In recent years, two powerful narratives have emerged from mainland Southeast Asia. Generally speaking, discussions of the region focus around one of two topics: economic development and environmental degradation. For example, by typing “Mekong” into Google News the first page of results will show articles like this and this. As one can imagine, these two views of Southeast Asia are often in opposition and proponents of each rarely see eye to eye, sometimes going so far as to ignore the other side altogether. Recently, the battleground of these two narratives has been the construction sites of hydroelectric dams (both real and planned) that dot the Mekong River. Proponents of economic development see these dams as a necessary component to continued economic growth in the region. On the other hand, environmentalists point to the unknown ecological costs of the Mekong dams and argue that there are hidden costs to supposedly cheap hydropower. What is lost in the increasingly polarized game of right and wrong is a larger, more nuanced picture of the region and its needs. Some say that the Mekong needs dams while others argue that the region needs better protection measures for its natural resources. But what Southeast Asia really needs is for development fans and environmentalists to stop ignoring each other, and to restart the dialogue. Continue reading
Category Archives: Energy
China & Southeast Asia: Unbalanced Development in the Greater Mekong Subregion
By Xiangming Chen and Curtis Stone
Integrating with Southeast Asia is a key component of China’s multi-pronged regionalisation around its borders as its global rise continues. Below, Xiangming Chen and Curtis Stone consider the ambition of China’s ‘Go Southwest’ strategy to extend its economic interests and influence into Southeast Asia, and explore how China’s regional assertion reinforces the larger trend of new spatial configurations in light of increasing globalisation. The authors show how simultaneous globalisation and regionalisation unleashes a dual process of de-bordering and re-bordering where the traditional barrier role of borders is yielding more to that of bridges, as small, marginal, and remote border cities and towns become larger centers of trade and tourism. This article examines China’s effort to engage Southeast Asia and many of China’s footprints within and beyond the cities of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). Inter-country and intra-regional trade provides the starting point for examining the extent of economic integration in the GMS, and also its unbalanced development.
Going Southwest
In a coffee shop in central Vientiane on a hot summer day in 2012, two young Chinese businessmen from northwestern China, sipping ice-cold Latte, talked about the prospect of a new venture to explore copper in the mountains of northern Laos: ‘If we make $100 and they [Laotians] get $5, they should be happy’. On the outskirts of Yunnan’s capital city of Kunming, China’s fourth largest airport behind Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou (also the world’s fifth largest airport in occupied area), Changshui International Airport, which is expected to have flown 38 million passengers by 2020 and 65 million by 2040, was opened with much fanfare in June 2012. While seemingly disparate, this pair of anecdotes reveals the ambition of China’s ‘Go Southwest’ strategy to extend its economic interests and influence into Southeast Asia.
Integrating with Southeast Asia is a key component of China’s multi-pronged regionalisation around its borders as its global rise continues. China’s regional assertion reinforces a larger trend of new spatial configuration as an inherent part of increasing globalisation driven by China. This simultaneous globalisation and regionalisation unleashes a dual process of de-bordering and re-bordering where the traditional barrier role of borders is yielding more to that of bridges (Chen). As a result, once small, marginal, and remote border cities and towns have become larger and lively centers of trade, tourism, and other flows. China’s effort to engage Southeast Asia leaves many striking footprints within and beyond the cities of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) facilitated Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), which was launched in 1992 and consists of China’s Yunnan Province (with the later addition of Guangxi Zhuang Auto-nomous Region), Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Trade with the GMS Countries
Inter-country and intra-regional trade provides the starting point for examining the extent of economic integration in the GMS as well as its unbalanced development. China’s trade with each of the GMS countries has grown since 1990, most rapidly since 2000 (see Figure 1). Given the size of their economies, Thailand, followed by Vietnam, led the smaller GMS countries in trade with China. However, the total volume of China-Myanmar trade rose by $5.9 billion from 2001 to 2011, while China-Laos trade increased by $1.2 billion (Figure 1). Much of China’s growing trade with Myanmar and Laos occurred through cooperation across international boundaries. The role of Yunnan and its capital city of Kunming in China-GMS trade cannot be understated. Yunnan’s GDP skyrocketed from $33 billion in 2000 to $160 billion in 2012, and the province aims to double that to $320 billion by 2017 through even stronger cross-border economic and trade ties. Kunming acts as the origin and core of economic activities that reach into the bordering countries of Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, and beyond.
