China denies responsibility for Mekong’s severe depletion

(TibetanReview.net, Mar28, 2010) As Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia which together make up the Mekong River Commission (MRC) prepared to meet Apr 3-5 in the Thai coastal town of Hua Hin to discuss serious depletion in the river’s water level, China has denied that the series of dams it had built in occupied Tibet had anything to do with the crisis. Chen Dehai, counselor at the Chinese embassy in Thailand, has said the dams in the Lancang River were not the cause of the falling water level that has victimized not only downstream countries along the Mekong River, but also China itself, reported China’s official CRIENGLISH.com Mar 26.

Still, the Mekong River Commission countries are expected to press China to release water from the dams.

Water levels in the Mekong, Southeast Asia's biggest river flowing 4,350 km (2,700 miles) from the glaciers of Tibet to the rice-rich delta of southern Vietnam, have dropped to as low as 0.33 of a meter (13 inches) in places, bringing a severe blow to the downstream countries’ agriculture and fishery sectors.

China maintains that the Lancang River contributes only 13.5 percent of the annual flux of the Mekong; that the river is mainly sustained by tributaries outside China.