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Abstract
This article explores the role of China's ideational and discursive power in shaping the interest perceptions of target states and in determining the formation of a new institution. Using the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) as a case study, this article illustrates how China framed the idea of institutionalization, and how such idea was proposed, articulated, deliberated, and accepted in the interactions with partner countries. Relying on a collection and coding of over 700 Chinese official texts on the LMC and extensive interviews, we analyze how the Chinese authorities have used ideas and discourses to garner support from states in the Mekong region for the establishment of the institution. This article demonstrates that China's ideational and discursive power helps generate three outcomes: preference denying, preference cultivating, and preference empowering. Such Chinese power has helped align Mekong countries' interest perceptions with China's expectations in three ways: transforming water security into developmental issues, accepting Chinese proposals through tactical persuasion, and constraining alternative policies.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Tables and Figures -- Tables -- 1.1 Percentage of Urban Population in Selected Countries, 1950-2050 -- 1.2 Socioeconomic Indicators in the Greater Mekong Subregion -- 1.3 Primacy of Cities in the Greater Mekong Subregion -- 1.4 Greater Mekong Subregion Trade Statistics: Manufacturing Exports, 2005-2013 ( million) -- 1.5 Foreign Direct Investment to the Greater Mekong Subregion, 2005-2013 ( million) -- 1.6 International Tourist Arrivals to the Greater Mekong Subregion, 2005-2013 (in person)

This article investigates the impacts of Chinese investment on Thailand's Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) under the Thailand 4.0 policy and the effects from the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) under China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) from 2012 to 2019. As a major aspect of Chinese foreign policy, LMC, along with the BRI, focuses on building cooperation and economic connectivity with Mekong countries. Thailand has become one of China's prime targets for foreign direct investment (FDI). Meanwhile, Thailand benefits by linking the EEC with special economic zones in China, supporting the concentration of technology and innovation in correspondence with the "Thailand 4.0" policy in the current 20-year national development plan. Consequently, Thailand is promoting investments by Chinese investors in the EEC. This research employed qualitative and quantitative methods to study a sample of 200 Chinese entrepreneurs in the EEC. The survey found that the number of Chinese investors has increased significantly in the EEC since 2014. In 2019, Chinese investors had the highest FDI in Thailand. However, the majority of these Chinese industries were (and still are) in relatively low-technology fields. Also, the availability of utility infrastructure for factories in the EEC is still comparatively low, and issues around government services and the availability of labor and resources must still be addressed.

Water-related infrastructure could contribute significantly to the development of the Mekong region. At the same time, poor water infrastructure could lead to development challenges for the countries in the region. Innovation for Water Infrastructure Development in the Mekong Region discusses the challenges facing the region as well as the possible innovative policy options, including those used in Emerging Asian countries, and with reference to the experiences of OECD member countries. It provides analysis and recommendations for the region's policy makers to consider in their efforts to improve water infrastructure. The report first provides an overview of the socio-economic contributions and environmental challenges of the Mekong River. It then presents some potential new financing options for the development of water infrastructure, using digital tools such as Fintech and blockchain. It also examines the potential of using the spillover effect of tax revenues to attract private finance. It then goes on to discuss the importance of strengthening water infrastructure resilience against natural disasters, including the current COVID-19 pandemic, and finally analyses the challenges of water regulations in the Mekong region.

Deals with environmental problems and disputes over natural resources in the Mekong River region of Southeast Asia, in context of the 1997 regional financial crisis. Included in a collection of articles under the overall title "Alternative security in the Asia-Pacific".

Although the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), China, and Japan commonly recognize that development of the Mekong region is indispensable for achieving the smooth promotion of regional integration in East Asia, their approaches to this issue have been diverse and redundant. While ASEAN has exhibited interest in Mekong development since the mid-1990s, its members' commitments have showed significant disparity. The Chinese government has identified close links with the Mekong region as a key to advance political and economic linkages as well as to sustain the development of its underdeveloped southern areas. Japan's Mekong policy has shifted from developmental to geopolitical, combining formal institutions, financial resources, and normative ideas. Such a strategic orientation aims to balance China's growing influence by fostering direct political linkages with the Mekong countries. Weak coordination in approach to and interests in Mekong development has had negative impacts on institution building in East Asia. ASEAN's limitation to coordinate development programs has undermined its credibility as the central body to advance institution building in the region. The different approaches of China and Japan have intensified rivalry on institution building in East Asia, disturbing the evolution of ASEAN+3 institutions in the development field. (Asian Perspect/GIGA)

