The Role Of China In Greater Mekong Sub-region (1992-)

This paper analysis Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) is a critical shared resource between the people's republic of China, Lao people's Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. At approximately 4,400 kilometers in length, the Mekong River is one of the world's longest rivers. The total population in its basin at presents about 266 million. The large majority of them earn their living from agriculture and fishing– occupations that account for 50 percent of lower basin's GDP, but recent large-scale resource development especially in the form of hydropower development, pose serious problems within the river basin.In this topic I will review on China's plans for hydropower development on it portion of the upper Mekong basin and their ecological, political and economic implication for the Southeast Asian riparian. It shows that the economic imperative prevails among all riparian states, and that China and the other countries tend to confine their cooperation to infrastructural development rather to consultation or management of potential adverse trans-boundary impacts of upstream development. However, the paper argues that'securitizing'this upstream-downstream problem is not the answer; rather, the way forward must involve first regional security in terms of comprehensive, human and economic security.