From Unequal Relationship to Genuine Partnership
What the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation needs in its second decade
By Pham Phan Long
 |
September 7, 2026
*
On paper, the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) is a success. Since its launch at the first leaders’ meeting in Sanya in 2016, trade between China and Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam have risen sharply. It reached a record US$500.9 billion in 2025—more than 150 percent above the level a decade earlier. Railways, roads, investment and people-to-people exchanges have expanded as well (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China 2026).
That progress is real. But success measured mainly by trade, investment and infrastructure misses a more important question: what kind of relationship is being built?
China and its five Mekong partners do not participate from comparable positions. China is by far the largest economy, a major supplier of manufactured goods and industrial inputs, an important source of capital and infrastructure, and the upstream country on the Lancang. Its downstream partners provide markets, agricultural products, energy, minerals and other resources. All six countries benefit, but their economic scale, productive capacity and bargaining power differ greatly.
Trade and Economic Capacity
Aggregate trade figures are impressive but incomplete. Official Chinese customs data show that in 2025 China exported about US$198.1 billion to Vietnam and imported about US$98.0 billion. With Thailand, China exported about US$103.5 billion and imported about US$49.8 billion. These figures confirm large bilateral trade imbalances, although they do not by themselves establish who benefits more from trade (General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China 2025).
Per-capita comparisons can illustrate how differently the scale of a trading relationship is experienced, but they must be interpreted cautiously. Dividing bilateral exports by population does not measure individual consumption, welfare or bargaining power. It is best understood as an indicator of relative economic exposure.
Using approximate 2025 populations, Chinese exports to Vietnam amounted to roughly US$1,950 per Vietnamese resident, while Vietnamese exports to China amounted to about US$70 per Chinese resident—a bilateral per-capita trade ratio of approximately 28:1.
For Thailand, the corresponding figures were about US$1,440 per Thai resident and US$35 per Chinese resident, producing a ratio of approximately 40:1.
Cambodia presents a much larger difference: approximately US$1,000 in Chinese exports per Cambodian resident, compared with about US$1.20 in Cambodian exports per Chinese resident—a ratio of roughly 840:1.
Because China’s population is much larger, these ratios are necessarily dramatic; their value lies in highlighting the intensity of smaller economies’ exposure to Chinese trade.
The more consequential asymmetry appears in the structure of regional value chains. China supplies machinery, electronic components, technology and capital, while Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar remain strongly dependent on commodities, agriculture and resource-based exports. Vietnam and Thailand have more developed manufacturing bases but also import substantial Chinese inputs for processing and final assembly. Infrastructure financed through external borrowing can improve connectivity while also increasing financial exposure when revenues, local linkages or debt-management capacity fall short.
The central question is therefore not simply whether trade is growing. It is where value is captured, whether domestic capabilities are strengthened, and whether integration reduces or deepens long-term dependence.
Nominal GDP per capita adds another dimension. World Bank data for 2025 place China at about US$13,862, Thailand at US$8,057, Vietnam at US$5,066, Cambodia at US$2,872, Laos at US$2,325 and Myanmar at US$1,489. These figures indicate substantial differences in productive capacity and fiscal room, though nominal GDP per capita is only a rough proxy for living standards and does not account for differences in purchasing power or income distribution (World Bank 2025). The disparity becomes even more evident when GDP per capita is considered alongside percapita trade figures.
The comparison is approximately:
• China vs. Vietnam: 2.7:1
• China vs. Thailand: 1.7:1
• China vs. Cambodia: 4.8:1
• China vs. Laos: 6.0:1
• China vs. Myanmar: 9.3:1
Put simply, the economic output associated with the average person in China is greater than that associated with a person in every Mekong partner country.
Hidden Costs Omitted from GDP
Yet conventional economic statistics omit critical costs. GDP does not subtract depleted resources, environmental damage, lost fisheries, ecosystem decline or community displacement. A dam may add electricity and economic output while altered flows and sediment affect downstream agriculture and fisheries. A mine may generate exports while leaving pollution and restoration costs to nearby or downstream communities. An industrial project may create jobs while increasing pressure on shared water, land and ecosystems.
Research on Mekong hydropower has documented effects on fish migration, river hydrology and sediment transfer, with consequences for food security and livelihoods far from individual project sites. It also emphasizes the need to assess the cumulative effects of multiple dams rather than evaluating each project in isolation (Mekong River Commission n.d.; Mekong River Commission 2022).
