Mong La has become a hub for gambling, prostitution and illegal animal products like ivory and tiger skull. Features Myanmar's wildlife trafficking hotspot Mong La has become a hub for gambling, prostitution and illegal animal products like ivory and tiger skull. Sebastian Strangio Last updated: 17 Jun 2014 11:01 Listen to this page using ReadSpeaker Email Article Print Article Share article Send Feedback Mong La, Myanmar - In the middle of Zhangji Restaurant stood the venue's main attraction: a long glass aquarium filled with Chinese rice wine and ginseng root. There, eerily submerged in the brown liquid, was the skeleton of a tiger, its skull and backbone visible above the alcohol. A small faucet was attached to the side of the tank, where waitresses poured out glasses for tables of Chinese tourists. The skin of another tiger was pinned to the wall above. Tiger bone wine - or hugujiu, in Mandarin - has long been prized by wealthy Chinese, who believe it can stave off chills and improve circulation. Though the tonic has been banned for years in China, it is a common sight across the border in this small town in Myanmar. Venues on the town's main dining strip all have tanks of tiger spirit, available for the knock-down price of 60 Chinese yuan ($10) per glass. Many restaurants here also specialise in endangered animals. On the pavement outside the Zhangji Restaurant were cages filled with owls, geckos, monkeys, and monitor lizards. Plastic tubs held soft-shell turtles. Another restaurant down the street boasted live pangolins, an endangered species of scaly anteater whose consumption is banned under international wildlife treaties. "It's delicious," a waitress said, pointing her pen at the curled, scaly creatures. A major wildlife market Welcome to Mong La, the de facto capital of "Special Region No 4", a sliver of territory along the Chinese border in Myanmar's eastern Shan State. In recent years, spurred by lax law enforcement and booming demand from China, this shabby border town has grown to become a key hub of the Asian trade in endangered animals and animal products. The turnover of many products seems to be high ... Given the small size of the town, this is remarkable. - Vincent Nijman, zoologist and anthropologist "In terms of number and volume of the variety of species on offer, Mong La is one of Southeast Asia's largest open wildlife markets," said Vincent Nijman, a zoologist and anthropologist from Oxford Brookes University in the UK. For the past two decades, the armed militia that controls this tiny enclave, population 89,000, has survived by turning it into a haven of illicit pleasures for border-hopping Chinese tourists. Glitzy casinos draw hundreds of Chinese each week from nearby Yunnan province, where gambling is banned. The influx of gamblers has in turn triggered a boom in prostitution - much of the central town seems to function as a red-light district - and a surging demand for rare animals, many of which are protected by international treaties like the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Evidence of the wildlife trade can be seen everywhere around town. At Mong La's open-air market, vendors openly sell bear bile powder, pangolin scales and the skulls of Tibetan antelopes. More upmarket wildlife stores do a brisk trade in ivory and tiger skins, which experts have traced back to poachers as far away as Africa and India. During a trip to Mong La in January this year, Nijman and a colleague from the anti-wildlife trafficking organisation TRAFFIC counted 50 raw elephant tusks and 3,300 pieces of ivory for sale around town. "The turnover of many products seems to be high and there is no other indication other than that business is thriving," Nijman said. "Given the small size of the town, this is remarkable." At one wildlife boutique, a Chinese shop owner showed off a piece of polished ivory with a price tag of 5,000 yuan ($805). When asked where it came from, he chuckled nervously. "Where has it come from? I don't know about that." A 'James Bondian private police force' Mong La has enjoyed autonomous status since 1989, when the Communist Party of Burma collapsed after decades of insurgency. The Mong La area subsequently fell under the control of the National Democratic Alliance Army, or NDAA, led by the former Maoist Red Guard Sai Leun. Like many armed rebel groups, Leun then cut a ceasefire deal with Myanmar's military government, giving him autonomy in exchange for ending the insurgency. Since then, Leun has ruled Mong La and its gambling settlement by fiat, protected by an army of 4,500 men that US officials have likened to a "James Bondian private police force". There's an enormous demand in China for these products. There's not a lot being talked about and done about it, but it's serious money. - Tom Kramer, Transnational Institute researcher Tom Kramer, a Yangon-based researcher with the Transnational Institute, said the Myanmar government lets ceasefire groups like the NDAA do more or less whatever they want, "as long as they don't go into opposition politics". Given the rising Chinese demand, the peculiar political arrangements in Mong La have created the perfect spot for wildlife traders. "There's an enormous demand in China for these products," he said. "There's not a lot being talked about and done about it, but it's serious money." For its own part, the NDAA denies it has turned a blind eye to the illegal animal trade. One senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, said the police frequently raided wildlife shops and confiscated contraband. "We will crack down on it," the official said, though he admitted it was challenging. "Most of the high-end restaurants have wild animals, because when the rich people come they say, 'I want to eat this one, I want to eat that one'. They don't want to eat livestock raised in the farm, because of antibiotics or something." But Nijman remained unconvinced that there has been any real attempt to stem the sale of products like ivory and tiger bones - trade that appeared to have official backing. Like prostitution, the availability of banned animal products seemed to be an integral part of Mong La's casino-based economy. "You go out gambling, in the evening you get yourself a prostitute, and then you eat the stuff you can't eat at home," he said. "It's the whole package that makes it attractive." While China has made some recent moves to crack down on the wildlife trade, banning rare animals from official banquets and passing tough new laws against the consumption of tiger bone wine and endangered creatures like pangolins, it, too, turns a blind eye to the Chinese tourists who cross into Mong La - often illegally - to buy wild animal products. "Right near the border there are small trails. People simply walk across the border, without any documents," said Wang Bangyuan, a public health specialist who has worked extensively in the China-Myanmar border region. 'It's a battle that they cannot really win' Wang said that despite occasional large busts, the forestry police who enforce China's wildlife protection laws also remain under-funded and ill-equipped. "It's like drug trafficking," he said. "It's illegal, it's being enforced, but the police are understaffed and they're fighting against a business which is quite lucrative. So it's a battle that they cannot really win." China has taken a harder line with the NDAA in the past. In 2003, after becoming angry that corrupt officials were losing billions of yuan in Mong La's casinos, Chinese forces stormed across the border and shut the operations down. The NDAA responded by shifting the gambling operations 16km to the south, but the shells of derelict casinos still dot the hills around town - a reminder of the region's heavy reliance on China. A similar crackdown took place in 2011 in Boten, a casino town on the Laotian-Chinese border, which became a ghost-town overnight after China shut off access to Chinese electricity and cellphone networks. For now, however, local authorities in Yunnan seem happy to tolerate the economic free-for-all in Mong La. Nijman said that without action on their part, it would be hard to stem the flow of ivory and other endangered animal products. But, "if the gambling were to stop there", he said, "the whole thing would collapse". Follow Sebastian Strangio on Twitter: @sstrangio Source: Al Jazeera
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Burma Delivers Its First Rebuff to China ---China angry over Burma's decision to suspend work on £2.3bn dam
-Burma Delivers Its First Rebuff to China --
-China angry over Burma's decision to suspend work on £2.3bn dam
Burma Delivers Its First Rebuff to China
Shelving of gigantic Chinese hydroelectric dam could be a signal to the West
Bertil Lintner
YaleGlobal, 3 October 2011
Blocking the dam: Burmese protesters in Thailand oppose China’s Irrawaddy dam project (top); Burmese president U Thein Sein (r) receiving Xu Caihou, Vice Chairman of China's Central Military Commission
CHIANG MAI: At a time when Asian countries are increasingly worried about China’s growing assertiveness, Burma’s rejection of a huge Chinese hydroelectric dam project has raised new questions: Is this a rare victory for civil society in a repressive country? Or does it indicate an internal dispute over the country’s dependence on China? Regardless of the answers to these questions, the public difference over a close ally’s project marks a new stage in the Burma-China relationship.
On September 30, Burma’s new president, Thein Sein, sent a statement to the country’s parliament announcing that a joint venture with China to build a mega-dam in the far north of the country had been suspended because “it was contrary to the will of the people.” The US$3.6 billion The Myitsone Dam would have been world’s 15th tallest and submerged 766 square kilometers of forestland, an area bigger than Singapore.
It’s unclear if Chinese counterparts were consulted before the decision was made public. Burma has depended on its powerful northern neighbor for trade, political support and arms deliveries since the West shunned the Burmese regime following massacres of pro-democracy demonstrators in 1988.
Public opinion may have played its part. Under the 2006 deal, 90 percent of power generated from Myitsone would have gone to China. Anger over environmental destruction galvanized people against the regime in a way that the country had not seen for years. The dam was a dagger in the heart of the Kachins, the predominant ethnic minority in the area. Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi threw her support behind the anti-dam movement. Many made their voices heard over Facebook – a new tool for anti-regime activists.
Burma depends on China for trade,
political support and arms deliveries – but the president said no
to the Myitsone Dam.
People inside Burma can’t protest openly, but "Save the Irrawaddy" meetings have been held in Rangoon. Burmese exiles have staged anti-Chinese demonstrations outside Burmese and Chinese embassies abroad. Anti-Chinese sentiment is growing in Burma, especially in the north where Chinese influence is the strongest. According to reports from Kachin State, many Chinese nationals working in the state, including traders, have fled to China following the outbreak of hostilities between the Kachin Independence Army and government forces.
But public opinion has never been a strong factor when it comes to influencing the Burmese regime. The regime doesn’t want to risk another outbreak of anti-government protests similar to the 2007 monks’ movement and invite international condemnation with more US and EU sanctions.
Dissatisfaction within the armed forces over China's growing influence in Burma is a more likely reason for the move to suspend the dam project.
Burma has historically had a strained relationship with its northern neighbor. From the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 until 1962, Beijing maintained a cordial relationship with the non-aligned democratic government of Prime Minister U Nu. Burma was the first country outside the communist bloc to recognize the new regime in Beijing. After General Ne Win staged a coup d’etat in 1962, the Chinese, long wary of the ambitious, sometimes unpredictable general, prepared for all-out support for the insurgent Communist Party of Burma (CPB).
Anti-Chinese riots in Rangoon in 1967 – orchestrated by military authorities to deflect public anger over a deteriorating economy – provided an excuse for Chinese to intervene. On New Year’s Day 1968, armed CPB units entered northeastern Burma from China’s Yunnan Province. Over the next decade, China poured more aid into the CPB effort than any other communist movement outside of Indochina.
Dissatisfaction within the armed forces over China's influence in Burma is a more likely reason to suspend the dam.
A clandestine radio station, the People’s Voice of Burma, began transmitting from the Yunnan side of the frontier in 1971. Thousands of Chinese streamed across the border, providing additional support to the CPB.
Mao’s death in 1976, and the subsequent return to power of pragmatist Deng Xiaoping, marked the beginning of the end of massive Chinese aid to the CPB. Supporting revolutionary movements in the region was no longer in Beijing's interest. Still, China coveted Burma’s forests, rich deposits of minerals and natural gas, and hydroelectric power potential.
Ending Chinese support to the CPB ushered in a more cordial era in Sino-Burmese relations, the relations growing by leaps and bound after the 1988 bloody suppression of pro-democracy movement in Burma. Apart from supplying Burma with vast quantities of military hardware, by 1991, Chinese experts assisted in a series of infrastructure projects. Chinese military advisers soon arrived, the first foreign military personnel stationed in Burma since the 1950s. Cross-border trade between China and Burma boomed.
More recently, China has provided Burma with low-interest loans, and Chinese investment in the sanctions-hit economy is substantial, particularly true of the energy sector. For example, an agreement on a gas pipeline from the Bay of Bengal will be supplemented with an oil pipeline designed to allow Chinese ships carrying Middle Eastern oil to skirt the congested Malacca Strait.
