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INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast, where we bring you expert insights and regional perspectives on Southeast Asia and Indo Pacific geopolitics and geoeconomics. I'm your host, Dr. Prashanth Parameswaran. If you haven't already, do subscribe to the ASEAN Wonk platform at www.aseanwonk.com so you don't miss all of our posts.
Our guest today is Dr. Anoulak Kittikhoun, who served as the CEO of the Mekong River Commission Secretariat from 2022 to 2024 after a decade of working in the organization that is central to the subregional architecture around one of the world’s longest and largest rivers confronting a series of major geopolitical, geoeconomic and security risks. Prior to that, he held several roles, including working at the United Nations Secretariat in New York and as an advisor at the Permanent Mission of Laos to the United Nations. We'll start our conversation assessing the current state of the Mekong River and architecture. Make sure you tune into the full episode as we dive into key topics, including the impact of intensifying geopolitical competition and major power dynamics.
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RISK ASSESSMENT CHECK
ASEAN Wonk: Welcome to the podcast Anoulak. And I wanted to get started with our conversation here talking about the river that gets a lot of attention today relative to perhaps ten or fifteen years ago, but arguably still not enough given the challenges that we're seeing. It's one of the world's longest and largest rivers running through mainland Southeast Asia. I was, in fact, just by the Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia's greatest freshwater lake in Cambodia during my trip a few weeks back. The risks from hydropower and climate change and the like have been well-documented. As a practitioner in the space, you've looked at these issues for a long time. How would you grade the state of the Mekong River today? And you can use kind of any metric you'd like, whether it's a scale of one to ten or a sort of letter grade.
Dr. Anoulak Kittikhoun: Well, first of all, thank you very much, Prashanth, for having me and this opportunity to talk to your audience about the Mekong and broader issues in the region. Well, like you said, the Mekong River, it's classified as one of the great rivers, along with the Amazon, the Nile, Mississippi, etcetera. So it is the largest, longest in Southeast Asia. It actually has the most fisheries in the world, even more than the Amazon. It’s the second most biodiverse only after the Amazon. I think top ten – it depends on how you count – in terms of basin size, flows, etcetera. Seventy million people, so sizable population. Six important countries, one superpower who is also upstream, and two regional important countries Vietnam and Thailand. And then you have Laos in the middle and Cambodia in the south, and a bit of Myanmar sort of on the side.
The Mekong Basin has caught attention in the water space, a lot in the environmental space, and sometimes in the geopolitical space, because of the fact that it is situated in mainland Southeast Asia, which is a geopolitical hotspot. But also because of its status as one of the great rivers of the world. It is very important for the economies of the basin countries. You know that Vietnam and Thailand are the two rice baskets of the world, so most of the rice come from the Mekong, and the delta of Vietnam is very important for the Vietnamese economy. It's also important for tourism. I think thirty percent of mainland Southeast Asia tourism comes from the Mekong, and it is increasingly important for energy. Laos has this ambition increasingly of being the battery of Asia – of Southeast Asia, maybe not Asia, it's too big. And Mekong energy – not just hydropower, but increasingly solar wind – are contributing to this. So it's very important for the economies of the region. And it's important for livelihoods, important for culture, history as well as for the people’s ties to the river.
But it's undergoing fundamental changes. Let me talk about the fiscal changes first. We used to have a more or less natural regime. In the wet season, you have very large flows. During the dry season, you have a very low flows, and people are used to that. But now because of, like you mentioned earlier, the building of dams – especially storage dams in China and in Laos – this has changed, and it has brought challenges as well as opportunities. Challenges, for example, during the wet season when you needed the water to flood some forest or wetlands, now you have a bit less. And in cases of drought, especially during the wet season, the storage by dams can also add or exacerbate drought. But there are some opportunities. Because during the dry season, you have a very low flow. But because dams release water during the dry season to generate electricity, then you can have possibly more water. That's good for irrigation. That's good for navigation, and that's sometimes good for drought relief during the dry season. So there are some challenges and some possible benefits.
But geopolitically is also challenging. Because it's an international river – six countries, different sizes, different stages of development. You have Thailand and Vietnam who developed parts of their base in a bit earlier, and now you have China developed in the 1990s, and now Laos and Cambodia are developing. So when you have national plans, whether they are dam projects or water irrigation projects or big canal projects, you tend to run into each other. And throughout the past decade or so, you have this contestation in the Mekong about a certain dam raising tensions with neighbors, and the possibility to have spillover effects into broader contestations and conflicts. It has not happened. I think part of the reason is we have a good institutional framework in the basin, one of which is the Mekong River Commission that I can talk a lot about, but also associated institutions. ASEAN, other Mekong frameworks, the relations between the countries, etcetera.