Myanmar-China Natural Gas Pipeline Complete, But Complications Remain
Last Monday, Chinese press outlets announced the long-awaited opening of the Myanmar-China Natural Gas Pipeline. The project, which has been in construction for almost four years, is part of a larger plan to import both natural gas and oil from the Bay of Bengal, through Myanmar and into China. The twin natural gas and oil pipelines are a project of great national importance as it is expected that the output from these pipelines will ease China’s growing energy needs. It is little wonder then that the opening of the natural gas pipeline was met with such fanfare.
On the day of its opening, July 29, the announcement was the top story on China Central Television’s evening news and stories ran in national and local newspapers celebrating the pipeline’s completion. The opening ceremony itself was supposedly an affair of great jubilation as well. Xinhua News reported, “”When torches flamed in the sky of Namkham Measuring Station of the Myanmar-China Gas Pipeline, a storm of applause and cheers broke out…”
Celebratory voices were not the only ones to be heard in the days surrounding the pipeline’s completion. This editorial in the English version of the People’s Daily argued that “Irresponsible remarks on the Myanmar-China oil and gas Pipeline should stop as the scientifically feasible project has benefited multiple parties.” According to the editorial, Western criticism of the pipeline stems from a “shady mentality”. These critics are “unwilling to see an intimate relationship between Myanmar and China” and are uncomfortable with the thought of China being energy secure. Continue reading
Filed under China, Current Events, Energy, Health, Myanmar/Burma, Regional Relations
Mekong study tour update: 7.19.2013
Other than top-notch commentary on China and SE Asia, ExSE isn’t known for too much and it’s quite clear now that keeping promises isn’t a strongpoint of ours. If you were expecting regular updates on our excursion to Thailand and Laos, we deeply apologize for not delivering. However, if there’s any worthy excuse, it’s that Brian, Dequn, Tai and I have been too busy learning. The following is simply a recap of what’s been going on so far; the true implications of the things that we’ve learned are too much for me to explore in any one post.
Our first two days were spent rather relaxingly, and thankfully far away from a 3G or broadband connection, taking a cruise down the Chao Praya River with Traidhos Three Generations Barges. On the cruise, we learned the river’s watershed, conservation efforts on the river and its significance to Thailand. It was a wonderful introduction to the country through its principal waterway.
The next morning, we met with Pete Cutter at the World Wide Fund for Nature Greater Mekong Office in Bangkok. The WWF Bangkok Office is involved in some very important efforts to preserve more than a half-dozen endangered species in the region and coordinates often with other NGO’s and governments in the GMS.
Our two days in Chiang Mai, where I’m writing from now, have been our most fruitful. Thanks to our friend and ExSE team member Tom Fawrthrop, we were able to meet with many of the top journalists, NGO heads and scholars in northern Thailand. On the 16th we had a lunch talk with Tom himself and learned a ton on the region in general, and specifically the dangers of the 1250MW Xayabouri Dam in the Lao Mekong and the movement to resist its completion. We then two lectures by Professor Narut and Professor Panuwat from the Chiang Mai University Political Science Department on Thailand’s economic role in the GMS and democracy in Thailand, respectively. Afterwards, we met with the Forest Restoration Research Unit at Doi Suthep National Park and learned about their groundbreaking research on tropical forest care. Continue reading
Filed under ASEAN, Culture, Economic development, Energy, GMS, Governance, Laos, Mekong River, Myanmar/Burma, Thailand, water
China needs to change its energy strategy in the Mekong region
At the end of this year cars and container trucks loaded with goods from China and Thailand will finally be able to drive across a multi-lane bridge spanning the Mekong River (known as the Lancang in China). The bridge will connect Chiang Rai province in Thailand to Bokeo province in Laos, effectively linking China’s highways stretching south from Beijing and Shanghai to those coming north from Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok.
Funded by equal investment from the Chinese and Thai government, the completion of the bridge, which took ten years of planning and two years to build, is not without controversy. For many years Thailand held back investment due to an uneven distribution of benefits between China, Laos and Thailand. Also on the Thai side, the NGO Rak Chiang Khong claim the bridge negatively impacts the local Golden Triangle economy and will ruin Mekong fisheries.
The Golden Triangle Bridge serves to highlight the challenges facing China, as the country’s new leadership attempts to balance its slowing and volatile economy and deliver domestic stability by maintaining peaceful economic relations with its neighbours.