The heavy dependence on China has led to consternation among many Burmese military leaders. Those leaders do not forget that they once fought against the China-backed CPB, that their comrades were killed by Chinese arms. Aung Lynn Htut, a former intelligence officer who sought US political asylum in 2005, drew on those memories in a September commentary for The Irrawaddy, a website run by Burmese exiles.
China has called for “talks” after President Thein Sein’s statement, but skeptics point out that a 2009 internal report by the China Power Investment Corporation, the company behind the dam, said that the size was unnecessary and called for the project to be scrapped. And China still has contracts to build six other mega-dams on the Irrawaddy and source rivers. That Thein Sein dared to make his public statement reveals a wrinkle in Sino-Burmese relations – and how Burma may try to balance foreign relations, perhaps returning to its former policy of strict neutrality and non-alignment.
Burma may try to balance foreign relations, perhaps returning to its former policy of strict neutrality and non-alignment.
Some academic observers assert that Beijing’s influence over the Burmese government is exaggerated. China, the argument goes, “has not been as successful in winning Burma’s confidence as often is reported,” as suggested by Andrew Selth, author and strategic studies researcher. The source of Burma’s arms suppliers offers evidence: Although China provided Burma with up to US$1.6 billion worth of military hardware since 1989, the regime has recently turned to Russia, the Ukraine and North Korea to diversify its arms-procurement program.
Instead of democratizing the country, Burma’s new government seems to have chosen to play “the China card,” an attempt to win support of the West. An unsigned opinion piece in The Bangkok Post, written by a Burmese government official, reportedly approved at the highest level in Naypyidaw, lays out its position: “We do not want our country to become a satellite state of the Chinese government. However, Western countries should not force us into a corner where we have no option but to increasingly rely on China.”
In this context, “force” means insistence on genuine democratic reforms. From the regime’s point of view, improved relations with the West could be accomplished simply by playing up the Chinese threat, with the hope of diminishing Western criticism of the regime.
But the regime has time and again stressed that how the country is governed is an internal matter. The West must decide if it will play along.
Bertil Lintner is a Swedish journalist based in Thailand and the author of several works on Asia, including “Blood Brothers: The Criminal Underworld of Asia” and “Great Leader, Dear Leader: Demystifying North Korea under the Kim Clan.” He can be reached at lintner@asiapacificms.com
Rights:Copyright © 2011 Yale Center for the Study of Globalization
China angry over Burma's decision to suspend work on £2.3bn dam
Beijing threatens legal action as Burma halts dam because it is 'against the will of the people'
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Jonathan Watts
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 4 October 2011 19.46 BST
Article history
Technicians inspect the hydropower plant at the Three Gorges project in China. Beijing is angry that Burma has cancelled a similar project. Photograph: Du Huaju/AP
Burma's decision to suspend the country's biggest hydroelectric project has shocked and enraged China, the government's most influential backer on the international stage.
Senior officials in Beijing have castigated their south-east Asian ally and threatened legal action. It emerged that they were not consulted before President Thein Sien of Burma announced last Friday a halt to building the $3.6bn (£2.3bn) hydropower dam on the Irawaddy – known as the Myitsone project – because it was "against the will of the people".
China is the impoverished nation's second-largest trading partner and biggest foreign investor. Such public displays of discord are unusual. Its reaction contrasted sharply with the response of the US government, which praised Burma's "significant and positive step" towards listening to public concerns and promoting national reconciliation.
This may be because Beijing has more at stake. China Power Investment is the primary funder of the project. Its manager, Lu Qizhou, told domestic media that he was astonished by the announcement.
"I hear about this through media reports. I was very shocked. Before this, Burma did not communicate with us about plans for a suspension," he said, in a warning that a halt to construction would precipitate legal action.
Lu said the project had received the necessary approval in both countries. He described the sudden suspension as "incomprehensible" and the cost for both countries as "immeasurable".
He said the loss was not just about the direct investment, but it was also a missed opportunity to generate electric power and there was damage to the country's reputation because of a breach of contract. In total, he calculated that the cascade of hydropower projects – of which Myitsone is just one – would have earned the Burmese government $54bn in tax revenues, shared profits and free electricity.
Lu downplayed the human and environmental impact of the dam, saying the Myitsone reservoir would necessitate the relocation of only 2,146 people in five villages. He said the Chinese company had provided them with two-storey houses, 21in colour televisions and a 100,000 kyat living allowance.
At the weekend, Hong Lei, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, called on Burma to hold consultations over the dam and noted that both countries agreed to move ahead with the project after a thorough assessment of the impact.
Opponents of the dam accuse China of being disingenuous. The Burma Rivers Network, which represents communities affected by the hydropower project, said Beijing had negotiated its investments with the military government without considering the will of the people.
"The villagers at the dam site, numerous political and community organisations, international human rights organisations have attempted to contact China Power Investment and discuss the concerns about the impacts and process of the project. Even though CPI never responded to all these attempts at dialogue, they cannot claim to be unaware of the feeling about this project by the people of Burma," the group said.
Far from benefiting Burma through flood control, the group argue that the dam would put the demands of power generation for China before the needs of local people.
"Chinese engineers running the dams will decide how much water to release downstream according to orders from Beijing ... As seen with the Mekong, this can cause unexpected and devastating water surges and shortages," it said.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
The Global Post - Proposed dam to flood Burma, while powering China
The Global Post - Proposed dam to flood Burma, while powering China
A large dam being planned in Kachin state will flood an area the size of New York City and displace thousands of local people.
By Ryan Libre — Special to GlobalPost
Published: January 31, 2010 09:18 ET
MYITKYINA, Burma — On the first morning of each New Year, hundreds of people come to pray on the banks of the Irrawaddy River in northern Burma.
This year, they prayed that their villages, farms and churches would not be drowned.
A large dam will flood an area the size of New York City and displace thousands of local people over the next two to three years. The Myitsone dam, constructed by the Burmese military government and the China Power Investment Co., calls for a 500-foot-wide by 500-foot-high dam face, and is projected to produce between 3,600 to 6,000 megawatts of electricity by 2017.
The dam will inundate 300 square miles in Kachin state, flooding 47 villages, including the Mother of Peace shrine where the traditional New Year's prayers are held.
But the capital of Kachin state, Myitkyina, already has affordable power 24 hours a day. So, why displace thousands of people in Burma when they already have power?
Because when the Myitsone dam is complete, the hydroelectric power will go to Yunnan, China. In addition, the water reserves will irrigate a mega-plantation inside the protected Hukawng Valley in Burma, now home to the world's largest tiger reserve, furthering the displacement of people and destruction of the environment.
The dam will generate an estimated $500 million in gross annual revenue for the Burmese government, which has long been criticized for its gross human rights abuses — including but not limited to the recent trial, conviction and sentencing of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and the brutal crackdown of Buddhist monks in September 2007.
Kachin is extremely rich in natural resources. Jade, gold, teakwood and silicone are exported in large quantities, and the mountainous, fertile terrain offers many hydropower sites. But because the Burmese government tightly controls resources and politics, the Kachin people have little say in their land and little benefit from its exploitation.
Construction jobs are earmarked for Chinese migrants, not the local people of Kachin. The opening ceremony for the Myitsone dam was held with high-powered officials from both the Burmese and Chinese government. The few local villagers who were present had been
instructed to attend. Chinese work camps already have been built near the Mother of Prayer shrine, and the first truckloads of workers are gearing up for construction.
Caravans of Burmese soldiers have arrived to secure both the dam site and the Chinese labor camps. The signs pointing the way to the dam site are up, not in the local language, Jinghpaw, but in Chinese.
Burmese gold miners and loggers from the south also have come north with help from military contacts to start extraction, industrial and commercial enterprises. Like many Kachins, the local villagers facing displacement are poor and pious.
The Burmese government and China are also collaborating on a pipeline to bring oil from the Bay of Bengal through lowland Burma and the Shan state to Yunan, bypassing the long maritime route through the bottle-necked Strait of Malacca, according to the China Daily.
Bilateral investment, trade and arms deals with China bankroll the Burmese military government, despite sanctions by many of the world's largest economies, according to the BBC.
Lacking the basic rights to express their opposition, people in Burma have been unable to protest the dam and pipeline projects. The Burmese military is bankrolled by the vast
Burmese resources it extracts and sells, and it maintains power despite widespread popular opposition and international condemnation, according to the Burma River’s Network, which represents communities in Burma affected by dam projects.
Twenty-five large dams are planned or are under construction in Burma, the Burma River Network said, and Kachin locals say they worry about the dams' safety. In 2006, two dams in Kachin state broke under stress after heavy rains. One of these dams failed and destroyed hundreds of patty fields and farms. The other, the 2.5 megawatt Chying Hkrang dam, relatively small in comparison to the 3600-megawatt Myitsone dam, collapsed killing five people.
Kachin people have voiced worries about the Myitsone dam's planned location 24 miles above the state capital and 62 miles from Burma’s earthquake prone Sagaing fault line.
"If I have to move, I will not move downstream to the capital," said a local pastor. "I could never get a good night sleep because I think this dam will also break."
The Mother of Peace shrine sits on an island where the Mali and Mai rivers converge to create the great Irrawaddy River. The New Year's prayer ceremony is deeply religious and apolitical. Villagers ask for forgiveness for their sins, and they pray for health, safety and peace.
"I will pray silently and directly to God for a miracle, to stop the dam project," said one villager. "I will not voice this prayer out of concern for my safety. I have no illusions that the government cares what I think."
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Japan, U.S. vow cash to gain climate deal
The Japan Times Printer Friendly Articles
Japan, U.S. vow cash to gain climate deal
America set to join $100 billion aid fund: Clinton
By ERIC JOHNSTON and SETSUKO KAMIYA
Staff writers
COPENHAGEN — In a last-minute attempt to achieve a breakthrough at the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen, Japan and the United States announced Wednesday and Thursday short- and long-term financial pledges for developing countries to mitigate the effects of climate change over the next three years and to adapt to the future effects of global warming by 2020.
The announcement of new aid packages came on the ninth and final day of formal negotiations on a deal for new emissions reduction targets for the post-2012 period, following the expiration of the first period of commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.
On Wednesday evening, Japan pledged ¥1.75 trillion ($15 billion) in public and private funding to help developing countries adjust to climate change between 2010-2012. The U.S. announced Thursday morning it would work to help provide developing countries with up to $100 billion annually through yet-to-be-determined financial mechanisms and incentives by 2020 for adaptation to future climate change.
"We're announcing this pledge in the hope that it will become a driving force for the negotiations to move forward and come to a meaningful agreement," Environment Minister Sakihito Ozawa said Wednesday, at Japan's first open press briefing of the COP15 conference.
Of the total, public finance comprises about ¥1.3 trillion ($11 billion) and the rest will be collected from the private sector by creating a new plan involving the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, said Vice Foreign Minister Tetsuro Fukuyama. Details of that plan were still being discussed and will require a change in the law, he added.
Ozawa's announcement now means short-term financing pledges for developing countries, which the United Nations said should be around $30 billion by 2012, have nearly been met. The European Union announced last week that about $10.8 billion in total would be available for the remaining period and the U.S. and other countries were expected to contribute as well.
But the long-term financing of the deal has been the more controversial issue. Economists and nongovernmental organizations have said that anywhere between $140 billion and $200 billion or more would be needed by 2020 to assist developing countries facing desertification, increased floods, crop failures and potential climate refugees displaced by severe weather patterns due to global warming.
"Today, I would like to announce that in the context of a strong accord, in which all major economies stand behind meaningful mitigation actions and provide full transparency as to their implementation, the U.S. is prepared to work with other countries toward a goal of jointly mobilizing $100 billion a year by 2020 to address the climate change needs of developing countries," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said.
"We expect that this funding will come from a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources of finance," she said.
But while both Japan and the U.S. offered developing nations a carrot, the pledges also came with a big stick, as Ozawa and Clinton said developing nations must commit to legally binding emissions cuts.
