Vietnam's Mekong challenge: balancing ties with China amid build up of dams, canal projects

China-backed projects on the Mekong River may complicate ties with Vietnam, analysts warn, as Hanoi navigates the delicate balance of cooperation with Beijing while maintaining a strategic presence in neighbouring Cambodia and Laos.
At a recent online forum on May 27, the discussion centred on Vietnam's complex security challenges and how Hanoi can maintain relations with its three neighbours while protecting its interests, especially amid China's growing economic influence in infrastructure projects, such as dams in Laos and Cambodia.
China has embarked on extensive dam-building activities in the Mekong area, operating 12 mainstream dams and 95 tributary dams that pose an upstream threat to Vietnam, according to Phan Xuan Dung, research officer at ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute and a PhD candidate at Australian National University.
'These dam projects have been developed unilaterally without consultation with the lower Mekong countries,' Phan said, adding that the dams have significantly reduced water flow and sediment reaching the Mekong Delta.
The Mekong Delta serves as Vietnam's agricultural powerhouse, supporting some 80 million people and contributes to one-third of the country's gross domestic product, Phan said.
Workers use excavators to dig the Funan Techo canal along the Prek Takeo channel that runs into the Mekong River in Cambodia. Photo: AFP
Meanwhile, Laos operates 77 dams with 61 more planned, including seven on the mainstream Mekong, as it furthers its ambition to become the 'battery of Southeast Asia' by exporting hydropower energy.

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