China’s regional strategy
“In 2012 China’s growth in trade and outward investment with the five other Mekong countries of Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam surpassed its trade and investment growth in ASEANcountries,” said Xu Ningning, chairman of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Business Council. “Greater growth rates will continue with increases in regional cooperation and win-win investment opportunities.”
For the past three years China’s GMS provinces of Yunnan and Guangxi have posted growth rates of 12-15%, the highest of China’s localities, and arguably China’s economic rise has also helped deliver high growth rates among Mekong countries.
The end of the Cold War in the 1990s created a favourable environment for China to develop its economic cooperation strategies toward the Mekong region. The blurring and opening of once inviolable borders encouraged traders on both sides of the China-Southeast Asia frontier to appeal to local and national governments for better conditions for trade and migration. The Chinese government responded with twenty years of state-led trade liberalisation and investment policies to promote regional cooperation in state and private sectors.
China’s economic cooperation strategies towards its four Mekong neighbours has dovetailed nicely into a strategy that fits China’s current development needs. Liu Jinxin, a policy analyst and logistics expert says, “Unlike the US which leads the world in finance and IT, both high-value service-oriented industries, China is the world’s factory, producing goods to drive the growth of its growing middle class and serving export markets around the world. To survive, the Chinese ‘factory’ needs inputs like energy and raw materials.” Continue reading
The Code of Conduct for the South China Sea: A Waiting Game
On June 30, 2013, following the China-ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting held in Bandar Seri Begawan, capital of Brunei, China released a joint-statement with ASEAN in a post-meeting press conference, indicating that they have agreed to hold “official consultations” on a proposed Code of Conduct (CoC) to govern South China Sea “naval actions”. All parties agreed to move forward with consultations in upcoming meetings to be held in China during September later this year.
Misleadingly or mistakenly billed as a significant paradigm shift by many English language news outlets, this development should not have come as a surprise to anyone. As early as November 2012, China already issued a joint statement with ASEAN at the 15th ASEAN-China Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, marking the 10th anniversary of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) and agreeing to “keep momentum of dialogue” in moving towards a formal Code of Conduct (COC). China also reiterated this commitment in April this year, following the 19th China-ASEAN Senior Officials’ Consultation.
For the casual observer, keeping track of the ins-and-outs of numerous ASEAN-China agreements and cryptic diplomatic sparring over South China Sea (SCS) disputes can be daunting. News reporting differs greatly depending on its country of origin and the same story can be told in a hundred different ways leaving entirely different impressions of what happened. The following is a breakdown of the important historical, political, and legal considerations necessary to understand what the Code of Conduct for the SCS is, why it is important, and how it may eventually come about. Continue reading
Filed under ASEAN, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Current Events, Energy, Foreign policy, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar/Burma, Philippines, Regional Relations, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, water
What’s at Stake for the China-South Asia Expo?
The China-South Asia Expo opened without a hitch yesterday in Kunming despite online calls for a continuation of environmental protests outside of the Expo’s opening ceremony site. It seems protesters decided to stay home due to a combination of sticks and carrots offered by local authorities. On June 3, Kunming’s mayor announced the release of key environmental impact assessment data concerning the construction of a PetroChina oil refinery and PX chemical plant side project scheduled for construction 40 km from the city’s downtown area. Also, the excessive presence of armed and unarmed public security officers lining the city’s streets and manning the Expo site also likely turned protesters away.
What is the rationale behind the excessive security measures? What’s really at stake at the 1st China-South Asia Expo?
The Expo, a combination trade fair and high level forum for investment and trade promotion discussions between China, Southeast Asia, and now South Asia, is part of China’s “Bridgehead Construction” strategy to establish Kunming and Yunnan province as a gateway between China and its neighbors to the south and west. A smoothly running Expo not only will seal multilateral agreements and high-value business deals that will streamline regional trade and investment, but it will also guarantee the continuation of soft-budget infrastructure development projects sponsored by Beijing to Kunming and Yunnan province that are part and parcel of the “Bridgehead” strategy.
China’s media report on Kunming’s environmental protests
The English language discussion of Kunming’s ongoing environmental protests should not exclude China’s official media reports. The translation below is of a 5/28 article from the Southern Weekend website.