"If those conditions are not met, we'll have to withdraw this pledge," Ozawa said.
In a warning directed toward China — which insists that its reduction target of 40 percent to 45 percent per unit of gross domestic product by 2020 compared with 2005 levels is a domestic, voluntary measure and should not be codified in an international treaty — both Ozawa and Clinton said there were conditions attached to their pledges, which included participation in a new deal, and emissions-reduction actions that were transparent.
"I've often quoted a Chinese proverb which says that when we are in a common boat, you have to cross the river peacefully together. Well, we are in a common boat," Clinton said.
"All of the major economies have an obligation to commit to a meaningful mitigation action and stand behind them in a transparent way."
It remained to be seen whether the new pledges by the U.S. and Japan would be the game-breaker negotiators had been looking for to move the negotiations forward.
Fundamental differences over the amount by which countries should reduce their emissions remain.
The Japan Times: Friday, Dec. 18, 2009
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Thursday, November 5, 2009
Fw: [BurmaInfo] 東京新聞11月4日「ミャンマー軍政『開発』で弾圧 少数民族居住地にダム」
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ビルマ市民フォーラム メールマガジン 2009/11/4
People's Forum on Burma
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ＰＦＢ事務局 宮澤
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東京新聞 2009年11月4日朝刊 こちら特報部
「ミャンマー軍政『開発』で弾圧 少数民族居住地にダム」
ビルマ（ミャンマー）軍政が、同国の少数民族居住地域で大型ダム建設計画を進めて
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Tuesday, September 8, 2009
The Politics of Building a Gas Pipeline
The Politics of Building a Gas Pipeline
By J J KIM Tuesday, September 8, 2009
While the Western world continues to debate whether economic sanctions can make change in Burma, the sale of gas to China from the offshore Shwe gas fields in Arakan State threatens to raise the junta’s revenue from foreign investment to new heights and strengthen business ties throughout Asia.
Furthermore, the parallel gas and oil pipelines, which are reportedly starting construction this month from Arakan State to Yunnan Province, China, via Magwe Division, Mandalay Division and Shan State, have been criticised by human rights groups as a major contributing factor to the recent conflict in northern Shan State.
According to a report titled “Corridor of Power” released by the Shwe Gas Movement (SGM), the pipeline will make the junta at least US $29 billion over the next 30 years. Much of this is expected to be spent on military expansion, despite the current famine in Arakan State and poverty across the country.
Source: Shwe Gas Movement
Moreover, the report claims, construction of the pipelines, which are being built primarily by the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC), is likely to lead to human rights abuse across the country and a “re-ignition of fighting between the regime and ceasefire armies stationed along the pipeline.”
According to Khur Hseng from Shan Sapawa, who has been researching the impact of the pipeline in Shan State since 2007, these fears were confirmed during the armed confrontation between the military government and the ethnic Kokang Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) in late August. The fighting took place just 50 km from the proposed pipeline route, killing 200 people and leading to a mass exodus of up to 30,000 civilians to China.
“The main objective of the SPDC is to clear all opposing forces from the area for development projects, including the Shwe Gas pipeline,” said Khur Hseng. “They are trying to clear the people who will be against the plans and control the area so the true information about the project can’t get out. China needs this as well because they limit their media too.”
According to Wong Aung, the international coordinator of SGM, despite reports from the Chinese media about the project’s commencement, in fact the risk of local opposition and conflict is too great for the project to make much progress this year.
“It is impossible to start now; maybe just some foundations in Arakan State or Magwe. Before they start they will have to clear out all political, ethnic and conflict issues on the border. They will have to deploy propagation in so many places along the pipeline first, to ensure security.”
The sale of gas and oil is currently the junta’s biggest earner, bringing in almost US $3.5 billion annually. According to the report, from 2013 onwards the Shwe Gas Project, which is headed by the South Korean company Daewoo International, will bring in close to another US $1 billion.
This has raised concerns among pro-democracy campaigners and analysts, who say the deal will entrench military rule in the country by financing the regime and strengthening their political clout in the region.
Wong Aung said “It will harm the democratic process if the regime continues to receive the revenue from this sector… . The regime is receiving that money and creating conflicts in the ethnic areas. Basically, institutional investors and companies who are supporting the regime's projects are damaging the stability of the region.”
According to Larry Jagan, a long-term observer of Sino-Burmese relations, “One of China's main concerns is natural resources, so any major project is important to them from an economic point of view.”
This is of particular significance with the pipeline agreement as it offers China an alternative trade route for oil and gas from Africa and the Middle East too. Until now, such imports have had to pass through the US-Navy controlled Malacca Strait taking seven days longer than they would through Burma.
“One thing that is apparent [from the recent conflict in northern Shan State] is that Burma holds the cards. The opposition thinks that China could influence Burma if they want to, but these projects give Burma the upper hand”
“Although economically important to China, Burma is also strategically crucial to China as it is its staunchest ally in Southeast Asia [and] opposed to US interests in the region.”
“There is no doubt that Chinese investment and Burma’s trade with the rest of Asia reduces the impact of Western sanctions,” Larry said.
Experience from past gas and oil developments in Burma have led SGM to believe that the pipelines will cause “forced labour, forced relocation, land confiscation and a host of abuses by soldiers deployed in the area.” According to SGM's report, there are currently an estimated 13,200 soldiers stationed along the pipeline route, mostly in areas that haven’t seen significant armed conflict for decades.
According to Naing Win of Kyauk Phyu Township in Arakan State, where the pipeline will begin, “Most people depend on fishing for survival, but they are prohibited by the navy to fish within 10km of the gas fields. The Navy often steal their fish and gas and oil and [harass] them outrageously.” Because of this, local people find it difficult to survive and provide an education for their children.
Another major concern is the threat of forced relocation of civilian families to make way for the pipeline and other related infrastructure. Stretching around 1,000 km in Burma, the pipeline will cut through many densely populated areas. According to Khur Hseng, “Thousands of people will be forced to leave their homes in Shan State alone.” Recent projects in the region, such as the Tasang Dam, have forced hundreds of thousand of men, women and children into the jungle and to other countries to start a new life.
As the report highlights, while the regime’s profits from the export of electricity and fossil fuels become increasingly lucrative, civilian energy needs are persistently neglected. The national per capita energy consumption currently amounts to less than 5 percent of that in Thailand or China. Arakan State, the source of the gas, is not connected to the national grid and over 90 percent of the population still use candles for light and firewood for cooking.
While the junta continues to make war in ethnic regions and display no regard for civilian needs, many campaigners feel that change can only come when all foreign companies and financial institutions halt investment in such projects. Despite sanctions and Western rhetoric, both CNPC and Petrochina, who will distribute the gas in China, have received significant financial backing from the West in recent years, from banks such as Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs.
According to Wong Aung “The USA and EU need to re-impose stronger sanctions and consider a practical way to get a positive outcome because the regime has so many channels to oppose the sanctions compared with 10 years ago. While locally registered companies continue to gain financial backing from the USA and EU, sanctions are becoming just a notion for these governments.”
“I would like to raise this issue among foreign governments, companies and the various institutional investors involved in this project: they should support the democratic process for Burma,” he said.
JJ Kim is a freelance writer based in Thailand.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy. org
http://www.irrawadd y.org/article. php?art_id= 16740
Sunday, August 23, 2009
DAMMING OF A MIGHTY RIVER
DAMMING OF A MIGHTY RIVER
The Tasang and Hutyi dam projects may force the Karenni people to relocate from their homes and lose their heritage
Writer: By Pongsit Pangsrivongse
Published: 23/08/2009 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: Brunch
The mighty Salween River stretches from the high plains of the Tibetan Plateau to the Andaman Sea. In Burma, it runs through the Mon and Shan States where it is the lifeblood of the indigenous people, nourishing the land and feeding the countless ethnic groups living there. Though their customs, languages and traditions vary, one thing unites them all - their reliance on the powerful Salween River. The fact that the fruitful river has always been full of fish enforces a sense of security for them. However, their sustainable lifestyle is reaching a precarious chapter, according to concerns echoed in the seminar on the construction of Tasang and Hutyi Dams. The recent seminar was arranged by local anti-dam groups, including Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance (Terra), Salween Watch, Healthy Public Policy Foundation (HPPF) and guest speakers such as Htoo Paw, a representative of the Karenni Human Rights Group.
According to the dam-protesting organiser, the construction of the Tasang and Hutyi Dams close to Tak province on the Thai-Burmese border will be a dire consequence to the ecology of the river and villagers who depend on its resources.
But the seminar did not touch only the environmental side.
Despite the fact that the project is purely civil construction, it has slowly unveiled the conflict between the junta and the indigenous people highlighted recently when the Karen National Union (KNU) was attacked by troops from the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) and the ruling junta's State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), according to Htoo Paw.
This invasion reportedly forced more than 4,000 Karennis out of their homes, thus adding to the ever growing number of desperate refugees attempting to seek asylum in Thailand.
What perhaps is more painful for the locals than losing their homes and their land is losing their heritage and their source of income and life staple. With the flooding of the land they have lived on for centuries, members of these tight-knit communities will be dispersed. Many of them will no longer be able to rely on the waters for fish.
SOON A THING OF THE PAST: Fish from the Salween River being sold at a local market.
The fear is real. According to Dr Nirand Pitakwatchara, a member of National Human Right Commission, some of the dam projects spelt doom for communities living around the project. "This is a lesson that should have been learned from the controversial Pak Moon Dam where the presence of a reservoir resulted in the decimation of fish species," said Dr Nirand, also a former Thai senator.
The implications extend beyond the rights of the indigenous people.
Forced relocation has already led to exponential migration into Thailand. Salween Watch, a Chiang Mai-based non-governmental organisation, estimated about 60,000 Burmese ethnic villagers will be displaced by the Tasang Dam alone.
With their land turned into a colossal lake covering 500,000 rai (80,000 hectares) and faced with the threat of the junta, they will have nowhere to turn but Tak province in Thailand, adding more to security problems.
Social stability aside, the two projects should also be revised in terms of investment worth. The two dams were the realisation of power plants under Thailand's Power Development Plan (PDP).
According to Suphakit Nuntavorakarn, economic researcher at Healthy Public Policy Foundation (HPPF), both projects should be revised or scrapped as the demand for energy has been lowered since the economic contraction.
Since 2003, according to an estimate by the HPPF, the electricity surplus has been around 1,000 megawatt (MW) each year. A building facility for one megawatt of electricity costs 30 million baht; around 30 billion baht was invested on unused electricity. Last year, the economic crisis resulted in an overestimation of electricity needed, resulting in an absurd surplus of 4,333MW.
It is not that the government did not recognise this over projection and risk of investment.
In February, the energy ministry revised the new PDP for 2009 to 2024. Plans to import electricity from neighbouring countries decreased to 5,036MW, from 13,244MW. The Hutgyi and Tasang Dams' construction should have been dropped along with the reductions in the import of electricity.
In these uncertain economic times it would be unwise to dispense funds so recklessly. Such an irrational investment will certainly not justify the catastrophic consequences of this dam, which will demolish the invaluable cultural heritage and dignity of the people so bonded to this great river, concluded the participants.
How are you helping to reduce your carbon footprint? Share your eco-friendly activities, or comments, or disapprovals and email outlook@bangkokpost .co.th. Remember to type 'Earth Alert' in the subject box. http://www.bangkokp ost.com/life/ family/22562/ damming-of- a-mighty- river
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Liquor distillery fire kills five near Yangon
Posted : Sun, 23 Aug 2009 09:11:40 GMT
Author : DPA
Print this article email this article Comment on this article
Yangon - A fire at a liquor distillery on the outskirts of Yangon killed at least five people and injured eight others, witnesses said Sunday. The fire raged through the Myanmar Winery Distillery Company Limited, situated about 50 kilometres north of Yangon, all Saturday night, leaving four employees dead who could be identified and one unidentified body.
