramural conflicts.

Notes

¹Since renamed the UN Economic and Social Commission for the Asia-Pacific Region (UNESCAP).

²See Jeffrey Jacobs, ‘Mekong Committee History and Lessons for River Basin Development’, Geographical Journal, vol. 161, no. 2, 1995, pp. 135–48.

³Mekong River Commission (MRC), ‘Agreement on the Cooperation for the Sustainable Development of the Mekong River Basin’ (Mekong Agreement), 4 April 1995, www.mrcmekong.org/agreement_95/agreement_95.htm.

⁴Jacobs, ‘The Mekong River Commission: Transboundary Water Resources Planning and Regional Security’, Geographical Journal, vol. 168, no. 4, December 2002, pp. 360–63; MRC, Annual Report 2005 (Vientiane: MRC, 2005).

⁵St John, Revolution, Reform and Regionalism in Southeast Asia, pp. 136–38. See also ADB, Economic Cooperation in the Greater Mekong Subregion: Toward Implementation (Manila: ADB, 1994); ADB, Sustaining Momentum: Economic Cooperation in the Greater Mekong Subregion (Manila: ADB, 1997).

⁶See ‘Basic Framework of ASEAN–Mekong Basin Development Cooperation’, 17 June 1996, www.aseansec.org/6353.htm; ‘Ineffective ASEAN Mekong Basin Council Shut Down’, report from Bernama (news agency, Malaysia), 23 and 26 August 2006, www.newsmekong.org/ineffective _asean_mekong_basin_council_shut_down. Only limited progress has been made on the project, due to administrative and financial constraints.

⁷See ‘Joint Declaration of the Heads of State of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the People's Republic of China on Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity’, 8 October 2003, http://www.aseansec.org/15265.htm.

⁸UNESCAP, Greater Mekong Subregion Business Handbook, (Bangkok: UNESCAP, 2002).

⁹Japan is the largest contributor to the ADB for the GMS, extending $800m in loans for road and hydropower projects since 1992: ‘Japan Assists Economic Development of Four Mekong Countries’, Kyodo News Service, 30 September 2005.

¹⁰These are ADB figures – see ‘The GMS Program’, www.adb.org/GMS/Program/default.asp.

¹¹ADB, Regional Cooperation Strategy and Program Update, 2007–2009 (Manila: ADB, 2006).

¹²‘ADB Urges Big Investments in Mekong’, Business Times (Singapore), 18 July 2005.

¹³ADB, Regional Cooperation Strategy and Program Update, p. 8.

¹⁴ADB, Building on Success: A Strategic Framework for the Next Ten Years of the Greater Mekong Subregion Economic Cooperation Program (Manila: ADB, 2002), pp. 41–45.

¹⁵The 11 projects are: (1) the North–South Economic Corridor; (2) the East–West Economic Corridor; (3) the Southern Economic Corridor; (4) telecommunications; (5) regional power interconnection and trading arrangements; (6) cross-border trade and investment; (7) private sector participation; (8) human resources; (9) a strategic environmental framework; (10) flood control and water-resource management; and (11) tourism. Ibid., p. 32.

¹⁶ADB, Regional Cooperation Strategy and Program Update, pp. 7–8.

¹⁷ Ibid., p. 8; ‘Greater Mekong Subregion Moves Closer’, The Nation, 5 July 2005; ‘ADB Urges Big Investments in Mekong’, Business Times (Singapore), 18 July 2005.

¹⁸‘Blasting Work on Mekong River Halted after Environmental Warning’, Channel News Asia, 19 March 2005; ‘Experts from Four Nations to Review Blasting Plans’, Bangkok Post, 9 June 2003; ‘Blasting Put on Hold as Threat to River Border’, The Nation, 7 April 2003; ‘The Mekong River as a Road to Riches’, International Herald Tribune, 5 November 2002.

¹⁹‘The Mekong River as a Road to Riches’.

²⁰‘China Explores New Oil Shipping Route with Mekong Partners’, Xinhua News Agency, 5 April 2006.

²¹‘Trade Turns Mekong into a River of Plenty’, International Herald Tribune, 6 July 2006.

²²‘China Explores New Oil Shipping Route with Mekong Partners’; ‘China Begins Oil Shipments Via Mekong’, Straits Times, 29 December 2006.

²³ADB, ‘Regional Indicative Master Plan on Power Interconnection in the GMS’, Technical Assistance Report no. 5920 (Manila: ADB, 2000); ADB, Regional Indicative Master Plan on Power Interconnection in the GMS (Norconsult for ADB, 2003).

²⁴ADB, ‘Technical Assistance for the Study for a Regional Power Trade Operating Agreement in the Greater Mekong Subregion’, Technical Assistance Report, (Manila: ADB, April 2003), pp. 1–2.

²⁵ADB, ‘GMS ADB-Assisted Loan Projects, as of December 2005’, http://www.adb.org/Documents/Others/GMS/gms-loan-projects.pdf.

²⁶International Rivers Network (IRN), ‘Sizing Up the Grid: How the Mekong Power Grid Compares Against the Policies of the Asian Development Bank’, January 2004, http://www.irn.org/programs/mekong/poweranalysis.pdf.

²⁷‘PRC, Thailand Agree To Build Jinghong Power Station on Lancang River’, Xinhua News Agency, 7 June 2000; ‘Thailand Eyes Hydropower Project in Yunnan’, Xinhua News Agency, 18 July 2002.

²⁸Darrin Magee, ‘Powershed Politics: Yunnan Hydropower Under Great Western Development’, China Quarterly, 2006, p. 31; ‘Power-thirsty China to Continue Electricity Supply to Mekong Neighbours’, Xinhua News Agency, 5 July 2005.

