To the 20 million inhabitants of the Mekong Delta
who are deprived of their voice
To US Secretary of State Marco Antonio Rubio
To the Friends of the Mekong Group
With an inconsistent and always “pivoting” policy, with a negligible total investment, over the past 50 years since 1975, the United States has made almost no positive and effective moves to prevent China’s expansion and encroachment – not only in the Mekong River basin – but also in the East Sea. To be able to counterbalance Beijing, of course, Washington needs to have a strategic vision, accepting a commensurate price to pay in order to restore its long-standing influence on the Mekong River Chessboard. NGO THE VINH
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INTRODUCTION: Over the past thirty years, tens of millions of people living in the Mekong River basin have suffered from increasingly severe and frequent floods and droughts. Their food sources in the basin have gradually depleted and the living environment is no longer healthy to support them and their children. These disadvantages are largely due to the hydropower projects of China and Laos, accumulated from upstream, which have been brought down on them. China is the culprit and the main driver of the projects in Laos. This region is an important geopolitical dispute between China and the United States. Step by step, China has completed 12 of the largest dams on the Mekong mainstream, despite all the protests from the people and the authorities in the lower basin. The United States has been powerless against all these developments from the beginning and has recently withdrawn its trump card, not allowing the Mekong Dam Monitor (MDM), an organization that monitors and reports on the activities of reservoirs across the basin, to operate. This paper by Dr. Ngo The Vinh, a persistent environmental activist, presents the inconsistent US Mekong strategy as a failure in the Mekong River basin. PHAM PHAN LONG, PE
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TOUBA / 托巴 : ANOTHER 12TH MAINSTREAM DAM IN YUNNAN
Figure 1: Tuoba / 托巴, China's 12th mainstream dam in Yunnan, has been detected and monitored by US satellites: left, the construction site of Tuoba Dam (as of 29.01.2024), right, Tuoba Dam 1,400 MW has filled its reservoir during the dry season (as of 23.06.2024) and is starting to have further negative impacts on the flow of the Mekong River downstream. [source: Stimson Center / Mekong Dam Monitor]