Eight people were injured in the blaze, five of whom were admitted to Yangon General Hospital, and three others at Hlegu Hospital.
Some 47 fire trucks were sent to control the flames, which destroyed at least one of the vehicles before the fire was put out, a witness said.
The distillery, producer of a local liquor, was owned by five Myanmar nationals.
Copyright, respective author or news agency
http://www.earthtim es.org/articles/ show/282499, liquor-distiller y-fire-kills- five-near- yangon.html
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
AP IMPACT: Tons of released drugs taint US water
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/pharmawater_factories
By JEFF DONN, MARTHA MENDOZA and JUSTIN PRITCHARD,
Associated Press Writers – Mon Apr 20, 4:45 am ET
U.S. manufacturers, including major drugmakers, have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that often provide drinking water — contamination the federal government has consistently overlooked, according to an Associated Press investigation.
Hundreds of active pharmaceutical ingredients are used in a variety of manufacturing, including drugmaking: For example, lithium is used to make ceramics and treat bipolar disorder; nitroglycerin is a heart drug and also used in explosives; copper shows up in everything from pipes to contraceptives.
Federal and industry officials say they don't know the extent to which pharmaceuticals are released by U.S. manufacturers because no one tracks them — as drugs. But a close analysis of 20 years of federal records found that, in fact, the government unintentionally keeps data on a few, allowing a glimpse of the pharmaceuticals coming from factories.
As part of its ongoing PharmaWater investigation about trace concentrations of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, AP identified 22 compounds that show up on two lists: the EPA monitors them as industrial chemicals that are released into rivers, lakes and other bodies of water under federal pollution laws, while the Food and Drug Administration classifies them as active pharmaceutical ingredients.
The data don't show precisely how much of the 271 million pounds comes from drugmakers versus other manufacturers; also, the figure is a massive undercount because of the limited federal government tracking.
To date, drugmakers have dismissed the suggestion that their manufacturing contributes significantly to what's being found in water. Federal drug and water regulators agree.
But some researchers say the lack of required testing amounts to a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy about whether drugmakers are contributing to water pollution.
"It doesn't pass the straight-face test to say pharmaceutical manufacturers are not emitting any of the compounds they're creating," said Kyla Bennett, who spent 10 years as an EPA enforcement officer before becoming an ecologist and environmental attorney.
Pilot studies in the U.S. and abroad are now confirming those doubts.
Last year, the AP reported that trace amounts of a wide range of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in American drinking water supplies. Including recent findings in Dallas, Cleveland and Maryland's Prince George's and Montgomery counties, pharmaceuticals have been detected in the drinking water of at least 51 million Americans.
Most cities and water providers still do not test. Some scientists say that wherever researchers look, they will find pharma-tainted water.
Consumers are considered the biggest contributors to the contamination. We consume drugs, then excrete what our bodies don't absorb. Other times, we flush unused drugs down toilets. The AP also found that an estimated 250 million pounds of pharmaceuticals and contaminated packaging are thrown away each year by hospitals and long-term care facilities.
Researchers have found that even extremely diluted concentrations of drugs harm fish, frogs and other aquatic species. Also, researchers report that human cells fail to grow normally in the laboratory when exposed to trace concentrations of certain drugs. Some scientists say they are increasingly concerned that the consumption of combinations of many drugs, even in small amounts, could harm humans over decades.
Utilities say the water is safe. Scientists, doctors and the EPA say there are no confirmed human risks associated with consuming minute concentrations of drugs. But those experts also agree that dangers cannot be ruled out, especially given the emerging research.
___
Two common industrial chemicals that are also pharmaceuticals — the antiseptics phenol and hydrogen peroxide — account for 92 percent of the 271 million pounds identified as coming from drugmakers and other manufacturers. Both can be toxic and both are considered to be ubiquitous in the environment.
However, the list of 22 includes other troubling releases of chemicals that can be used to make drugs and other products: 8 million pounds of the skin bleaching cream hydroquinone, 3 million pounds of nicotine compounds that can be used in quit-smoking patches, 10,000 pounds of the antibiotic tetracycline hydrochloride. Others include treatments for head lice and worms.
Residues are often released into the environment when manufacturing equipment is cleaned.
A small fraction of pharmaceuticals also leach out of landfills where they are dumped. Pharmaceuticals released onto land include the chemo agent fluorouracil, the epilepsy medicine phenytoin and the sedative pentobarbital sodium. The overall amount may be considerable, given the volume of what has been buried — 572 million pounds of the 22 monitored drugs since 1988.
In one case, government data shows that in Columbus, Ohio, pharmaceutical maker Boehringer Ingelheim Roxane Inc. discharged an estimated 2,285 pounds of lithium carbonate — which is considered slightly toxic to aquatic invertebrates and freshwater fish — to a local wastewater treatment plant between 1995 and 2006. Company spokeswoman Marybeth C. McGuire said the pharmaceutical plant, which uses lithium to make drugs for bipolar disorder, has violated no laws or regulations. McGuire said all the lithium discharged, an annual average of 190 pounds, was lost when residues stuck to mixing equipment were washed down the drain.
___
Pharmaceutical company officials point out that active ingredients represent profits, so there's a huge incentive not to let any escape. They also say extremely strict manufacturing regulations — albeit aimed at other chemicals — help prevent leakage, and that whatever traces may get away are handled by onsite wastewater treatment.
"Manufacturers have to be in compliance with all relevant environmental laws," said Alan Goldhammer, a scientist and vice president at the industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
Goldhammer conceded some drug residues could be released in wastewater, but stressed "it would not cause any environmental issues because it was not a toxic substance at the level that it was being released at."
Several big drugmakers were asked this simple question: Have you tested wastewater from your plants to find out whether any active pharmaceuticals are escaping, and if so what have you found?
No drugmaker answered directly.
"Based on research that we have reviewed from the past 20 years, pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities are not a significant source of pharmaceuticals that contribute to environmental risk," GlaxoSmithKline said in a statement.
AstraZeneca spokeswoman Kate Klemas said the company's manufacturing processes "are designed to avoid, or otherwise minimize the loss of product to the environment" and thus "ensure that any residual losses of pharmaceuticals to the environment that do occur are at levels that would be unlikely to pose a threat to human health or the environment."
One major manufacturer, Pfizer Inc., acknowledged that it tested some of its wastewater — but outside the United States.
The company's director of hazard communication and environmental toxicology, Frank Mastrocco, said Pfizer has sampled effluent from some of its foreign drug factories. Without disclosing details, he said the results left Pfizer "confident that the current controls and processes in place at these facilities are adequately protective of human health and the environment."
It's not just the industry that isn't testing.
FDA spokesman Christopher Kelly noted that his agency is not responsible for what comes out on the waste end of drug factories. At the EPA, acting assistant administrator for water Mike Shapiro — whose agency's Web site says pharmaceutical releases from manufacturing are "well defined and controlled" — did not mention factories as a source of pharmaceutical pollution when asked by the AP how drugs get into drinking water.
"Pharmaceuticals get into water in many ways," he said in a written statement. "It's commonly believed the majority come from human and animal excretion. A portion also comes from flushing unused drugs down the toilet or drain; a practice EPA generally discourages."
His position echoes that of a line of federal drug and water regulators as well as drugmakers, who concluded in the 1990s — before highly sensitive tests now used had been developed — that manufacturing is not a meaningful source of pharmaceuticals in the environment.
Pharmaceutical makers typically are excused from having to submit an environmental review for new products, and the FDA has never rejected a drug application based on potential environmental impact. Also at play are pressures not to delay potentially lifesaving drugs. What's more, because the EPA hasn't concluded at what level, if any, pharmaceuticals are bad for the environment or harmful to people, drugmakers almost never have to report the release of pharmaceuticals they produce.
"The government could get a national snapshot of the water if they chose to," said Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council, "and it seems logical that we would want to find out what's coming out of these plants."
Ajit Ghorpade, an environmental engineer who worked for several major pharmaceutical companies before his current job helping run a wastewater treatment plant, said drugmakers have no impetus to take measurements that the government doesn't require.
"Obviously nobody wants to spend the time or their dime to prove this," he said. "It's like asking me why I don't drive a hybrid car? Why should I? It's not required."
___
After contacting the nation's leading drugmakers and filing public records requests, the AP found two federal agencies that have tested.
Both the EPA and the U.S. Geological Survey have studies under way comparing sewage at treatment plants that receive wastewater from drugmaking factories against sewage at treatment plants that do not.
Preliminary USGS results, slated for publication later this year, show that treated wastewater from sewage plants serving drug factories had significantly more medicine residues. Data from the EPA study show a disproportionate concentration in wastewater of an antibiotic that a major Michigan factory was producing at the time the samples were taken.
Meanwhile, other researchers recorded concentrations of codeine in the southern reaches of the Delaware River that were at least 10 times higher than the rest of the river.
The scientists from the Delaware River Basin Commission won't have to look far when they try to track down potential sources later this year. One mile from the sampling site, just off shore of Pennsville, N.J., there's a pipe that spits out treated wastewater from a municipal plant. The plant accepts sewage from a pharmaceutical factory owned by Siegfried Ltd. The factory makes codeine.
"We have implemented programs to not only reduce the volume of waste materials generated but to minimize the amount of pharmaceutical ingredients in the water," said Siegfried spokeswoman Rita van Eck.
Another codeine plant, run by Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Noramco Inc., is about seven miles away. A Noramco spokesman acknowledged that the Wilmington, Del., factory had voluntarily tested its wastewater and found codeine in trace concentrations thousands of times greater than what was found in the Delaware River. "The amounts of codeine we measured in the wastewater, prior to releasing it to the City of Wilmington, are not considered to be hazardous to the environment," said a company spokesman.
In another instance, equipment-cleaning water sent down the drain of an Upsher-Smith Laboratories, Inc. factory in Denver consistently contains traces of warfarin, a blood thinner, according to results obtained under a public records act request. Officials at the company and the Denver Metro Wastewater Reclamation District said they believe the concentrations are safe.
Warfarin, which also is a common rat poison and pesticide, is so effective at inhibiting growth of aquatic plants and animals it's actually deliberately introduced to clean plants and tiny aquatic animals from ballast water of ships.
"With regard to wastewater management we are subject to a variety of federal, state and local regulation and oversight," said Joel Green, Upsher-Smith's vice president and general counsel. "And we work hard to maintain systems to promote compliance."
Baylor University professor Bryan Brooks, who has published more than a dozen studies related to pharmaceuticals in the environment, said assurances that drugmakers run clean shops are not enough.
"I have no reason to believe them or not believe them," he said. "We don't have peer-reviewed studies to support or not support their claims."
___
Associated Press Writer Don Mitchell in Denver contributed to this report.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
The Water Politics of China and Southeast Asia:
http://japanfocus.org/-Milton-Osborne/2448
Rivers, Dams, Cargo Boats and the Environment
Milton Osborne
When the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) released its list of the world’s top ten rivers at risk in late March, attention in Australia naturally focused on the fact that the Murray-Darling River system was one of those listed.[1] Very little attention was given in the Australian media to the other nine rivers so identified, which included the two longest rivers in the Southeast Asian region, the Mekong and the Salween. Both these rivers rise in the Himalayas in Chinese territory before flowing into Southeast Asia, and play a vital role for the populations in their basin areas; for the 60-70 million in the Mekong’s basin of nearly 800,000 square kilometres, and for the 6-7 million in the Salween’s basin of 272,000 square kilometres. The WWF’s claims about the risks facing the rivers it lists as ‘in danger’ are bound to generate controversy, with proponents of hydroelectricity sourced from dams bound to express scepticism. Nevertheless, current and future developments associated with both the Mekong and the Salween are certainly worthy of examination. For there is irrefutable evidence of the problems that can be caused by the construction of large-scale dams on previously free-flowing rivers. Moreover, a review of current developments associated with the Salween and the Mekong rivers is desirable at a time when environmental issues are increasingly a concern internationally. Such issues have particular relevance in Southeast Asia, both within individual countries and in terms of relations between individual Southeast Asian countries and their great neighbour, China.