“And throughout the past decade or so, you have this contestation in the Mekong about a certain dam raising tensions with neighbors, and the possibility to have spillover effects into broader contestations and conflicts.”
GRADING REGIONAL ARCHITECTURE
ASEAN Wonk: You mentioned there a couple of points that I want to touch on. One is the Mekong River Commission itself and the MRC, which you helped lead. You really had a bird's eye view about how the organization works. It's an organization that, not unlike other subregional organizations, often comes under a lot of criticism for some of its limitations. It only has four of the countries as full members, and the other two are partner countries. There are some inherent limitations there. But like any regional, subregional or global organization, it is only as powerful as its members allow it to be as an intergovernmental grouping. And so, it's also a question of where the responsibility lies in terms of where the organization is headed. In your assessment, how do you see the Mekong River Commission faring – both its successes and then also its limitations – having seen its evolution throughout the years?
Dr. Anoulak Kittikhoun: Yeah. The Mekong River Commission was given a mandate in 1995 that is actually a broad mandate. It's to coordinate and promote the sustainable development of water and related resources of the Mekong Basin. So it's quite a broad mandate. It was not given a regulatory mandate like, say, some other river organizations in Europe or the European Commission. But it's given this mandate to be the coordinator, the promoter of good development. And it does that simply because the countries want to develop. The countries want to develop still, because we don't have a fully developed river yet. And it has four members. There's a whole history about why China is not a member, which I may not be able to talk about much, but it has four members – Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand. And, in my assessment – unbiased – it has functioned to the best that it could be. So let's delve into the two key roles. One is to be some sort of water diplomacy platform of the basin. It's the only treaty-based organization in the Mekong. And second is to provide services to the country, such as river monitoring, studies, flood forecasting etcetera.
But let's delve into the water diplomacy angle. You know, as I mentioned in the beginning, we have had contestations over projects of the countries. For example, in 2010, Laos submitted to build the first mainstream then on the lower part of the Mekong – China has already built several in the upper part. Now that created a lot of tensions, including between Laos and Vietnam, who are usually friends on all sorts of things. But because for Vietnam, the delta is very important for the economy, for the people – twenty million people, right – you have to raise concerns, and you have to be fearful of that. And the countries could not agree on what to do. But at that time, with private investment ready, mostly from Thailand, Laos was determined to go ahead. And Laos being landlocked, this was one of the key resources to get the economy going and the country was determined to push ahead. But the Mekong River Commission came in, and, you know, we tried to manage this situation. There are some folks that said, okay, we have to have a more regulatory approach saying that if we could not agree, we could not go ahead. But there are some other folks who thought that, well, you know, we were never given this mandate to really say yes or no to a sovereign country's project.
So what is the next best thing to do? Well, let's help them. Let's assess from the technical point of view as best we can. If you were to go ahead, which we say is your sovereign decision, then here are several things that you need to do. Here are sort of conditions which you have to do. You have to improve the fish pass. You have to improve the dam safety. You have to improve the flow regime, making sure that you don't cause significant damage. You have to allow joint monitoring. If something bad happens, we have to come together and do something about it. So Laos accepted all that and invested additional I think half a billion dollars into the dam to make sure that this happens, while at the same time, you can say that they went ahead without full consensus. But fast forward ten years later, we have now seen the dam improve according to the technical recommendations and the transparency that brought about it. And even the Vietnamese and other international actors who were opposed initially said that that was not too bad. So that's a case of success.
And then for our services, I think we have one of the best knowledge in the world about the Mekong in the commission because of the investment that we have made into river monitoring, upgrading our models, including the latest technologies – artificial intelligence, etcetera – to be able to predict ahead when flood will come, what people should do about it. And this was put to the test last year when we had the big typhoon, Yagi, that flooded the mainstream for the first time in decades. And people appreciated the work of the Commission. So I think overall, there were some – like you said, what the countries made of it – which is their agreement or disagreement. They may probably disagree several times, but they could agree on some things, which is to still come together, to still talk, to still work it out, don't leave the table, improve the technical aspects of the cooperation, add transparency into the projects. And I think for even Laos, they went through this learning curve from being afraid of bodies like the Commission stopping their development and being more participatory in terms of sharing information, sharing data, but at the same time, determined to pursue development.
