Treat Mekong droughts like South China Sea – through Asean: ex-Singapore diplomat Bilahari Kausikan
- Asean nations struggling with droughts that the US blames on China should address their concerns with Beijing collectively, former diplomat advises
- Water crisis is a ‘strategic challenge’ of ‘international concern’, he says
These were among the views shared by diplomatic observers in an online webinar on Tuesday on issues involving the Mekong area and its eponymous river, which is emerging as a topic of mainstream discussion after years of being viewed as a niche matter.
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For the second year running, water levels in the Mekong are at a record low, raising alarm bells over the drought’s impact on 60 million Southeast Asians who depend on the river.
Bilahari Kausikan, a retired Singapore diplomat who regularly comments on Southeast Asian matters, said while the Mekong crisis was often talked about “in functional terms” – over its environmental, health and agricultural impact – it actually posed a far graver “strategic challenge” to the affected states.
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“The issues that the Mekong engages are potential existential issues, and existential issues should not be managed only bilaterally or even regionally. They are issues of international concern,” said Bilahari in the discussion organised by the Cambodia Institute for Cooperation and Peace (CICP) think tank.
He cited the example of the South China Sea dispute to illustrate how making the Mekong row a matter of international concern would benefit the concerned states.
In the case of the sea row, the discussions about it within the Asean framework meant “no Asean member can be coerced in darkness to give up its claims or give up their preference for a rules-based order”.
While China at present was unlikely to give up its “extravagant claims” in the resource rich sea, the situation was a “stalemate” in part because Beijing could not prevent the US and its allies from operating “in, through and over” the waters without risking a war it could not win, Bilahari said.
In contrast, the dam-building in the upper reaches of the Mekong made the situation in the river “unbalanced”, he said.
Chairmanship of Asean is rotated annually among member states in alphabetical order.
Vietnam is the current chair. Brunei will take over next year, followed by Cambodia in 2022.
Nonetheless Bilahari conceded that the five Mekong states – all members of Asean – were ambivalent about involving the bloc in Mekong-specific issues.
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At present, the five Mekong states have dealt with their concerns through subregional groupings.
In contrast, the South China Sea dispute is a central focus of Asean, driven by the interests of maritime nations in the bloc that are claimants.
Of the various Mekong-related sub regional groupings, the Beijing-led Lancang Mekong Cooperation (LMC) has for several years been the main platform of discussion for issues relating to water flows.
There are other groupings including the Mekong River Commission – comprising Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia – and the US-led Lower Mekong Initiative.
Asked how the affected states should deal with a considerably stronger northern neighbour, Bilahari said they should seek to ensure “significant influence does not become exclusive influence”.
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This, he said, was best done by complementing bilateral interactions with other forms of diplomacy.
Said Bilahari: “If I was a Mekong riparian state, first of all, I will ensure that my bilateral interactions with the major power are supplemented with other interactions, so that the major power while having significant influence, will never have exclusive influence.”
Other panellists in the webinar echoed Bilahari’s view that Mekong-specific matters would get a “holistic” regional airing if they were discussed in Asean’s main meeting platforms and be made part of the group’s long term projects such as the Asean Economic Community initiative and the Initiative for Asean Integration.
Why Asean should treat the Mekong like the South China Sea
Ivy Kwek, the Malaysia-based research director of the Research for Social Development think tank, suggested the revival of the Asean Mekong Basin Development Cooperation platform, first established in 1996. The group has made little progress in its aims, which include the development of a rail link between Kunming and Singapore.
Bradley Murg, a global development scholar and senior adviser with CICP, touched on Beijing’s pledge during an LMC meeting in August to share year-round hydrological data on water flows in a bid to increase transparency.
A recent US-backed report had said China’s dams allowed it to hold back 47 billion cubic metres of water in reservoirs, triggering downstream droughts, accusations Beijing denies.
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Year-round upstream hydrological data from China – if accurate – would give the riparian states firm evidence of whether their water woes were caused by China.
Said Murg: “I would say this is a real chance for China to show its seriousness about cooperation. And we’ll all get to see that in the numbers that come out and the specifics that we hope to hear from Beijing in the coming months.”
Pompeo will co-chair an inaugural Mekong-US Partnership Ministerial Meeting with the five downstream countries on Wednesday.
Speaking at the start of the CICP webinar, the US deputy chief of mission in Cambodia Benjamin Wohlauer said the new initiative would feature expanded support for the five riparian states. The US has provided US$4.8 billion in assistance to the five countries over the last decade, he said.
Separately, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian on Tuesday addressed Washington’s recent criticism of Beijing’s actions in the Mekong, saying the Western superpower had spent the last year hyping up the issue to “create a hotspot, sow discord between regional countries and sabotage the atmosphere for the LMC”.
Speaking during his regular press briefing, Zhao disputed the findings of the recent Eyes on the Earth report used by US officials to claim that Beijing was manipulating the river’s upstream water flows.
“A report with such obvious deviation from facts has no scientific value... I would advise caution to my fellow American diplomats who want to quote its findings,” Zhao said.
