By Li Zhifei

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Climate Issue and China in U.S. Mekong River Policy

By Li Zhifei

Associate Research Fellow, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Since taking office in 2009, the Obama administration has much-touted “pivot” to Asia policy, strengthened the U.S. regional leadership and policy coordination of the trans-Pacific order, and taken Southeast Asia the new fulcrum of its strategic operations and the Lower Mekong Region a vital flank of its new Asia-Pacific strategy. During a Congressional Hearing in March 2011, Kurt Campbell, then Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs stated explicitly that the United States should view the Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI) a priority for U.S. engagement in Southeast Asia. Progress over the past several years shows that a stable mechanism has come out of the ever-deepening cooperation between the United States and this region on the climate issue, which becomes an important pathway for U.S. pivot to the Mekong region.

I. The Climate Issue in U.S. Mekong River Policy

Climate change is a comprehensive and strategic issue across the Mekong region, whose fragile ecological environment contributes to its susceptibility to natural disasters. Climate change would induce extreme weather conditions that would cause a spate of natural disasters to the detriment of the ecological, food and energy safety of all countries along the river reaches. Therefore, addressing climate change covers a host of issues related to sustainable development such as water resources, infrastructure development, disaster relief, health improvement, poverty reduction, energy security, rural development, capacity building.

The IPCC concludes that the risk of river flooding during the rainy season grows and a possibility of water shortage in dry season increases. In December 2012, an assessment report compiled by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of Vietnam under the auspices of UNEP foresees that with the impact of climate change, the Mekong River Delta and the Red River Delta, the two major areas of grain production and dense population will face serious threats of flooding in the future. Latest studies have also revealed that the Mekong region is one the world’s hot spots that are most vulnerable to the impact of climate change. The region’s agriculture, food safety, water resources, infrastructure, ecological system and its diversity, residences, lifestyles, health, transportation and communication and other areas are all in fragility. Therefore, the Mekong countries have strong safety demands on the climate issue.

Since 2009, in the name of strengthening water resource management and addressing climate change, the United States quickly develops close cooperation with Mekong countries. In 2009, the United States invested over US$7 million on environmental programs in this area, some of which would be directed at promoting sustainable utilization of forest and water resources, improving access to safe drinking water and protecting biodiversity of the Mekong region, and also gave grants of over US$138 million to the health and education programs of the four Lower Mekong countries. In July 2010, the United States announced another aid program to implement the LMI and provided US$187million to strengthen cooperation on environment, health, education, infrastructure and other aspects with Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam in the Mekong Region.

In July 2011, the Foreign Minister Meeting on U.S.-Lower Mekong Countries Framework Cooperation held in Bali adopted the U.S.-Lower Mekong Countries Cooperation Framework, which further elevated the relationships between the United States and “Friends of Lower Mekong Group”, i.e. Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.

On July 13, 2012, the 5thLMI-U.S. Ministerial Meeting and the 2ndMinisterial Meeting of “Friends of Lower Mekong Group” were held in Phnom Penh. The United States pledged in the next two years to provide a US$50 million assistance package for LMI activities down to 2020 and US$1 million for an MRC research program on the impacts of hydroelectric dams along the upper Mekong on its ecological environment. On July 1, 2013, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry suggested at the 6thLMI Ministerial Meeting in Brunei that the United States should deepen cooperation in infrastructure, health, food safety and sustainable development and support the lower Mekong countries in opposing China’s damming of its upper reach.

II. Purpose of including the climate issue in U.S. Mekong policy

The United States has kept a high profile in engaging in climate cooperation with Mekong countries. Its policies show a high degree of consistency, and are supported by refined strategic design.

First, “smart” intervention in Mekong regional affairs. In March 2009, the CSIS Smart Power Initiative released a report titled “Chinese Soft Power and Its Implications for the United States”. Its first recommendations following the comparison and assessment of influence between China the United States in Southeast Asia are (to) enhance efforts to effect practical cooperation bilaterally and in the region on a host of transnational issues of concern to Southeast Asia—for example, environmental protection; energy security; trafficking in humans, weapons, or drugs; humanitarian assistance; and disaster relief—to efficiently coordinate application of respective resources necessary to address these critical issues. In 2012, a report from the Center for Climate and Security, an American think tank, explicitly proposes that assistance for climate change and natural disasters in Asia-Pacific should be prioritized on the core of the U.S. “pivot to Asia” strategy. The reason is that through providing disaster relief assistance and investment in climate resilience (including in adaptation to and mitigation of climate change), the United States can establish broader and deeper relations with allies and potential allies in the region, which in turn will help the United States compete with China in terms of influences in a way of no threat imposed. In short, the United States national security leadership is looking for an opportunity to integrate humanitarian assistance and climate investment into a broader national security strategy.

