Thailand Touted for Rare Move to Drop Chinese Plan for Mekong River
Rights groups and researchers have welcomed Thailand’s decision to cancel a Beijing-backed project to dredge and blow open a shallow and rocky stretch of the Mekong River along the Thai-Lao border.
The move is a rare victory for groups and communities fighting to save Southeast Asia’s most important river from overdevelopment.
Beijing’s plan — endorsed by Laos, Myanmar and Thailand in 2000 — was to make the stretch of rapids navigable for larger cargo ships hoping to ply the Mekong between China’s landlocked Yunnan province and the busy trade routes of the South China Sea. Rights groups and local communities feared it would destroy critical fish habitat and their way of life.
Zsombor Peter