Map 1: Proposed dams along the Nu (Salween)
Source: International Rivers Network http://www.irn.org/img/nu/nu_map_pol.gif
In two Lowy Institute Papers, River at risk: the Mekong and the water politics of China and Southeast Asia (2004), and, The paramount power: China and the countries of Southeast Asia (2006), I discussed the many and complex range of relationships evolving between China and its Southeast Asian neighbours.[2] These relationships are multifaceted, involving politics, in the broadest sense, trade and economics, particularly as these relate to energy, and increasingly, for the mainland states, present and future environmental issues. A striking feature of all these relationships is the rapid pace of developments, so that snapshots of events taken at a particular moment rapidly become out-of-date. In this paper, and against that fast-changing background, I concentrate on two prominent current issues, principally involving China, Burma (Myanmar), and Thailand, and the Mekong and the Salween, as trans-national rivers.
The first of these issues relates to the controversies associated with plans for the construction of dams on the Salween River, the last free-flowing river in Southeast Asia; the second to developments associated with the greatly increased navigation of the Mekong River now taking place between southern Yunnan and northern Thailand. In the case of the Mekong, it is important to recognise that the rapid changes that have taken place in connection with navigation of the river should be seen as part of the much greater prospective changes to the river as a whole. These include the continuing program of dam construction being undertaken in China and new proposals which are contemplated in studies undertaken by the Mekong River Commission (MRC), the World Bank (WB) and Asian Development Bank (ADB). Additionally, developments associated with various tributaries of the Mekong are a cause for concern. (These latter issues associated with the Mekong, and which are separate from the navigation developments, are discussed briefly in the Appendix to this paper.)
Long neglected outside the circles of advocacy Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), the environment has increasingly become an issue of political importance in Southeast Asia and, now, in China.[3] While it would be an exaggeration to suggest that environmental concerns can, by themselves, determine government policy, there is no doubt that they have an importance that plays a part in decision-making, as demonstrated in the accounts that follow. The salience of this observation is given weight by the emphasis placed on environmental issues by the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, in his recent address to the National People’s Congress on 5 March 2007, when he said, ‘We must make conserving energy, decreasing energy consumption, protecting the environment and using land intensively the breakthrough point and main fulcrum for changing the pattern of economic growth.’[4] And in Thailand, a country which receives detailed attention in this paper, the environmental movement has played an increasingly active and politically important role for well over a decade, particularly in constraining the government from developing further dams to produce hydroelectric power within Thai territory.[5]
The Salween
Like the Mekong, the Salween River rises in Eastern Tibet at a height above 4,000 metres, where for several hundred kilometres it runs parallel to both the Mekong and the Yangtze, forming part of what is known as the ‘Three Parallel Rivers’ region. After passing through Yunnan, where it is known as the Nu Jiang, or ‘Angry River’, a reflection on the speed of its flow, it enters and flows through Burma. For a distance of some 120 kilometres during its passage through Burma it forms the national boundary between Burma and Thailand. It then resumes its course through Burma alone, finally emptying into the Gulf of Martaban at Moulmein. (For the purposes of this paper, I refer to the river under discussion as the ‘Salween’, when discussing its entire length and that section which flows through Burma and beside Thailand. I use the name ‘Nu’, or ‘Nu Jiang’ when discussing the river and its course in China. The river is also known as the ‘Thanlwin’ within Burma, a usage restricted to that country, but sometimes appearing in news reports generated in Burma but carried elsewhere.)
Although the second longest river flowing through Southeast Asia, the Salween at an approximate total length of 2,800 kilometres – this length is disputed, with some estimates giving its length as 3,200 kilometres – is much shorter than the Mekong (4,900 kilometres). The topography of the regions through which the Salween flows is sharply different from much of what exists along the Mekong’s course, particularly after the latter leaves China when it flows through a largely flat, immediately surrounding landscape. Until it reaches its delta in Burma, the Salween flows almost entirely through sharply rising gorges on either side of its banks. In Tibet and western Yunnan some of these gorges rise to a height of 3,000 metres above the river. Even in the region where the Salween flows between Burma and Thailand, where the height of the surrounding gorges is much reduced, the topography is such that it still provides an ideal physical setting for dam construction. (See Photograph 1 of the Salween taken at Ban Sam Laep, on the left [Thai] bank, where the river forms the boundary between Thailand and Burma.)
Photograph 1: Salween at Ban Sam Laep
Of great importance to any discussion of the Salween’s future as a prospective site for a series of dams is the rich biodiversity existing along its entire course. In addition there is a remarkably diverse set of minority ethnic population groups in the regions through which it flows, both in China and Burma. Indeed, the presence of ethnic minorities along the Salween in Burma has been the touchstone for the vigorous opposition to the plans for the construction of dams on the river from a varied range of advocacy NGOs, most particularly in Thailand. Both in Burma and in China there is concern among human rights advocates that dam building will lead to the displacement of populations. And this prospect, as discussed later, is seen by critics of the Burmese regime as yet another example of that government’s efforts to impose control over dissident minorities.
Map 2: Potential dam sites of the Salween River
Among advocacy NGOs concerned with environmental issues there has been considerable focus on the Three Parallel Rivers region already mentioned. This area was inscribed on the list of World Heritage sites in 2003 for its identity as the ‘epicentre of Chinese biodiversity’ which is ‘also one of the richest temperate regions of the world in terms of biodiversity’.[6] On the basis of a map published by the International Rivers Network, the designated Heritage area does not include the Nu itself, but rather is located close to the river’s right, or western bank, as well as taking in areas further east, close to the Mekong and the Yangtze. (See Map 1 entitled ‘Proposed dams along the Nu (Salween)’, showing the course of the Nu and the sites of proposed dams in China.)
In both Burma and Thailand, areas bordering the Salween are rich in reserves of teak. And as is the case with the Mekong, the Salween is a major source of fish -- many of which are migratory -- for the populations living by or close to it, particularly in the rich agricultural region of its delta.[7]
What is planned, and why?
The possibility of constructing dams on the Salween River to generate hydroelectric power has been under discussion for some time, certainly for well over a decade. The plans under discussion fall into two categories: those for dams to be constructed in China, and those to be constructed either within Burma or on that section of the Thai-Burma border formed by the river. For the moment, and as detailed below, substantial uncertainty remains as to just how many of the dams will actually be built. What is more clear are the reasons why there are plans to build them, and why these plans have excited opposition. In the case of the dams projected for the Nu in China, the available evidence suggests that these have been conceived in the planners’ minds essentially for the provision of power to industry within Yunnan province.[8]
While Yunnan province, with its high concentration of minority peoples, was neglected by the Chinese central government for many years, it is now seen as an important region in Beijing’s ‘Develop the West’ strategy. And in this regard, it is now targeted for industrial development, particularly around the provincial capital, Kunming. Developing dams on the Nu for hydropower accords with the reasons behind the construction of the dams that have already been built or are under construction on the Mekong. (The dam currently under construction at Jinghong, in southeastern Yunnan, will be an exception to this general rule since it is designated to supply power to Thailand when completed.)
Among the dams planned for Burma, or on the Thai-Burma border, two are to be located in the Shan State. One will be at Tasang — which may consist of two linked reservoirs — while another, so far simply designated as the ‘Upper Thanlwin hydropower project,’ will be constructed further north on the river. Its exact location has not been given in news reports. Both are projected to be connected to the Mekong Power Grid, a project promoted as one of the programs developed within the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) forum, with the backing of the ADB. Under this program, power generated by dams in Burma, China and Laos will supply electricity to Thailand and Vietnam. The dams planned for construction on the Thai-Burma border, at Wei Gyi and Dagwin, and possibly Hutgyi (also transliterated as Hut Gyi and Hatgyi), are projected to supply power to an even larger grid, the ASEAN Power Grid, a plan embraced by ASEAN with the goal of supplying electric power from a grid serving all ten member countries by 2011.[9]
China
Details of China’s current plans for dams on the Nu Jiang are not readily accessible, and the status of these plans is made more uncertain because of the lack of public information about the extent to which they are under reconsideration. The fact that there is this lack of information and uncertainty about Chinese plans is not surprising and conforms to a similar state of affairs in the early stages of the planning for dams on the Mekong. In the case of the Chinese dams on that river, very little was known about them outside of China until more than a decade after construction began on the first dam in the 1980s. This state of affairs reflects a Chinese view that it has no obligation to make public statements about developments within its own territory until a time of its own choosing. The account that follows is therefore open to qualification if and when new information becomes available.
It appears that a detailed proposal to build 13 dams on the upper section of the Nu was first put forward in 1999, by the State Development and Reform Commission. This were then elaborated in August 2003, when officials in Yunnan put forward plans which were subsequently approved by the central government.[10] The absence of information about the dams outside China was made strikingly clear when former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin admitted in December 2003, at a time when there was much public discussion about China’s plans for 13 dams on the Nu, that he had no knowledge of China’s intentions.[11] With the announcement of the plans it became clear that several of the dams would be located close to the Three Parallel Rivers heritage region, and their construction was set to involve the relocation of some 50,000 people.
To the considerable surprise of outside observers, the announcement that dams would be built on the Nu brought an unprecedented series of protests from within China itself, including from the Chinese Academy of the Sciences, two prominent Chinese NGOs, the China Environmental Culture Association and Green Watershed, as well as some prominent individuals. And an even greater surprise followed, given China’s poor record on showing concern for environmental issues, when the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, announced at the beginning of April 2004 that the plans to build 13 dams would not proceed and that the project was to be reconsidered.[12] Nevertheless, and without any further official statements having been made, a range of reports suggested that plans remained for four dams to be built on the Nu. In the absence of official statements it is necessary to rely on press reports in an effort to identify which dams were still likely to be built. And it may be that five, rather than four dams, will still be built.
So, despite the unavailability of firm information about China’s plans, it would certainly be wrong to assume that they have been completely shelved. There is evidence that officials in Yunnan were not reconciled to the announcement by Premier Wen, at least in the period shortly after he made it. According to an Associated Press report from 9 April 2004, the director of the Nu River Power Bureau in Yunnan, Li Yunfei, stated that he had not heard of any changes to the plans to construct dams. While this may only suggest that decisions taken in Beijing sometimes reach outlying provinces very slowly, there are other indications that preliminary preparations, at least, continue along the course of the river.
A detailed report of a journey along the course of the Nu in China in 2006 makes clear that preparations of various kinds, apparently linked to future dam construction, continue to be made. Published in the online journal, The Irrawaddy, of 28 February 2007, Rudy Thomas gives an account of visiting 12 of the 13 sites originally designated as dam sites.[13] Despite his reference to having visited 12 sites, Thomas in his article only refers specifically to activities at five sites as he travelled upstream from just above the Burmese border with China: these sites were at Yan San Shu, Saige, Abilou (this toponym is clearly a misprint for Yabilou), Maji and Songta. At none of these sites was actual dam construction taking place, in the sense that dam walls were being erected. Rather, what Thomas describes appears to be work preliminary to construction, such as core sampling, road construction and tunnelling.
In his article Thomas provides information on the planned size of two of the dams, those at Maji and Songta, that is consistent with the details provided by the International Rivers Network, by far the most active of all international advocacy NGOs in relation to river issues (see Table 1). At Maji, located ‘north of the riverside town of Fugong’, the planned dam will have a 300 metre high wall and will displace 20,000 people. While at Songta, ‘just north of the border that separates the Nu River Prefecture and the Tibetan Autonomous Region’, the planned dam’s wall will be 307 metres high, with a reservoir stretching back 80 kilometres. If these details are correct, the two proposed dams are very large, with dam walls roughly the same height as the Xioawan dam currently under construction on the Mekong. The dam at Xioawan is frequently spoken of as set to be the second largest dam in China after the Three Gorges dam on the Yangtze. Another very recent reference to the Chinese dams on the Nu, in Asia Sentinel, states that Chinese construction crews ‘began the first efforts to dam the river this week’, that is, in the last week of February 2007.[14] Without further information, it remains unclear whether this report adds to the information provided by Thomas, or whether the reference is essentially to continuing preliminary construction works.
