China formally agreed on Thursday to provide the Mekong River Commission with year-round data on water flows on the Mekong, a move aimed at better monitoring and forecasting of floods and drought on the important regional waterway.
Signed by China’s Ministry of Water Resources and the Commission during a one-day virtual MRC Dialogue Partners Meeting, the agreement pledges full cooperation in information sharing, a commitment welcomed by Southeast Asian countries downstream that had formerly received data only during the region’s rainy season.
“This agreement is a landmark in the history of China-MRC cooperation,” An Pich Hatda—MRC Secretariat Chief Executive Officer—said at the signing, according to an Oct. 22 statement by the MRC, a regional grouping including Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.
“The increased regulation of the [Mekong’s] basin and the opportunities and challenges it brings calls for greater data and information sharing, improved water release notifications, coordination of operations, and enhanced early warning systems,” Hatda said.
“China has also agreed to share urgent information on any unusual rise or fall in water levels and discharges, as well as other relevant information on factors that might lead to flooding in the lower reaches of the basin,” the MRC said.
Thursday’s agreement follows an assurance in August by China’s Prime Minister Le Keqiang that Beijing would move cooperation on the river to a “fast track” after a report earlier in the month by downstream countries called for increased sharing of information about dams along the waterway.
A series of 11 dams in China and two in Laos, along with others along the Mekong’s tributaries, have significantly altered the natural flow of the 3,100-mile river, which rises on the Tibetan Plateau and empties into the South China Sea in Vietnam.
More than 60 million people depend on the Mekong for food, transportation, and water, and critics have faulted China’s dams on the river for contributing to recent droughts that have severely damaged agriculture and depleted fish stocks in neighboring countries.
Chinese state-owned companies and criminal gangs linked to China’s ruling Communist Party have meanwhile engaged in predatory business practices and the trafficking of persons, drugs, and wildlife in the Mekong River region, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sept. 14.
A new U.S.-Mekong Partnership launched on Sept. 11 will help combat these transnational crimes and strengthen water security for partner countries where China’s manipulation of water flows on the river has exacerbated a drought, Pompeo said.
The U.S. is “concerned about infrastructure-linked debt and the predatory and opaque business practices of Beijing’s state-owned actors, such as China Communications Construction Co. (CCCC),” Pompeo said in a statement.
Pompeo also said that companies and groups associated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are linked to human, narcotics, and wildlife trafficking in the Mekong region. His statement did not provide evidence to support the allegation.
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By Richard Finney | Radio Free (2020-10-22T20:15:00+00:00) China Agrees to Provide Year-Round Mekong River Data to Downstream Countries. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/10/22/china-agrees-to-provide-year-round-mekong-river-data-to-downstream-countries/
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