Source: China Post
Washington's Lower Mekong Initiative is gathering speed, but it still does not have enough funding and lags behind China's level of engagement in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
Known in short as the LMI, the initiative was unveiled by United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in July last year as a blueprint for the U.S. to get involved in Indochina again — this time in a peaceful way.
Since then, higher-level American officials have visited the region, and meetings on the sectors identified under the LMI have become more frequent.
The broader aim is to balance China's growing footprint in the region, from which the U.S. withdrew after losing a bitter war in the 1970s.
There is “no question that U.S. policy is being driven by geopolitics,” noted Richard Cronin, co-author of a new report on the Mekong by the Washington-based Stimson Centre.
Initiatives to address health threats and pandemics are a key component of the LMI.
Another obvious focus is the increasingly troubled Mekong, which ranks with South America's Amazon as one of the world's most productive rivers.
The 4,880-kilometer-long Mekong is a lifeline for as many as 60 million people, across countries whose rivalries have not quite subsided.
The millions who depend on the river for fish and water are vulnerable to its changes, which are essentially inevitable once large dams are constructed.
Major hydropower projects for the Mekong appear to be going ahead, despite longstanding concerns over the ecological and food security of the region in the future, and of Beijing turning the Mekong into a “Chinese river” by modifying and controlling the upper reaches.
Four of China's dams on the upper Mekong are currently operational, but four more are on the cards.
The U.S., while largely welcomed by the region's governments, which analysts point out do not want to be dominated by China, is still groping for a foothold in China's shadow.
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