In contrast to the sizeable body of literature that exists discussing, and frequently condemning, the Chinese dams built on the Mekong for their predicted long-term detrimental environmental effects on the countries downstream of China, there has so far been little material published that analyses what dams built on the Nu will mean for the countries downstream of China: Burma and Thailand. The suggestion in the Asia Sentinel article cited above that the Chinese dams ‘are expected to raise government hackles in Rangoon’, is not borne out by other similar information or judgments. Given Burma’s extremely close relations with China, on which it is dependent in so many ways, it seems unlikely that the Burmese government would express a critical view of Chinese intentions, even if it did, indeed, hold concerns about the dams. At the same time, while NGOs which take an active role in relation to the proposed dams for Burma and Thailand make passing reference to possible developments in China, they have not developed arguments dealing with the possible effects of the Chinese dams in the downstream regions in the same manner as has been done in relation to the Mekong, and the effects on the countries downstream of China. Nevertheless, and when, as seems most likely, at least four dams will be built on the Nu, it is reasonable to expect that there will be more vocal and developed criticism from advocacy NGOs, particularly in Thailand. This criticism is likely to be directed both at the possibility that Chinese dams will affect fish stocks in the river and at the human rights issues involved in population displacement.
There is little basis on which to assess China’s likely reaction to the protests that have been lodged in relation to the dangers to the heritage status of the proposed dams to be built in the Three Parallel Rivers region. As already noted, these protests have come from within China as well as from external bodies. The concerns expressed by the World Conservation Union were probably the most important of those coming from organisations outside China and which were considered at the twenty-ninth meeting of the World Heritage Committee meeting in Durban, in 2005. At that meeting the World Heritage Committee agreed to send ‘a reactive monitoring mission’ to evaluate the ‘progress made on the conservation of the property’, and to ‘assess the impact of planned dams on the outstanding universal values of the site, its integrity and downstream communities’.[15]
Before the monitoring mission made its visit to the Three Parallel Rivers region, China submitted a statement to the World Heritage Committee, in January 2006, which stated that there were no plans for dams in the eight areas that make up the World Heritage site. The statement noted, however, that plans had been developed for hydropower stations (dams) adjacent to the site. Of these hydropower stations, to a total of 17, three were being considered for the Nu, with the others under study for the Jinsha (the upper reaches of the Yangtze) and the Lancang (Mekong) Rivers.[16]
Following their visit to the Three Parallel Rivers region, the two-person monitoring team, composed of a representative each from UNESCO and the World Conservation Union, reported that the Chinese authorities with whom they consulted indicated an intention to reduce the area of the heritage area that had been inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2003 by approximately 20%, and more particularly that:
While the Mission noted the repeated commitment of accompanying officials to applying stringent Chinese laws and policies towards protection of the World Heritage Site, the evidence of intrusions from mining, tourism and proposed changes to inscribed boundaries and the lagging release of hydrodevelopment plans, continues to raise concerns about the future integrity of the inscribed property. The existing mining operations within some of the inscribed properties also suggest the possibility of listing the property on the List of World Heritage in Danger.[17]
At the Thirtieth Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, in July 2006, and in the light of the monitoring mission’s report, the committee noted that although Chinese officials had given assurances that any future dams would not affect the World Heritage Site, this could not be corroborated since the mission’s members were not given any Environmental Impact Assessments or maps relating to the proposed dams that China intends to build. In addition, ‘evidence from maps, the inspection of hydro-power development exploratory works, unclear boundaries and advice on proposed dams in the vicinity of the World Heritage property suggest that direct and indirect impacts of dam construction on the property may be considerable’. Concluding that China’s positive conservation measures ‘are regrettably overshadowed by grave concerns about the, as-yet unreleased, plans for hydro-development’, the Committee called on China to submit a report by 1 February 2007 giving details on its plans for dams within the Site area.[18]
To date, I have not been able to find evidence that China has submitted the report the UNESCO committee requested. A lengthy report in the China Youth Daily of 17 July 2006 suggested that there was disagreement between national and local authorities about the possibility of building dams in the Three Parallel Rivers region, and that no ‘national approval’ had been given for the construction of dams on the Nu.[19] If reports such as those already noted suggesting, at the very least, that preparatory work for dam construction is already taking place are correct, this could be taken to mean that concerns to develop hydropower have trumped conservation considerations. If so, there is the likelihood that China will endeavour to retain the Three Parallel Rivers region’s heritage classification by excising the areas closest to the Nu, and other rivers from it. Whether this will be acceptable to the UNESCO Committee is difficult to assess, as is the degree of Beijing’s concern not to alienate international feeling as the 2008 Olympics draw ever nearer. The China Youth Daily reporter chose to be optimistic in concluding his article cited above with the comment that:
In the end the World Heritage Convention (sic) did not use its ‘yellow card,’ giving everyone a chance to rest a little easier, though we hope that at the next convention we will hear some good news about the Three Parallel Rivers Region.
Yet to conclude in this Panglossian fashion that ‘all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds’ may neither be justified, nor a reliable index of central government thinking on environmental issues. The World Heritage Committee appears to act in an essentially apolitical fashion in placing sites on its endangered list, and there is no certainty that it will not be ready to act in the same way in relation to the Three Parallel Rivers region. At the same time, and just as Wen Jiabao’s decision in 2004 to halt plans for the construction of 13 dams on the Nu was a surprise to many observers, the emphasis placed by the Chinese premier on environmental questions in his recent address to the National People’s Congress on 5 March suggests that it cannot now be assumed that the central government will simply disregard the World Heritage Committee’s concerns.
Thailand
Until the overthrow of the Thaksin government in September 2006, Thailand was deeply involved in planning for the construction of five dams on the Salween -- three in Burma and two on the border between the two countries -- after the river flowed out of China. This involvement reflected Thailand’s growing energy needs and concerns on the part of its Electricity Generating Authority (EGAT) to avoid building dams in Thailand itself, where they had become a highly controversial issue. Discussions about these dams began in 1994 when Thailand signed a preliminary agreement to purchase electricity from dams on the Salween that would be built in Burma. (Prospective sites for dams on the Salween are shown in Map 2.)
It was not until December 2005 that EGAT and the Burmese Ministry of Electric Power signed a Memorandum of Agreement for the construction of a dam at Hutgyi, in Burma, as the first of five planned dams on the Salween, either in Burma or on the Thai-Burma border. Later, in September 2006, EGAT was reported as finally formalising plans for the five dams, and as having stated that previous plans were being discarded since they could have been regarded as Thai interference in Burma’s domestic affairs. Under the December 2005 agreements between Thailand and Burma, preliminary plans were drawn up for dams that would be constructed at Hutgyi, Tasang, and a further unnamed location in Shan State, in Burma, and at Weigyi and Dagwin, where the river runs between Burma and Thailand. With an estimated total cost of US$10 billion, the dams were projected to be able to produce 10-15,000 MW of power, with Thailand receiving up to 90% of the energy produced. The remaining 10% generated was to be provided free to Burma. As of August 2006 an agreement was in place for the first dam to be built at Hutgyi by the major Chinese construction firm, Sinohydro, partly with Chinese funding, with work set to begin in December 2007.[20]
The plans for the Salween dams, as they stood before the overthrow of the Thaksin government in September 2006, attracted vigorous criticism from advocacy NGOs, particularly those concerned with human rights, but also in relation to environmental issues. Prominent opposition political figures, such as former chairman of the Thai Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kraisak Choonhavan, were also active in condemning the planned dams.[21] The Tasang dam will, when constructed, be the largest dam in Southeast Asia, with a wall rising 228 metres and the capacity to generate 7,100 MW. During 2006 preliminary roadworks for access to the dam site at Tasang were carried out by a Thai real estate and construction firm, MDX. Now, in April 2007, reports have emerged stating that work has commenced on the dam proper. This news has coincided with the announcement of the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Burmese government and two Chinese firms for the construction of the Upper Thanlwin dam mentioned earlier in this paper, and which will have a generating capacity of 2,400 MW.[22]
Both the Tasang and Upper Thanlwin dam sites are in Burma’s Shan State, a region which has already experienced large-scale forced population relocation as part of the Burmese government’s concern to exercise control over dissident, and potentially dissident, minority populations. A variety of NGO reports estimate that up to 300,000 people have been forcibly relocated in Shan State over the past decade.[23]
Human rights issues, as these relate to ethnic minority dissidents, have also been raised in the case of the planned Hutgyi dam. The area in which the dam is to be built is home to members of the Karen minority, who have long opposed Burmese control, and there have been reliable reports of the Burmese government engaging in forced relocation of the population in the area as roads are built and villages are destroyed to make way for large-scale agriculture. One indication of the problems in the general Hutgyi area has been the increased flow of refugees across the border into Thailand. And as a sign of the militarisation of the area an EGAT employee engaged in survey work for the Hutgyi dam was killed by a landmine in May 2006.[24]
Following the military coup that ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin, the Energy Minister in the new interim Thai government, Piyasvasti Amranand, announced in October 2006 that he did not intend to go forward with the agreements reached between Thailand and Burma for the construction of five dams on the Salween. This announcement was greeted with surprise, but appears to accord with Piyasvasti’s reputation as an independent-thinking technocrat with well-established qualifications in the energy field. His independence was underlined by his decision to resign from his position as a deputy permanent secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office, in 2003, following policy disagreements that included energy issues, particularly as these related to Thaksin’s hopes to privatise EGAT. In making his announcement, Piyasvasti mapped out his own view of how Thailand should meet its future energy needs, placing greater emphasis that had previously been the case on purchasing energy from Laos and sourcing gas supplies from the Middle East and from Cambodia, Indonesia and Vietnam. Nevertheless, and despite Piyasvasti’s announced decision not to proceed with the agreements Thailand had previously reached with Burma in relation to the suite of dams on the Salween, it has become clear that his government is still committed to the Hutgyi dam on the Salween.[25] And as already noted, construction of a dam at Tasang with the involvement of a Thai construction company has apparently begun.
Beyond the fact that this commitment will continue to be contested by human rights groups, and recently formed the basis of a major protest by advocacy NGOs on 28 February, the policies being followed by the interim Thai government that has replaced the Thaksin regime are clearly less accommodating to Burma than those of its predecessor. This policy, characterised by Thaksin as ‘forward engagement’, looked to Thailand’s closer association with the Burmese regime in a range of economic activities, of which dams on the Mekong was one of the most important. Other areas in which ‘forward engagement’ was to define policies included the proposed involvement of Thailand in the exploitation of gas reserves in the Bay of Bengal and also in projected mining and logging ventures. Given the increasing readiness of some ASEAN members to criticise the State Peace and Development Committee (SPDC) regime in Burma, it will be of considerable interest to see whether this change in Thailand’s policies, with the decision to draw back in relation to the Salween dams as a key element, results in further pressure on Burma to make at least some gestures towards reform. There are few signs that this is likely.