The place where value is created is not necessarily where all costs are experienced. In a transboundary basin, the fuller questions are: who captures the value, who bears the risk, and who pays when impacts cross borders?
Laos shows why trade balance alone is insufficient. China is a major source of Lao investment, infrastructure and connectivity, while Laos exports electricity, minerals and agricultural products. The China-Laos Railway has integrated Laos more deeply into Chinese and regional markets, reduced travel times and increased cross-border freight. At the same time, the railway is operated through a joint venture in which Lao interests hold a minority stake, and its financing adds to broader concerns about debt servicing and economic dependence. These features do not erase the railway’s benefits, but they make governance, transparency and the distribution of gains central to evaluating its long-term impact.
Shared Resources, Cross-Border Consequences
Each partner’s integration differs. Vietnam is deeply embedded in Chinese manufacturing supply chains. Thailand has extensive industrial and investment ties. Cambodia is highly exposed to Chinese imports and investment. Laos combines resource exports with substantial Chinese-financed infrastructure. Myanmar’s relationship centers on natural resources, energy and strategic connectivity. These relationships should not be treated as identical. Nor should dependence be reduced to a single trade-deficit measure. It can arise through market concentration, debt, infrastructure ownership, technology gaps, commodity specialization or limited influence over decisions with cross-border effects.
Geography reinforces economic inequality. China has developed a major hydropower cascade on the upper Mekong, known there as the Lancang. The issue is not whether these dams generate electricity and economic benefits; they do. The issue is whether decisions made upstream adequately account for downstream effects on flows, sediment, aquatic ecology, fisheries and livelihoods.
Lower Mekong dams, particularly in Laos, also contribute to cumulative changes, so regional impacts cannot be attributed to China alone. Climate change, sand mining, irrigation, land-use change and tributary development further complicate attribution. Nevertheless, geography creates an unavoidable asymmetry: China controls the upper reaches of a river on which millions downstream depend. The river is shared, while authority over many consequential decisions remains nationally divided.
Critical-mineral supply chains present a similar challenge. Myanmar supplies heavy rare earths and other resources to regional and Chinese industries, while mining can impose pollution, watershed and community risks. Again, the issue is larger than trade. It concerns the distribution of value, control and risk across borders.
Cooperation Needs Accountability
The LMC’s flexibility is a strength. Six countries with different political systems and capacities can cooperate without creating a supranational authority. The original Sanya Declaration called for connectivity, production-capacity cooperation, sustainable water management, data sharing, joint research and poverty reduction (Lancang-Mekong Cooperation 2016).
But flexibility has limits. The LMC is not a basin-wide regulator with binding rules for transboundary environmental impacts. Nor does it provide a clearly independent mechanism through which affected communities or downstream states can seek review and remedy when cross-border harm is disputed.
Formal equality among governments does not automatically produce equal influence. The LMC’s first decade-built connectivity. Its second should strengthen accountability for the consequences of that connectivity and help less powerful members capture more of the value it creates.
Power and Responsibility
The ethical question is not foreign to Chinese political thought. Mencius placed humane governance and concern for people at the center of legitimate rule. The enduring question is: what is power for, and how should it be exercised toward those affected by it?
Modern leaders have expressed related principles in different traditions. Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern emphasized kindness, compassion, wellbeing and guardianship in public policy. President Xi Jinping’s vision of a “community with a shared future for mankind” calls for partnerships in which countries treat one another as equals and explicitly states that big countries should treat small countries as equals. China’s own formulation emphasizes mutual respect, fairness, justice, shared interests and shared responsibilities (State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China 2023). In 2025, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned against a return to a world governed by “the law of the jungle, where the strong prey on the weak,” while describing China as a responsible member of the international community.
These principles provide a relevant standard for the Mekong. China’s greater capacity does not require it to become smaller or to accept responsibility for every regional problem. It gives China a greater opportunity to exercise responsible leadership: considering smaller partners’ interests, increasing transparency, preventing the transfer of environmental and social costs, and ensuring that integration helps partners move into higher-value activities.
The principle is reciprocal. Every LMC member affects its neighbors and should act with restraint toward people beyond its borders. Lower-basin governments, developers and financiers also bear responsibility for dams, mines and infrastructure within their jurisdiction. But responsibility should correspond to capacity and influence. The greater the power to shape outcomes, the greater the obligation to prevent harm and broaden opportunity.
