Mekong River Basin International Cooperation: The Organizational and Geopolitical Mobilizations

Abstract

An important example of international cooperation in watershed development is in the Mekong River basin. There has been the entanglement of various forces for nearly a century, as well as the continuous strengthening of international cooperation. After getting rid of the occupation of European countries, the four lower Mekong countries began to develop independently one after another. As the most important transnational water system in Asia, the Mekong River is not only dependent on the development of countries in the river basin but also a good opportunity to establish global international relations. France, the United States, Japan and other countries have participated in the investment of watershed management. Mekong River Commission is the most important international organization in river basin governance. It focuses on the reform of management functions, transfers water resources utilization and some core management functions to the national Mekong River Commission (NHC), changes the operation mechanism, draws lessons from the concept of ASEAN, and tries to lead regional water resources affairs. However, due to its limited financial and human resources, the Mekong River Commission had to seek cooperation between different institutions and mechanisms and area. This would depend on the state of water resources of the Mekong River commission management performance of the Mekong River Commission, development partners, international multilateral organizations (Asian Bank and the World Bank) and Lancang-Mekong cooperation attitude and action. Therefore the question of how the river should be managed, and how countries inside and outside the basin should co-operate, has been hotly debated until now. This paper introduces the development status of the Mekong River in recent years and discusses the different viewpoints of scholars from different countries in terms of the Mekong River Commission and China's Lancang-Mekong Action.

Salinity Intrusion Trends under the Impacts of Upstream Discharge and Sea Level Rise along the Co Chien River and Hau River in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta

“…However, this is only one of the reasons; the primary consequences we disregarded were those caused by humans, such as the sinking of the deltaic system and modifications to river cross-sections (due to, for instance, sand mining and lack of upstream sediments [9,[67][68][69][70][71][72][73]). As such, it is necessary to have appropriate policies regulating riverbed sand mining [74,75] and the operation of upstream hydropower dams [76][77][78][79].…”