Navigating the Mekong
When River at risk was published in 2004, clearance of obstacles to navigation in the Mekong River between southern Yunnan and northern Thailand had just been completed. This operation followed the signature, by China, Burma, Laos and Thailand, in April 2000, of the Agreement on Commercial Navigation on the Mekong-Lancang River, which envisaged the eventual clearance of the river as far as the former Lao royal city of Luang Prabang. Despite the Environmental Impact Statement for the clearance program delivered in 2001 -- in which China had a major input -- being sharply criticised by outside observers, clearance began the following year. Financed entirely by China, and with the work largely undertaken by Chinese work crews, 23 separate rapids, reefs and other obstacles were removed from the river bed to make possible year-round navigation of the Mekong by vessels up to 150 Dead Weight Tons (DWT) as far as Chiang Saen.[26]
Although the original plan for this first stage of the clearance operation envisaged obstacles being removed from the river as far as the Thai river port at Chiang Khong (and its Lao neighbour located directly across the Mekong, Huay Xai), unresolved boundary issues have meant that a final, major set of obstacles just upstream from Chiang Khong remain ― the boundary issues involved appear to relate to concerns on the part of Thai authorities that the removal of these obstacles might affect the thalweg, which is the national boundary between Thailand and Laos, as well as affecting the territorial status of sandbanks that regularly appear in the river during periods of low water. For the moment, with these obstacles still in place, Chiang Kong effectively functions as a terminal for Lao river vessels, but it is not accessible to large Chinese vessels that berth at Chiang Saen.
It also seems likely that no action has been taken to clear this remaining obstacle since there is a recognition that Chiang Khong will relatively soon become an important link in the road system that is being developed to run from Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province in China, to Bangkok. This highway will pass through Laos and will eventually cross the Mekong over a bridge at Chiang Khong. Approval for the construction of this bridge has already been given by the Thai government.[27] As for the rest of the river clearance plan that was the subject of the agreement concluded between China, Burma, Laos and Thailand in 2000, and which would have seen clearance extend into Laos as far as Luang Prabang, there are no current signs that any of the parties are pressing for this to take place.
In terms of the parts played by the four parties to the 2000 navigation agreement since the clearances were completed, the roles of China and Thailand have been much more important than those of Burma and Laos. Burma’s interest in the Mekong, despite the river’s forming a national boundary, is limited by the fact of sparse settlement in the region past which the river flows. For the Burmese authorities the Irrawaddy River is of greater importance as a navigable waterway, a fact that is important to the Chinese, also, who see it as a future link in a road/river transport system that would give it access from Yunnan to the Bay of Bengal. As for Laos, as noted below its vessels appear unable to compete with Chinese cargo boats over the cleared section of the river.
In terms of the expansion of navigation on the Mekong since 2004, what has occurred is remarkable, even though there is a dearth of accurate and fully up-to-date statistics to quantify developments. In China there are now two fully functioning river ports capable of handling cargo vessels throughout the year. These are at Jinghong, the last major settlement in southern Yunnan, and Guan Lei, an almost entirely new town only recently carved out of the surrounding jungle. Major dockworks were still being built when I visited Guan Lei, in February 2003, to board a cargo boat for travel down the Mekong. These dockworks have now been completed. And in Thailand substantial developments at Chiang Saen have made that river port, and current terminal for vessels coming downriver from China, both an important trade link and a settlement in the process of demographic transformation.[28]
As recently as 2006, most Chinese vessels coming to Chiang Saen were still loading and unloading their cargo a little upstream of the town. They did this by mooring next to a section of the river’s bank that had been concreted for stability. There, with gangs of labourers employed to shift the cargo, it was carried over planks stretched between the boats and the shore. This very basic method of shifting cargo was apparently designed to circumvent paying port charges. This was despite the existence of port facilities constructed by the Thai authorities as long ago as 2004. These facilities are now in full use, as I witnessed them in January of this year. They consist of two covered pontoon docks equipped with conveyor belts and ramps suitable for truck traffic. At the time I observed the port in action, the pontoon docks were servicing eight vessels. Despite the presence of the conveyor belts linked to each dock, much of the cargo handling was still being carried out by labour gangs, with the bulk of the cargo being unloaded from China consisting of fresh fruit and vegetables.
Some heavier goods were being loaded on to trucks on the docks and trucks were also being used to bring Thai palm oil and sacks of soybean meal as backloading of the Chinese vessels for their return trip. A mobile crane was also in use for even heavier items than those picked up or delivered by truck. In the light of the current activity around this existing port, there are plans to build a further facility downstream from Chiang Saen, which will be capable of servicing vessels up to 500 DWT.[29] Although some of my informants spoke of work already being under way for this new port, with feasibility studies supposed to have been completed by 2006, I did not see any indication of this during my visit to Chiang Saen. (See Photograph 2 of Chinese vessels moored at the existing Chiang Saen facilities in January 2007.)
Photograph 2: Chinese vessels at Chiang Saen
As a reflection of the Chinese dominance in this river trade, when I was in Chiang Saen, there were no fewer than 24 Chinese vessels in port and strung out over a distance of some kilometres along the river. This was in contrast to the three Lao vessels I observed, and the total absence of Thai vessels. Anecdotal accounts from Thai informants to whom I spoke in both Chiang Saen and Chiang Khong suggest that the imbalance between Chinese and Thai vessels travelling on the river is of the order of 90% to 10%. In general, Thai vessels are smaller and less powerful than their Chinese counterparts; this fact was the cause for some controversy and resentment during the 2003-04 dry season, when the Mekong fell to unusually low levels. Although this fall was certainly connected to an unusually short wet season and subsequent drought, there is no doubt that the low levels also reflected the fact that the Chinese authorities were holding back water discharges from their dams on the Mekong, at Manwan and Daochaoshan. They did this so that they could then release water in sufficient quantity for Chinese vessels to travel to and from Chiang Saen. The less powerful Thai vessels were unable to make the same transits in the relatively short period the river’s water levels remained navigable.[30]
There are no reliable statistics for the number of Chinese vessels using the port on an annual basis, though it is certain that the figure of 3,000 vessels claimed for 2004 -- an increase from 1,000 the year before -- has most certainly been exceeded. As for the figures for the trade that passes through Chiang Saen, unofficial figures compiled by researchers for the Indochina Media Memorial Foundation, in Chiang Mai, for 2006, show a balance heavily in Thai favour, with imports from China totalling approximately US$36 million, while exports to China were approximately three times larger at US$115 million.[31] These figures take little account of the impact China’s imports are having in northern Thailand, a point emphasised by former senator Kraisak Choonhavan, in conversations I had with him in both 2005 and 2007. He draws attention to the fact that the bulk of Chinese goods shipped into northern Thailand is made up of fruit and vegetables. These are often landed at prices against which local farmers cannot compete. This is particularly the case with garlic and onions, though there have been periods when poor growing conditions in China reversed this situation.
In March 2006 a little-publicised agreement was signed by Burma, China, Laos and Thailand to permit the transport of oil from Thailand to southern Yunnan. Under this agreement, the amount of refined oil to be shipped from Chiang Saen was set at 1,200 tons each month. Although a relatively small amount, the agreement immediately sparked environmental concerns, not least because the oil was to be shipped in barrels rather than in specially constructed vessels, so that a collision or grounding of vessels carrying oil would pose a major risk to the Mekong and its fish stocks. So far there has only been a report of one shipment having been made, of 300 tons -- with 150 tons of oil being loaded on each of two vessels. But Chinese officials have indicated that they have much bigger plans in mind and have spoken of future shipments of up to 70,000 tons per year. In speaking in these terms, a Chinese official linked the shipment of oil from Thailand to southern Yunnan with his country’s concern about the possibility of Middle Eastern oil shipments through the Straits of Malacca being blocked by the United States should there be conflict between China and Taiwan. Leaving aside the likelihood of such a development occurring, the suggestion that 70,000 tons shipped up the Mekong would represent a major answer to China’s energy security concerns appears to be a notable exercise in hyperbole. Today, even a moderately sized tanker carries that amount of oil. Possibly more to the point is the fact that Thailand subsidises the cost of oil so that shipments made by way of the Mekong will be landed in Yunnan at a lower price than would otherwise be the case for oil brought overland from Chinese coastal ports.[32]
Of considerable interest is the impact that the Mekong River trade is having on Chiang Saen town, and more generally within Chiang Rai province, within which the town is located. Until the early 1980s Chiang Saen, which I visited several times during that decade, was little more than an overgrown village beside the Mekong River. Once the site of a small, fourteenth century kingdom, whose walls remain to the present day, it and the river plains surrounding the town were the site of repeated clashes between Thai and Burmese armies in the eighteenth century, to the point where the settlement had almost disappeared by the nineteenth century. Although, by the late 1990s, Chiang Saen had grown in size and was used in a limited fashion as a terminal for trade between southern Yunnan and northern Thailand, its status was transformed by the navigation clearances completed in 2004. Most particularly, its growth in size has been accompanied by what, for want of a better word, may be described as its ‘Sinification’.
Chinese immigration into Thailand has, of course, a long history What is striking about developments at Chiang Saen, and in Chiang Rai province as a whole, is the rapidity with which a new Chinese element has become part of the demographic and commercial landscape. This change was well described by Joshua Kurlantzick, of the Carnegie Institute, in an article published in the Bangkok Post in October 2005, in which he wrote of the sudden burgeoning in the number of Chinese restaurants in Chiang Saen, signs in Chinese advertising cheap telephone calls to Yunnan and the apparently dominant presence of Chinese nationals in the town’s commerce.[33] The picture Kurlantzick offered appeared entirely justified in the course of my own visit in January 2007. But, more to the point, it is also the view of the range of Thai informants with whom I discussed the impact of Chinese in-migration, both legal and otherwise, into Chiang Saen and Chaing Rai province. These informants, who included a senior Thai politician, business figures in both Chiang Mai and Chiang Khong, and Thai NGO representatives, provided an anecdotal picture of unregulated Chinese immigration into Chiang Saen, with illegal immigrants marrying Thai women in order to regularise their status and become eligible to own land. In no case were my informants able to quantify the number of Chinese immigrants who had settled in the area around Chiang Saen, but there seems no basis for doubting the basic validity of their accounts.
One reason this is so is the quite clear indication that illegal and undocumented Chinese immigration into Burma, Laos and Thailand has been taking place for some time. It is now accepted that Lashio and Mandalay in Burma have Chinese populations exceeding 50% and 25% respectively. As recorded in The paramount power, illegal Chinese immigration into Laos is a real, if undocumented, fact, with the new arrivals ranging from poor rural peasants to minor businessmen. Chinese settlement in northern Thailand, in Chiang Rai province, is taking place at a time when there has been a major increase in Chinese commercial activity in the region, with the most active role being played by interests based in Yunnan. While the announcement of plans, such as those for an industrial estate in Chiang Saen, may not always proceed at the pace their promoters promise, the overall picture is one of Chinese corporations playing an increasingly active role in the region. According to Dai Jie, deputy director of Yunnan Provincial Bureau of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, a three-phase project consisting of a ‘commodities city, duty-free zone and a supplier’s centre,’ close to Chiang Saen town, is set to be completed in 2014.[34]
As already noted in relation to the shipments of oil up the Mekong from Chiang Saen to Yunnan, the environmental costs of the commercial activity now centred around Chiang Saen are a subject for concern among the active Thai advocacy NGOs that monitor developments linked to the Mekong River. More generally, these groups draw attention to the decline in fish catches along the course travelled by vessels between Chiang Saen and Yunnan, and particularly in relation to catches in the area immediately around the town. They also argue that as a result of changes in flow patterns along the river between Chiang Saen and Chiang Khong river banks and sandbanks used for horticulture in dry seasons continue to be adversely affected. These variations in flow patterns are, the NGOs argue, the product both of the dams that have already been built in China and of the negative hydrological effects of the clearances that have been undertaken to facilitate navigation.[35]
Concluding Remarks
The developments discussed in this paper point to the manner in which environmental issues, and frequently those issues combined with concerns relating to human rights, are playing an increasingly important part in the politics of the Asian region. Concern for the environment is no longer a fringe issue, and there is no more striking illustration of this fact than the domestic opposition that was mounted within China to the proposed dams on the Nu, and which sparked the important but unexpected reaction by the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, to step in and put plans for the construction of 13 dams on hold. Attention has also been drawn in the paper to the important part played by Thai environmental activists in relation to their government’s policies, both towards the Salween and the Mekong.
