The Diplomat

Earlier this week, I wrote about the sudden drop in water levels along the Mekong River in northern Thailand, and their likely link to the filling of a dam reservoir upstream in China. The fall first became apparent on January 4, when locals in the Thai port town ...

Water levels on the Mekong River have fallen due to the filling of a Chinese dam on the upper reaches of the river in Yunnan province, according to locals and river monitors. The fall was reported on January 4, when locals in the Thai port town ...

The Lao government’s high-risk plan to install a massive dam on the Mekong River, perilously close to the renowned UNESCO World Heritage site of Luang Prabang, shows a disregard for its legal obligations to protect the renowned site, according to conservation experts. Minja Yang, the former ...

Reports have emerged that the Chinese government is constructive a 2,000-kilometer reinforced fence along its coiling border with Myanmar, following a spike in COVID-19 cases in the latter country. According to a report in Radio Free Asia (RFA), the giant undertaking has been codenamed the “Southern Great Wall” ...

The coronavirus continues its rapid spread in Myanmar, with the number of confirmed cases surpassing 90,000 and threatening to spread to neighboring countries. After months of being relatively untouched by the virus, the country is now the third-most affected nation in Southeast Asia, after Indonesia and the ...

The Australian government is reportedly preparing to bolster its aid programs in Southeast Asia, as concern in Canberra mounts about China’s growing influence in the region. According to an October 12 report in The Age, Australia is finalizing a Southeast Asian aid package that would inject of ...

A sanctioned Chinese casino magnate is backing the construction of a new international port on the Mekong River in Laos, adjacent to his Golden Triangle gambling and tourism complex. Zhao Wei, the chairman of the Kings Romans Group, broke ground on the $50 million port development ...

On September 11, the United States and the five lower Mekong nations launched a new framework for multilateral cooperation amid rising concerns about China’s expanding influence in mainland Southeast Asia. In announcing the new Mekong-U.S. Partnership at a meeting in Hanoi, the U.S. State Department pledged  at ...

The miracle of the Mekong, where the pulsating force of the monsoon-driven river every year pushes its tributary to back up and reverse its flow into the great Tonle Sap lake in Cambodia, has again been disrupted and obstructed by dams, drought, and climate change. “This ...

A growing awareness of the links between wildlife trafficking and SARS, COVID-19, and other infectious diseases has prompted the Vietnamese prime minister to issue an executive order to clamp down on this vast smuggling trade in endangered species. During recent months, conservation NGOs and Hanoi’s Ministry ...