All members should accept these principles, but China has a special opportunity to lead. Responsible leadership would not weaken its influence. It could make that influence more trusted and regional integration more durable.
Sovereignty and corporate boundaries cannot make downstream consequences disappear. If a project affects a shared river, responsibility extends to those who depend on it downstream. If mining damages a watershed, responsibility reaches affected communities across borders. If economic integration creates value, it should also create opportunities for less-developed partners to build capacity and retain a greater share of that value.
This is not an argument against development. It is an argument for responsible development: identifying consequences, preventing avoidable harm, mitigating unavoidable impacts and providing remedy when harm occurs.
Responsibility should reflect not only who has the legal authority to decide, but also who has the power and capacity to cause, prevent, mitigate or remedy the consequences.
The principle applies to every LMC member. China’s economic scale, upstream position and role in regional supply chains do not make it responsible for everything that happens. They do give it exceptional capacity to influence outcomes—and therefore a greater opportunity to demonstrate responsible power.
Toward a Genuine Partnership
A wider international debate points in the same direction. Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley has challenged financial arrangements that leave vulnerable countries carrying disproportionate climate and economic risks. Economist Mariana Mazzucato advocates mission-oriented approaches that organize public and private resources around societal challenges. Earth-system scientist Johan Rockström and his colleagues argue that development must operate within finite planetary boundaries.
Their shared insight is that interconnected problems require governance that looks beyond individual projects, sectors and borders.
The goal is not to make China and its partners economically equal. It is to make their relationship more balanced in responsibility, opportunity and value creation. Greater economic reach should mean greater transparency. Greater financial capacity should bring greater attention to long-term consequences. Greater influence over shared resources should mean greater consideration for downstream communities. Cross-border costs should not be transferred to those least able to influence the decisions that created them.
Nor should integration be judged only by trade volume. A genuine partnership should help less-developed members build productive capacity, move into higher-value sectors and retain more of the value their economies create.
The LMC can advance this agenda without abandoning sovereignty. It should:
· establish transparent review standards for major infrastructure and investment projects;
· assess cumulative and transboundary environmental effects, not only project-level impacts;
· expand timely hydrological, operational and environmental data sharing;
· provide meaningful participation for affected communities;
· create credible processes for prevention, mitigation and remedy;
· disclose financing terms and strengthen debt-sustainability review;
· support technology transfer, workforce development and local supplier capacity; and
· publish measurable indicators of how projects distribute benefits, risks and value among participating countries.
Rivers do not stop at borders. Watersheds do not stop at borders. Supply chains do not stop at borders.
Responsibility should not stop there either.
That is the foundation for turning an unequal relationship into a genuine partnership.
Pham Phan Long
Source: https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/unequal-relationship-lancang-mekong-cooperation
References
General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China. 2025. China’s Total Export and Import Values by Country/Region, December 2025.
Kwan, Regan, and Brian Eyler. 2025. Unregulated Mining along Rivers in Mainland Southeast Asia. Stimson Center.
Lancang-Mekong Cooperation. 2016. Sanya Declaration of the First Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Leaders’ Meeting.Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, March 23.
Mekong River Commission. n.d. “Hydropower.”
Mekong River Commission. 2022. Joint Environmental Monitoring Programme at Two Mekong Mainstream Dams: The Don Sahong and Xayaburi Hydropower Projects. MRC Secretariat.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China. 2026. “Remarks by H.E. Wang Yi at the Reception Commemorating the 10th Anniversary of the First Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Leaders’ Meeting.” March.
Ross, Steve, and Regan Kwan. 2026. “Rare Earth Mining in Myanmar Expands to TNLA-Held Territory.” Stimson Center, July.
State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China. 2023. A Global Community of Shared Future: China’s Proposals and Actions. September.
Stimson Center. 2025a. Mining in Mainland Southeast Asia—River Basins Dashboard.
Stimson Center. 2025b. “Toxic Rare Earth Mining Is Ruining Mekong Tributaries in the Golden Triangle.” September.
Stimson Center. 2026. “Mining, Conflict, and Environmental Action in Myanmar’s Borderlands.”
World Bank. 2025. “GDP per Capita (Current US$).” World Development Indicators.