Although the broader issue of climate change has dominated global discussion of environmental issues, the politics of water, of its use and its availability are receiving ever-greater attention. And this is likely to be increasingly the case as the future use of rivers in China and Southeast Asia intersects with policies linked to energy and increased irrigation. The centrality of rivers and their exploitation to a broad range of political issues is strikingly illustrated in the two cases examined in this paper. In the case of the Salween, energy resources in China, Burma and Thailand, human rights in Burma and intra-ASEAN relations are all issues that stem from the contested future of a river. And for the Mekong, while attention has previously focused chiefly on China’s dam-building activities, the new navigation regime has raised environmental issues while playing a part in the increasing Chinese presence in northern Thailand. That UNESCO should now be involved in what is currently an unresolved issue over the heritage status of the Three Parallel Rivers region, through which the Nu, Mekong and Yangtze all flow, is a testimony to increasingly broad reach of environmental factors.
Neither the Salween nor the Mekong are close to the parlous state of China’s Yellow River, which is suffering from the combined effects of overuse, recurrent droughts, and the decrease of snow-melt as Himalayan glaciers contract in size. The river’s dire condition has prompted consideration within China of the possibility of a transfer of water from other rivers, including even one as far distant as the Yangtze, in an effort to return its flow to a healthy state. So while the Mekong and the Salween are currently in a notably healthy state by comparison with the Yellow River, and indeed, the lower reaches of the Yangtze, their futures are not automatically assured. The fact that both are vital to the well-being of the countries through which they flow make the matters examined in this paper issues of real consequence.
At another level, the issues examined in this paper reinforce the judgments made in The paramount power, as China’s involvement with the countries of Southeast Asia continues to grow. So, at the same time as China seeks to develop hydropower on the Nu within its own territory, it is closely involved through Chinese-based commercial companies in the developments taking place on the Salween beyond its borders. And, as is clear from the information provided on developments associated with navigation of the Mekong, China is both integral to the navigation process itself and becoming ever more deeply involved in the commercial life of Thailand’s Chiang Rai province, in which the river port of Chiang Saen is located. All of these developments reinforce a judgment that China continues to build on its previous successes in dealing with the countries of Southeast Asia — particularly those of the mainland region — to project further its influence on a peaceful basis and in cooperation with those states.
APPENDIX
A brief overview of current, and controversial, issues associated with the Mekong
The content of this paper has, in relation to the Mekong, been essentially concerned with navigation and associated developments. At a broader level, the release of two key documents during 2006 seems likely to spark further controversy in relation to the uses made of the river and the institutions that play a role in determining its future. These documents are: a Mekong River Commission (MRC) draft document, ‘Integrated Basin Flow Management Report No. 8, Flow-regime assessment,’ of February 2006, and a joint World Bank (WB) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) working paper, ‘Future directions for water resource management in the Mekong basin, Mekong Water Resources Assistance Strategy’, released in June 2006.
The first of these two documents has been released at a time when there is very active discussion about the future role of the MRC, in particular the extent to which it can play a role in which its trans-national responsibilities can supersede the interests of its four, individual national members.[36] And, most importantly, it bears on the question of the extent to which the MRC should play a role in promoting development (infrastructure such as dams and water diversion projects) as opposed to its role to date as, essentially, being a repository of knowledge about the Mekong River and its basin.[37] The particular salience of this latter issue is illustrated by the fact that the MRC document discusses in detail a range of predicted and costly effects that could occur in Cambodia -- where fish form the overwhelming source of the population’s protein intake -- in the event of three different ‘flow regimes’.[38]
The WB/ADB Working Paper, which, most usefully, should be read in conjunction with the MRC paper just discussed, states in its ‘Executive Summary’ that the ‘bottom line message of this Mekong Water Resources Assistance Strategy is that the analytical work on development scenarios has, for the first time, provided evidence that there remains considerable potential for development of Mekong water resources’. In the light of this conclusion, and conceived in terms of the river’s trans-national character, the paper urges a move away from ‘the more precautionary approach of the past decade that tended to avoid any risk associated development, at the expense of stifling investments’. While not disregarding risks, the paper argues that ‘balanced development’ should be ‘the driving principle for the management and development of the Mekong River Water resources in the coming years’.[39]
The issues involved in these two documents go the heart of the Mekong’s future and that of the people of the Mekong basin. As such they deserve extended analysis, which is beyond the compass of this brief note. For the moment it is sufficient to observe that should the assumptions in the two documents prove to be incorrect the cost in human terms could be high indeed. One of the reasons for this sombre conclusion is to be found in the problems that are already apparent in the case of infrastructure development on two rivers that are tributaries of the Mekong, the Se San and the Sre Pok, which rise in Vietnam but flow into the Mekong in Cambodia.
As discussed in River at risk, Vietnam’s decision to build dams on Mekong tributaries has resulted in substantial and damaging effects on Cambodian communities living downstream.[40] Despite the warm political relations between Cambodia and Vietnam, no solution has been found to the problems caused by the presence of these dams and the consequences of water releases from them.[41] With the prospect of a very substantial increase in the number of dam projects being undertaken in Vietnam and Laos, some of which are on Mekong tributaries that are trans-national in character, the need to put in place a future, equitable governance of the Mekong system as a whole — an issue central to the MRC and WB/ADB documents — is clearly of great importance. The manner in which this issue is resolved, or a failure to do so, will be of the greatest importance for the 70 million people who live in this great river’s basin.
This article was originally published at Lowy Institute for International Policy, Ausutralian National University, May 2007. Posted at Japan Focus, June 11, 2007.
Milton Osborne is an Australian historian, author, and consultant specializing in Southeast Asia.
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[1] World’s top 10 rivers at risk, Gland, Switzerland, WWF International, March 2007. The other rivers listed, in addition to the Murray-Darling, Mekong and Salween, were the Danube, La Plata, Rio Grande-Rio Bravo, Ganges, Indus, Nile and Yangtze.
[2] River at risk: the Mekong and the water politics of China and Southeast Asia, Lowy Institute Paper 02, The Lowy Institute for International Policy, Sydney, 2004; and, The paramount power: China and the countries of Southeast Asia, Lowy Institute Paper 11, The Lowy Institute for International Policy, Sydney, 2006.
[3] China’s long history of pursuing policies without notable concern for the physical environment is charted in Mark Elvin’s, The retreat of the elephants: an environmental history of China, New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 2004. An important survey of contemporary environmental issues in China is Elizabeth C. Economy’s, The river runs black: the environmental challenge to China’s future, Ithaca NY, Cornell University Press, 2004.
[4] Jim Yardley, Chinese Premier focuses on pollution and the poor, New York Times, 5 March 2007.
[5] See Osborne, River at risk, pp 31-2, in relation to the Pak Mun dam and the subsequent policy shift by the Thai government.
[6] UNESCO World Heritage, Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas.
[7] Background information on the Salween is usefully provided in, The Salween under threat: damming the longest free river in Southeast Asia, published by Salween Watch, Southeast Asia Rivers Network (SEARIN), and the Center for Social Development Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Chiang Mai, 2004. Although quite clearly an advocacy document, there is no reason to question the basic facts provided in it.
[8] Jim Yardley, Chinese project on the Nu-Salween River pits environmentalists against development plans, New York Times, 3 January 2005. See, also, Yunnan hydropower expansion: update on China’s power industry reforms & the Nu, Lancang & Jinsha dams, a paper prepared by Chiang Mai University’s Unit for Social and Environmental Research and Green Watershed, Kunming, People’s Republic of China, February 2004.
[9] For details of the ASEAN Power Grid, see here.
[10] Yardley, as cited in footnote 6.
[11] Bangkok Post, 18 December 2003.
[12] Osborne, River at risk, pp 12-13, and footnote 17.
[13] Please visit here.
[14] Nava Thakuria, India and Burma: such good friends, Asia Sentinel, 27 February 2007.
[15] Executive Summary, Report of a Joint Reactive Monitoring Mission to the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas, China, from 5 to 15 April 2006, pp 2-3.
[16] UNESCO, Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, World Heritage Committee, Thirtieth Session, Vilnius, Lithuania, Asia-Pacific, 8-16 July 2006, pp 5-6.
[17] Ibid, footnote 15.
[18] UNESCO, Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, World Heritage Committee, Thirtieth Session, Vilnius, Lithuania, 8-16 July 2006, Asia Pacific, pp 7-8.
[19] Zhang Kejia, Three Parallel Rivers region focus on monitoring mission. China Youth Daily, 17 July 2006.
[20] These developments are summarised in Will Baxter, Dam the Salween, damn its people, Asia Times Online, 15 September 2006. See, also, Salween Watch Media Advisory, Press conference and submission of petition letter against the Salween Dams in Burma, 28 February 2007.
[21] Interview with Khun Kraisak Choonhavan, 9 January 2007, Bangkok.
[22] Myanmar signs deal with Chinese firms to build hydroelectric plant, International Herald Tribune, carrying an Associated Press report of 7 April 2007. The Chinese firms involved are, Farsighted Investment Group Company Limited and Gold Water Resources Company Limited.
[23] Shawn L. Nance, Unplugging Thailand, Myanmar energy deals, Asia Times Online, 14 November 2006.
[24] Will Baxter, Dam the Salween as cited in footnote 20.
[25] Will Baxter, Thailand and Myanmar at odds over Salween dams, Burma, Archives of global protest, 13 December 2006.
[26] This and the immediately succeeding paragraph draw directly on River at risk, pp 25-9.
[27] The Nation, (Thailand), 9 March 2004.
[28] I visited Chiang Saen and Chiang Khong, most recently, over the period 15-17 January 2007. I first visited this region in 1979 and have continued to visit it on an irregular basis since that time.
[29] Jason Gagliardi, China paves the way for big money to flow down the Mekong, South China Morning Post, 19 February 2004.
[30] See, River at risk, pp 19-20.
[31] Vaudine England, Trade turns Mekong into river of plenty, International Herald Tribune, 6 July 2006.
[32] On the oil shipment, see, Marwaan Macan-Markar, Sparks fly as China moves oil up Mekong, Asia Times Online, 9 January 2007.
[33] Joshua Kurlantzick, China stepping into US vacuum, Bangkok Post, 31 October 2005.
[34] Jason Gagliardi, China paves the way for big money to flow down the Mekong.
[35] Montree Chantawong, The Mekong’s changing currency, Watershed: People’s Forum on Ecology, Vol. 11, No. 2, November 2005 – June 2006, pp 12-25.
[36] Philip Hirsch, Kurt Morch Jensen, with Ben Boer, Naomi Carrard, Stephen FitzGerald and Rosemary Lyster, Executive Summary, National interests and transboundary water governance in the Mekong, May 2006.
[37] For some very recent discussion of this issue, see, Richard P. Cronin, Destructive Mekong dams: critical need for transparency,’ RSIS Commentaries, a publication of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore, 26 March 2007.
[38] Mekong River Commission, Water Utilisation Program, Integrated Basin Flow Management Report No.8, Flow-regime assessment, Draft 1 February 2006, p 57.
[39] WB/ADB Joint Working Paper on ‘Future directions for water resources management in the Mekong River basin, Mekong Water Resources Assistance Strategy,’ June 2006.
[40] River at risk, pp 32-4.
[41] For recent discussion of the Vietnamese dams, see, Montree Chantawong, as cited in footnote 35, and, Sam Rith and Cat Barton, Vietnamese dams proposed for Cambodian river, Phnom Penh Post, 21 September-5 October 2006. (In addition to the discussion of Vietnamese dams, Montree Chantawong’s article also provides details on flow variations, and their effects, in the section of the Mekong between Chiang Saen and Chiang Khong).
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