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China's Rise in Mainland ASEAN. Группа авторов
Читать онлайн.Название China's Rise in Mainland ASEAN
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isbn 9789811217050
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Another major multilateral cooperation body has been the Greater Mekong Sub-region Cooperation Program (GMS), which was established in 1992 under the leading coordination and support of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Six member nations of the GMS include all five ASEAN riparian countries of the Mekong and China, i.e. Yunnan Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in particular, (Greater Mekong Sub-region, n.d.). The GMS cooperation framework has strategically focused on conventional infrastructure and multi-sector investments “designed to foster economic corridor development” and its subsequent schemes (Greater Mekong Sub-region, n.d.). While China has been quite disengaged in MRC, it is under GMS framework that she has shown strong enthusiasm in cooperation on transport and energy (Biba, 2018).
With regard to Mainland ASEAN and China, the most important sub-regional mechanism is obviously the Lancang–Mekong Cooperation (LMC). At first, Thailand took the initiative to arrange an international conference among all six riparian countries of the Lancang River and Mekong River in November 2012 with the objective of cooperating in handling the “many challenges such as natural disasters and security concerns,” which are lacking in other multilateral mechanisms (The Nation, 2012). Along with other nations, China responded positively to the initiative. Furthermore, during Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to Thailand in October 2013, a joint press statement was issued with an article confirming that “the Chinese side expressed its support for Thailand’s initiative to host the International Conference on Sustainable Development of Lancang–Mekong River Sub-region” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand, 2013). In November 2014, at the 17th ASEAN–China Summit, it was reported that Li Keqiang “proposed the establishment of the Lancang–Mekong Framework, which was warmly welcomed by the five Mekong River countries” (Lancang–Mekong Cooperation, 2017b).
Then on March 23, 2016 in Sanya city of China’s Hainan province (and island), China hosted the first LMC Leaders’ Meeting, with “Shared river, Shared future” as its theme, issuing the Sanya Declaration affirming the vision “For a Community of Shared Future of Peace and Prosperity among Lancang–Mekong Countries,” which will be “an example of a new form of international relations featuring win–win cooperation” (Lancang–Mekong Cooperation, 2017b). The declaration details “three cooperation pillars” consisting of “(1) political and security issues, (2) economic and sustainable development, and (3) social, cultural and people-to-people exchanges,” and “five priority areas during the initial stage of the LMC” including “connectivity, production capacity, cross-border economic cooperation, water resources, agriculture and poverty reduction” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, 2016). These LMC visions and schemes entitled “3+5 Cooperation Framework” may be said to be aspiring and encompassing indeed (see Lancang–Mekong Cooperation, 2017a). LMC has become a major framework of cooperation among Mekong riparian countries in a comprehensive way, with China playing a leading role. Yet, it is stated clearly in the declaration that the LMC framework will be coordinated and executed on the basis of a “government-guided, multiple-participation, and project-oriented model” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, 2016). As noted by a number of scholars, LMC should not be understood, at least in its current settings, as an international institution or organization cooperating within a river basin, unlike the MRC, which has codified specified rules and regulations derived from the UN Watercourses Convention (Biba, 2018, p. 634; Middleton & Allouche, 2016, p. 113).
The “Second LMC Leaders’ Meeting” was held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on January 10, 2018, resulting in the endorsement of the LMC Five-Year Plan of Action (2018–2022) (Mu, 2018). The plan began with a number of shared development goals that are to be accomplished by “synergizing China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the ASEAN Community Vision 2025 as well as the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025” (Lancang–Mekong Cooperation, 2018). It then lists approximately 80 sections of activities for practical cooperation on the basis of the three pillars and five priority areas described above. These envisioned projects will “fully utilize the LMC Special Fund set up by China” along “with financial resources inputs from the six countries” as well as “financial institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Silk Road Fund and the Asian Development Bank” (Lancang–Mekong Cooperation, 2018). To be sure, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is a new international financial institution led by China, and the Silk Road Fund is a state-owned investment fund of the Chinese government set up specifically for BRI projects. Moreover, Premier Li Keqiang also announced in Phnom Penh on this occasion that, within the framework of LMC, China will provide an additional loan amount of US$6 billion for various infrastructure and industry cooperation projects (Lifang, 2018). The LMC will thus depend heavily on China’s financial support, not to mention other aspects such as technology and expertise.
Although China’s involvement in the development of the LMC has been largely under the performance of Premier Li Keqiang, we have also witnessed President Xi Jinping’s expression of support on some occasions. For example, during his meeting in Jakarta with Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia in April 2015, Xi specifically mentioned “the countries along the Mekong River” alongside ASEAN as China’s partners for increasing dialogue and cooperation (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, 2017a). And on December 1, 2017, while meeting again with Hun Sen in Beijing, Xi “called for stronger bilateral coordination in multilateral mechanisms such as the United Nations, East Asia Cooperation and Lancang–Mekong Cooperation” (Liangyu, 2017). He also named LMC as a partnership scheme on other diplomatic occasions, including, his talk with Myanmar President U Htin Kyaw in Beijing on April 10, 2017 (Zhangrui, 2017), his meeting with Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha of Thailand in Xiamen on September 4, 2017 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, 2017b), and his article published in Vietnamese media ahead of his state visit to Vietnam in November 2017 (Xi, 2017c). The LMC was referred to with a strong emphasis in the case of Xi’s state visit to Laos around mid-November 2017. In his signed article published in Lao media prior to the occasion, he metaphorically stresses that “Like the Lancang–Mekong River that runs through our two countries, the common mission and ideals that bind us together have forged a common destiny for us” (Xi, 2017a). And as Laos would co-chair the LMC with China in 2018, Xi affirms that “China will work with Laos to facilitate more cooperation outcomes, …, promote sub-regional development and bring more benefits to the countries and peoples in the region” (Xi, 2017a).
As we have seen, Xi Jinping and other leading people and agencies of China have emphatically reiterated a number of key words in foreign policymaking. These include, among others, non-hegemony, shared future, and strategic partnership. I would like to focus on these crucial elements in relation to the Mekong River basin as a major entity of Mainland ASEAN and China.
It is of note that China is de facto the hydro-hegemon of the Mekong River. The terms and concepts of “hydro-hegemony” and “hydro-hegemon,” are parts of an analytical framework of power positions and situations among riparian countries in trans-boundary river basins. They were employed by Zeitoun and Warner in their studies of the Nile, Jordan, and Tigris, and Euphrates, and were later addressed by Biba in his analysis of China’s politics in the Lancang–Mekong River (Zeitoun & Warner, 2006; Biba, 2018, p. 638). In “international hydro-relations,” the position of hydro-hegemony of a riparian nation is attained if it holds decisive superiority over other co-riparian