Second, counterweight China’s influence. Through relevant cooperation on the issue of climate change, the United States is able to compete with China “in a way of no threat imposed”. The U.S. strategy elites seem to come to a clearer recognition that the U.S. role in East Asia should be a “counterweight and mediator” instead of shaping an anti-China coalition, which would lead to perilous mutual resentment. The U.S. “pivot to Asia” strategy clearly has no intention to launch senseless confrontation or conflict with China; but to contract the strategy of “global hegemony” to more economical strategies of “offshore balance” and “selective intervention” in the background of a relative decline of U.S. power.

As competition between China and the United States in the Mekong region and the Southeast Asian region at large becomes clearer, an obvious U.S. intention to build an “anti-China camp” is manifest in building the FLM Group that excludes China located in the upper reach of the Mekong. In this case, should a conflict of interests flares up along the Lantsang-Mekong upper and lower reaches, the United States may find it hard to act as a counterweight in the region.

Competition between China and the United States presents many challenges for a new type of major-country relationship that the two countries have declared to build. While Southeast Asian countries have pressed urgently for greater attention to their region from the United States to counterweight China’s growing influence, they also would like to see a constructive relationship between China and the United States out of concerns for regional stability. The issue of climate change, which dictates the concerted efforts of the entire world, clearly requires strengthening China-U.S. cooperation. Although it is one of the issues placed high on the agenda of China-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), there is insufficient attention on China-U.S. cooperation on the climate issue in the Mekong region, where the challenges for the two countries are how to handle the relationship between the China-led GMS environmental cooperation program and U.S.-led LMI and how to embody the principle of “non-conflict, non-confrontation and win-win cooperation” for China-U.S. relations in the Mekong region.

III. Challenges for China in the Mekong region and some thoughts on response

The Obama administration’s climate diplomacy and China’s potential conflict with Mekong countries cater to the strategic needs of Southeast Asian countries in addressing climate change and related security issues. The United States has achieved its established strategic goals through a smart combination of its global and regional strategies in a form of “smart power”.

China is now faced with serious challenges in three aspects: First, how can China more actively participate in climate cooperation across this region against the U.S. aggressive posture? Second, although the Southeast Asian countries have closer economic ties with China, they lean toward the United States in the security aspect. How should China gradually repair its national image that is being or has been tarnished due to water resource disputes in the Mekong region? Third, how will China maintain and continuously strengthen ties with Lower Mekong countries? These challenges bear on China’s neighborhood security posture and even its peaceful development.

With China’s failure to meet the security needs of the Mekong region in addressing climate change— even being perceived as a threat-maker, the United States has filled the vacuum. Hence, China needs to reflect on the problems and weaknesses in its cooperation on climate change with Mekong countries. The GMS, the principal framework for environmental cooperation between China and the Mekong countries is lack of, among many things, a clear leader, an overall plan for ecosystem protection and sustainable development, and insufficient capital for environmental protection cooperation. In general, environmental cooperation with Mekong countries has not been a strategic priority for China and China’s participation in regional environmental cooperation is not deep enough.

At present, conflicts over water resource present a potential bottleneck that constrains the development of the Mekong region and climate change is a comprehensive problem this region faces, China needs to act as early as possible to establish a climate cooperation framework for the Mekong region as a strategic response.

In addition, China needs to strengthen coordination with Obama administration since there is still much space for China-U.S. co- operation in the Mekong region. China needs to include climate issue and other non-conventional security issues progressively on to the agenda of S&ED, strengthen communication and cooperation on some less sensitive issues along the Mekong, help Mekong countries develop economy and promote climate governance and break new ground for China-U.S. cooperation, which will serve as a propeller in building a new type of major-country relationship.