Yunnan’s Anning City Retracts Notice on Face Mask Registration
from Southern Weekend （南方周末）May 28, 2013
More than 200 copies of a ‘Letter of Guarantee’ have been signed by vendors of advertising services, printing services, copy services, face masks, and t-shirts. These vendors promise to strictly follow national laws and regulations regarding their commercial business and promise not to speak of rumors, create rumors, or spread rumors. They promise not to participate in any form of information broadcasting, forwarding of messages, and not to participate in sit-ins, protests, or demonstrations of any kind. They promise to not print, create, or publish things related to the Anning PetroChina Oil Refinery or the “China-South Asia “Expo or advertisements, propaganda materials, or any materials of negative influence. This “Letter of Guarantee” goes into effect on the day of signing and is valid through June 30, 2013 and sales of all services above must also be accompanied by ID registration of the purchaser. –Official statement from the Kunming Economic Development Zone Industry and Commerce Bureau.
The exposure of Anning’s required ID registration of face mask purchases has stirred up considerable public debate. On the evening of 5/25, the Anning City government’s press office issued a statement saying Anning’s Industry and Commerce Bureau will retract the notice on face mask registration. But according to a report on 5/27, the “Procedure for registration of face mask purchases” was still in effect for much of the Kunming municipality and was not exclusive to Anning City. Registration is still required for printing, copying, and publication services. Continue reading
Air pollution and Kunming’s prevailing rainy season wind patterns
Click to enlarge image.
This image shows prevailing wind patterns during Kunming’s rainy season which runs roughly from May to October. Strong southwesterly winds bring monsoons from the Bay of Bengal over the Burmese landmass into Yunnan province.
The red rectangle in the southwest corner is the site of the PetroChina oil refinery, the focus of a series of recent environmental protests by concerned Kunming residents. GoogleMaps has detailed imagery of construction site’s layout. The purple area to the north is Kunming’s city center, determined by the area inside of Kunming’s 2nd ring road and home to a population of approximately 2.5mn.
Winds passing over the 10 million ton PetroChina oil refinery will send toxic pollutants directly over Anning city and Kunming’s most populated urban districts. Anning is Kunming’s largest satellite city with an urban population of 100,000. Kunmingers often drive to Anning to soak in its famous hot springs (also predictably in the pollution path), but in the last 10 years, most of Kunming’s heavy industry moved to Anning in an attempt to reduce pollution in the Dianchi Lake watershed.
After passing over Anning, winds become more concentrated and pick up speed to shoot through three passes in the Xishan (Western Hills) mountain range. The solid line represents the most voluminous wind channel. It doesn’t take an expert to see that the oil refinery site was chosen at the most optimal point for dumping pollution onto Kunming. Perhaps this is why city officials are reluctant to release data from the project’s legally mandated environmental impact assessment.
To make matters worse, a strong southerly lake effect wind, constrained by Kunming’s eastern hills, pushes all westerly winds northward into the city center as they break over Xishan mountain range. This guarantees that nearly all winds that pass over the oil refinery site through Kunming’s downtown and finally into the city’s north district, home of an additional 1.5mn residents. Kunming’s north district, currently undergoing a major urban facelift, is planned as one of the city’s new core urban centers with a projected population of 3 to 4 million residents by 2020.
Law of large numbers: The growing gravity of Kunming’s environmental protests
Kunming’s ongoing protest against the construction of a 10mn ton petroleum refinery 40km from the city center continues to gather attention in China’s domestic media and in the international media. Yet despite continuous coverage of the protest in China’s Global Times, South China Morning Post, the Telegraph, the Guardian, and most recently the Atlantic (among many other media outlets), questions concerning the gravity of the protests continue to pop up in online chat forums: Does a protest of 1000+ Chinese citizens in a city of 7 million have impact? Given the numbers, does the average Kunming citizen know about this issue? Can protests of this scale force changes to policy agendas?
ExSE’s answer to all three of those questions is an unequivocal YES. Kunming mayor Li Wenrong would have not made an impromptu engagement with protesters last Thursday if he didn’t see the movement as a legitimate challenge to the status quo. He followed through on his promise to open a Sina Weibo account by noon on 5/18 and since then he’s gathered more than 75000 followers. Further, an online poll created after the initial 5/4 protest exceeded its limit of 100,000 responses within three days. The poll asked a simple yes or no question: Should there be a PX plant in Anning? An overwhelming majority of 80% ticked “no.” It’s no surprise that the poll’s weblink was eradicated last week. Admittedly, there is no way of knowing whether Li Wenrong’s 75k followers are mostly from Kunming, and online polls are never without bias; but the large numbers undeniably say something and suggest that the 2000+ protesters are representative of a much larger group of concerned citizens. Continue reading
