Mekong crisis could deepen fault lines within Asean if not seen as regional issue: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute report

ASEAN, as a regional bloc, needs to take full ownership of the issues surrounding the Mekong River's environmental crisis instead of relegating it to be of sub-regional importance for fear of displeasing Beijing, said researchers at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

"The Mekong River ecosystem is on the verge of irreversible collapse due to the accumulative effects of climate change and increased numbers of upstream dams as well as other human-made activities such as deforestation, sand mining, extensive irrigation for agriculture and wetland conversion," said a report authored by Hoang Thi Ha, fellow and lead researcher of political security affairs at the institute's Asean Studies Centre, with Farah Nadine Seth, research officer at the same centre.

Severe droughts in 2019 caused water levels in the river to drop to their lowest in more than 100 years, they added.

They noted that China has built 11 dams in the Upper Mekong; and Chinese companies are involved in numerous hydropower projects downstream, especially in Laos.

An April 2020 study on these upstream dams' impact on the Mekong's natural flows have found that "the severe lack of water in the Lower Mekong during the wet seasons of 2019 is largely influenced by the restriction of water flowing from the Upper Mekong during that time", the researchers said, adding that China has since disputed the findings of the report.

"With the exception of Vietnam, most South-east Asian states remain reluctant to put the Mekong issues onto Asean's agenda for fear of displeasing Beijing," said the researchers.

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Last year, Vietnam had tried to bring Mekong issues into Asean's agenda using its chairmanship, but with "very limited success", according to the report.

They noted that Hanoi's attempt was met with reservations from some maritime and mainland South-east Asian states for different reasons. For example, maritime states believe these issues affect only the mainland states and should thus be addressed through existing sub-regional frameworks.

However, the researchers argued that the impact of Mekong's environmental crisis goes beyond the sub-regional confines and affects Asean's food security and climate change action as a whole.

This is seen in the way unpredictable droughts and floods as well as reduced river sediments have wreaked havoc on agricultural production and inland fishery.

In addition, the transboundary haze pollution affecting Malaysia and Singapore provides an "instructive precedent" in mobilising Asean frameworks for an essentially sub-regional problem, said the researchers.

As the most seriously affected countries, both countries took the lead in regionalising the haze problem and pushing forward a coordinated Asean approach.

The Asean Ministerial Meeting on Haze was established following an episode in 1997 where dangerous haze pollution blanketed maritime South-east Asia for months.

"Having Asean in the game levelled up the peer-group pressure and the effect of suasion vis-à-vis Indonesia, the source country of the haze but also a big neighbour with which Singapore must handle bilateral ties with care," said the researchers.

With this precedent, consigning the Mekong crisis to a sub-regional category to justify Asean's non-engagement simply does not hold water, they said, noting that mainland Asean states rose to the call when its maritime counterparts pushed for a more regional approach to the haze problem.

"Given the urgency of the Mekong ecosystem's imminent catastrophe, it is time that maritime Asean members revisit their detached approach now when it is mainland South-east Asia that 'catches fire'," said the researchers.

However, apart from not wanting to displease Beijing, the researchers noted that the increased interest and involvement by other major powers, especially the US, also add to this sensitivity of the Asean states.

"Most do not want to be embroiled in another arena of major power competition over yet another body of water apart from the South China Sea," they said.

"On top of that, there is a competitive dynamic at play as some maritime Asean states would not want to see external attention and resources flow into the Mekong basin at the expense of their own sub-regional frameworks such as the BIMP-EAGA (Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines-East Asean Growth Area)."

Keeping the Mekong issues within the confines of sub-regional frameworks therefore conveniently justifies Asean's detachment from Mekong geopolitics, said the researchers.

However, from the South China Sea issue to the ongoing Myanmar crisis, Asean is becoming increasingly divided along the maritime-mainland bifurcation, said the researchers, and its reluctance to address the Mekong issues would "further deepen this fault line in both geography and geopolitics".