²⁹‘Power-thirsty China’; ‘China's Hydropower Development is an Issue for All of Southeastern Asia’, Interfax, 5 July 2005.

³⁰‘Laos Dam in a Logjam’, Financial Times, 15 May 1996; ‘Well, Answer These Dam Questions’, The Nation, 14 February 1997.

³¹For details, see Grainne Ryder, ‘The Political Ecology of Hydropower Development in the Lao People's Democratic Republic’, unpublished MA thesis, York University, Ontario, Canada, 1996; Tyson R. Roberts, ‘An Independent Environmental Assessment of the Nam Theun 2 Hydropower Project in Laos, with Particular Reference to Aquatic Biology and Fishes’, working paper, Bangkok, 1996.

³²‘Dams Back in Fashion’, The Economist, 9 April 2005; ‘NTPC Signs US$1 Billion Loan Agreements’, Nam Theun II Power Company Limited News Release, 3 May 2005.

³³See Ryder, ‘The Greater Mekong Subregion Hydro Grid: A Review of the Asian Development Bank's 2003 Indicative Master Plan for Regional Power Interconnections and Power Trade in the Greater Mekong Subregion’, Probe International paper, Toronto, December 2004, http://www.probeinternational.org; IRN, ‘Trading Away the Future: The Mekong Power Grid’, June 2003, http://www.irn.org/program/Mekong/030620.powergrid.pdf.

³⁴ADB, Regional Cooperation and Integration Strategy (Manila: ADB, July 2006), p. 5; MRC,Strategic Plan 2006–2010 (Vientiane: MRC, 2006), p. ii.

³⁵Mekong Agreement, Preamble.

³⁶World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (New York: United Nations, 1987), p. 43.

³⁷See, for example, Michael Redclift, Sustainable Development: Exploring the Contradictions (London: Methuen, 1987); Gunther Handl, ‘Sustainable Development: General Rules v. Specific Obligations’, in Winfried Lang (ed.), Sustainable Development and International Law (London: Graham and Trotman, 1995).

³⁸For instance, in laying down the basic entitlement, Principle 2 of the Rio Declaration provides that ‘States have … the sovereign right to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own environmental and developmental policies’, while Principle 3 affirms that the ‘right to development must be fulfilled’. Similarly, the Biodiversity Convention (Art. 20, para. 4) and the Climate Change Convention (Art. 4, para. 4) make environmental conservation measures subordinate to development objectives.

³⁹For documents and summit proceedings, see UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Sustainable Development, www.un.org/esa/sustdev/index.html.

⁴⁰See UN Millennium Development Goals, www.un.org/millenniumgoals.

⁴¹ADB, Regional Cooperation and Integration Strategy, pp. 10–12.

⁴²MRC, Strategic Plan 2006–2010, pp. 10, 13–18, 33–34; MRC, Annual Report 2005 (Vientiane: MRC, 2006).

⁴³‘Welcome Remarks by Vice-President Jin at the Second Mekong Development Forum’, Tokyo, 14 July 2005, www.adb.org/media/Articles/2005/7954_speech_Liquin_Jin.

⁴⁴ADB, Country Strategy and Program: Lao PDR, 2007–2010 (Manila: ADB, 2006), p. 13; ADB, Country Strategy and Program: Vietnam, 2007–2010 (Manila: ADB, 2006), p. v, pp. 13–14; ADB, Country Operations Business Plan: Cambodia 2007–2010 (Manila: ADB, 2006), pp. 2–3.

⁴⁵There were reports of discreet American support for the World Bank guarantee ‘for fear that otherwise China would step in’. See ‘In Life on the Mekong, China's Dams Dominate’, New York Times, 19 March 2005.

⁴⁶ADB, Asian Development Outlook: Cambodia (Manila: ADB, 2005); ‘China Competes with West in Aid to Neighbours’, New York Times, 18 September 2006; ‘Cambodia's Army: Best Friends with China, Vietnam’, Phnom Penh Post, 17–23 October 2005.

⁴⁷‘Thai Sea Power and the Kra Isthmus Canal Project’, The Nation, 14 August 2006; ‘Thai Canal Plan To Save Millions’, The Age (Melbourne), 29 March 2005; ‘China Builds Up Strategic Sea Lanes’, Washington Times, 18 January 2005.

⁴⁸Ryder, ‘A Review of the ADB's 2003 Indicative Master Plan’, pp. 14–16.

⁴⁹Wang Qin, ‘Zhongguo canyu Lancang-Meigonghe ciquyu jingji hezuo ji qi jingzhan’, Nanyang Wenti Yanjiu, no. 1, 2004, pp. 45–46; Wang Minzheng, ‘Lun Da Meigonghe ciquyu hezuo yu Zhongguo-Dongmeng ziyou maoyiqu de jianli’, Dongbeiya Lunhui, 3 May 2003, p. 17.

⁵⁰‘A Stronger Partnership for Common Prosperity’, speech by Premier Wen Jiabao at the opening ceremony of the second GMS Summit, Kunming, China, 5 July 2005; ‘Chinese Official Says Mekong Cooperation Forum “A Great Success”’, Xinhua News Agency, 6 July 2005.

⁵¹‘Mekong Region Ministers Sign Pact to Maintain River Levels’, The Nation, 27 June 2006; ‘Mekong River Countries Say China Increasing Cooperation on Environment’, The Nation, 20 November 2004; ‘Lower Mekong Basin, China to Adopt Standardised System for Hydrological Forecast’, Xinhua News Agency, 14 June 2003.

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Evelyn Goh

Dr Evelyn Goh is University Lecturer in International Relations and Fellow of St Anne's College, University of Oxford. Her research interests are Asian security, US–China relations, US foreign policy, and international relations theory. She has a long-standing academic interest in environment and development issues, and has studied the geopolitics of the Mekong region for ten years.