And also, there are several other cases with contestation with China, for example, that the commission stepped in and I think helped with the dialogue, with the information sharing. And recently, of course, you know, there there's a country downstream that proposed a big project. We were not as public in our diplomacy on this, but we were very active behind the scenes in terms of assessment, in terms of dialogue, in terms of quiet diplomacy. So there are several things that you do, depending on the situation, depending on views or the interests of the country, and how much they want to engage at first. But I believe that the institution of the commission is established, procedures are in place, guidelines are in place that one day or another, countries that maybe hesitate in the beginning would come back to cooperation.
And also, there are several other cases with contestation with China, for example, that the commission stepped in and I think helped with the dialogue, with the information sharing.
CAMBODIA’S BIG CHINA-BACKED CANAL PROJECT AND FUTURE PROSPECTS
ASEAN Wonk: You mentioned there Cambodia's Funan Techo Canal project, one of the projects that emerged recently with support from China. What was that project's experience and how has the Mekong River Commission dealt with it? Because that definitely was one of the cases where there were some public elements to that, but as you said, lots of quiet conversations going on as well.
Dr. Anoulak Kittikhoun: Yeah, I mean, to Cambodia's credit, they did submit the notification to the Commission, I think, in late 2023, with information about what they plan to do with the canal in terms of connecting two major rivers. One is the Mekong, one is the Bassac, and then out to the sea in the Gulf of Thailand. So, naturally, when you have this kind of plan, it invites a lot of passion. Because especially if you're downstream and you depend on the river coming upstream, if I was Vietnamese, I would also have this concern. And I look at the information that is in the public and and pronouncements around it, I would be naturally concerned because maybe I don't have as much water coming to me because of the possibility to divert and all of these things.
But after they submitted, we went to work. We reviewed the information. We requested for more information. Vietnam requested for more information. And I think at the technical level, they were very cooperative, very good discussions going on. But I think somewhere along the way, there was a determination from the top in Cambodia that this is the national interest, and for various reasons. One, I think, historical, and that we needed to do this. And we have studied. We have lined up good developers to be able to do this, and all we needed was finance. And China was sort of a key player in this. But even without China being the biggest investor, I think Cambodia would muster – at least they say, even publicly – that they would master private sector support in Cambodia itself.
But behind the scenes, we went through a bit of headache, to tell you the truth, because the space that was given to us was very limited. But we stood our ground as a secretariat, the technical and executive arm of the commission. We stood our ground and said, okay. We have a concern from the public and from a member country wanting to know more information. They never said they don't support the project. Actually, Vietnam supports Cambodia's development, they said. But they want more information. They want the commission to facilitate dialogue on this project and to do what we have done with the Lao projects and dams, which came out to be quite reasonable in terms of development, and to do the same with the Cambodian project. So behind the scenes, we did some assessment of the project, and we came to very initial conclusion about the impacts. It's not the end of the world, you know? And we quietly said this indoors behind the scenes, and that internal report is with the countries.
“But behind the scenes, we went through a bit of headache, to tell you the truth, because the space that was given to us was very limited.”
And we have several recommendations going forward, one of which is to have Cambodia provide a technical briefing to us, the commission, at that time, if we understand this correctly or not, and then to let us visit whenever they're ready. We're not going to push to visit. Whenever they're ready, we visit. And depending on particular points that are of concern, maybe we can do targeted assessment. And while they're developing the project, there's no reason to stop the project. We can do that at the same time. And in the end, we can also jointly monitor, because that gives confidence, especially to downstream countries and stakeholders that whatever you promised in the beginning that you will not cause impact will actually not happen. So this is very standard MRC business on how we do things. And so we put it out there, and I think one day, I believe that once the project really starts going, it will come back.
RIGHTSIZING CHINA DOMINANCE FEARS
ASEAN Wonk: Thanks for that overview of the challenges, processes and dynamics involved in managing all of these interests. You mentioned China a couple of times already in this conversation. The Mekong regional architecture, as you mentioned, is filled with frameworks. You’ve got ACMECS developed by Thailand, the GMS framework with the Asian Development, and you have the Mekong U.S. Partnership. And there's been a sense as well, even though there are these different frameworks, that over the past few years at least, that China's Lancang Mekong cooperation framework and China's initiatives in the Mekong more generally have come to increasingly dominate – perhaps overly dominate – the Mekong regional architecture. I'm wondering what your sense is of that sort of balance of power within the Mekong architecture, of which the MRC is a part. Is it your sense that this sense of domination by China is starting to play out in terms of the architecture?
Dr. Anoulak Kittikhoun: I mean…
[Note: This is the end of a free preview podcast, with the full version in an earlier post published on April 24, 2025 available to our paying subscribers. This is not meant to serve as new content and is part of our free preview content within the dedicated website podcast section].
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