The blame game
The Mekong River is drying up as the region suffers its worst drought in decades. Who is to blame? China's dams upstream or nature? Our China and Thailand bureaus examine the debate.

Peh Shing Huei, China Bureau Chief

Xishuangbanna (Yunnan): The Golden Water No. 9 cargo boat has not been sparkling for the last two months.

Instead of plying the Mekong River, the vessel has been lying idle on the narrow, and now shallow, stream of water separating China from Myanmar, looking baked at the southern-most Chinese port of Guanlei.

'The water level is too low, we can't move,' said crew member Cai Junguo, 36, squinting his eyes in the scorching sun.

His boat is joined by more than 30 other vessels, moored to the parched and quiet jetty as southwest China battles the country's worst drought in a century.

It is a picture, and message, which Beijing has been trying to convey to its Mekong neighbours since late February: We are suffering as badly as you.

But for Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam - countries on the lower reaches of the Mekong - the blame is as much on the heavens as it is on the Chinese dams.

The Bangkok Post had an editorial in February headlined: China's dams killing Mekong.

It has led to a diplomatic row which all sides will attempt to resolve today and tomorrow at a summit in Hua Hin, Thailand.

The Chinese government has rubbished claims that the drying Mekong - as much as 10m lower in some stretches - is caused by China's four dams.

'Such talk is completely not consistent with facts,' said Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Qin Gang earlier last week.

'China's south-western provinces and the Mekong River countries are experiencing a once-in-a-century drought... Everyone has seen it through the media.'

He added that China has been a responsible upstream nation and that it does 'not do things that will harm people'.

Independent experts have sided with Beijing, saying that the drought and not China is to blame. The Guanlei maritime bureau told The Sunday Times that the dams had in fact helped ease the drought.

'The outflow from the dams has been higher than its intake and we released water into the river in mid-February when it was drying. But by the end of that month, there was no water for the dams to release too,' said a spokesman, who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

'There's no rain, there's no water. What do you want us to do?'

His helplessness is echoed by the Chinese who rely on the river for a living.

The Mekong, which is referred to as the Lancang in China, winds 2,160km from Tibet, through Yunnan, before entering the Golden Triangle of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand.

As Asia's seventh-longest river, it has been the key artery of life for many in Yunnan, in particular its southern Xishuangbanna Dai autonomous prefecture.

The freighters at Guanlei, for example, usually make three trips a month, ferrying fruits and vegetables to the Thai port of Chiang Saen and bringing back wood.

Their recent lack of work has affected not only the earnings of crewmen like Mr Cai, but also the Guanlei town folk, who depend heavily on the port for income.

Said 24-year-old Xiao Yu, a noodle hawker: 'Business has been the worst in years. In the past, we could rely on the truckers who filled up the roads because of the deliveries to and from the port.

'Now, I can barely sell a bowl of noodles every day after the breakfast crowd.'

Even tour cruises of the Lancang, which usually sailed thrice a week, have been scrapped over the last two months.

Farmers have also been severely hit by the drying Lancang. Madam Fu Kaiying, for example, has been cursing her luck.

The Sichuan farmer left her hometown a decade ago for

Xishuangbanna, drawn by its location by the river.

Compared to her mountainous and remote plot of land back in Sichuan, the farmland by the Lancang was convenient, offering ready access to water.

But with no downpour since last August and the river narrowing to less than a third of its normal width, the 51-year-old has been struggling to make ends meet.

'I spent 2,500 yuan (S $510) to buy a diesel-powered engine to pump water from the river, but it was of no use. There's just not enough water,' she said.

'I have to buy vegetables from others now and resell them at a small profit to survive. I can't even remember the last time I have seen a drought this bad.'

shpeh@sph.com.sg