The paper examines Vietnam's foreign policy as it translates into strategies toward subregional cooperation in the Mekong Basin. Using transboundary water cooperation as an example, the article argues that Vietnam's prime motivation in Mekong River cooperation is economic development for performance legitimacy. Environmental issues are raised, but only in relation to powerful upstream countries, while Vietnam itself poses similar challenges to less powerful downstream countries. The need for performance legitimacy thus conveys all relevance to the economically oriented Greater Mekong Subregion, while the Mekong River Commission, a basin organization with a mandate to combine economic development with environmental considerations, is sidelined.

Despite its size, the Mekong River has not played a unifying role as have other great rivers such as the Nile in Egypt or the Yangtze in China. Flowing by or through six countries (China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam), the Mekong is nevertheless vital to Southeast Asia's ecology. However, efforts to make it a route for commercial navigation have been largely unsuccessful. Perhaps best known for the wars fought in its delta in the post-World War II period, the Mekong is now a focus for concern on the part of downstream countries as China embarks on a major dam-building programme in Yunnan Province. Will these dams have damaging effects on the river's vital role as a source of fish and carrier of silt that aids horticulture and agriculture? (ISEAS/DÜI)

"The Mekong River is a vital and valuable resource, with huge development potential for the six states through which it flows. Given the significant asymmetry of power between those states, however, there is a real risk that some might utilise it to the detriment of others. Without a sense of regional belonging, it is difficult to imagine that these states and their constituent communities will take regional imperatives to heart, participate in joint regulatory frameworks, or adopt behaviours for upstream-downstream and lateral cooperation over the appropriation and use of their shared resources. How effectively has closer interdependence of the Mekong countries accommodated the development of a political-social-cultural space conducive for the growth of a regional "we-ness" among not only political elites, but also the general public? The contributors to this volume approach this question from a range of directions, including the impacts of tourism, regional development programs, the Mekong Power Grid, and Sino-US rivalry. This edited volume presents valuable insights for scholars of international relations, Asian studies, development studies, environment studies, policy studies, and human geography"--

Review of the edited volume: Louis Lebel, John Dore, Rajesh Daniel, and Yang Saing Koma (eds.): Democratizing water governance in the Mekong region. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Mekong Press 2007, ISBN 978-974-9511-25-1, 304 p.

A new kind of danger is looming over the six countries that share the Mekong watershed: not about ideology or territory, but about water - who controls it, how it should be used, and for whose benefit. China's economic development and geopolitical objectives pose the most important, but by no means the only, threat to human security and regional stability. To varying degrees countries in the region are also pursuing short-sighted, environmentally unsustainable development policies, sometimes in conjunction with Chinese ambitions for regional economic integration. To avoid the perils of peace in the Mekong basin, the larger powers in the region, inter-governmental organisations, aid donors and the United States all have critical roles. In particular, cooperative and equitable involvement by China and Thailand is critical, and is an area where Washington may have considerable leverage. Non-governmental organisations, development banks and international agencies should be encouraged to pursue new methods and tools to apprise leaders in Yunnan and Beijing (and, to a lesser extent, Bangkok) of the very real risk of policy blowback from their plans for the Mekong. (Survival / SWP)

China manages its transboundary rivers as a subset of its broader relations with other riparian states. This results in discernible differences in the way China approaches its international river systems. Although there is a limit to the extent of Chinese cooperation, in relative terms China is more cooperative in the Mekong than in the Brahmaputra. To China, Southeast Asian states are part of a hierarchical system where it stands at the apex. While problems exist, there are deep linkages between them, which help foster collaboration in the Mekong. India, which has greater power parity with China, is not part of China's hierarchical worldview. The territorial disputes and security dilemmas that characterize South Asian geopolitics further impede cooperation. Domestic considerations also impact on China's river policies. There is greater consensus among Chinese policymakers in managing the Mekong than the Brahmaputra, which explains the higher degree of clarity in Chinese policies towards the former compared to the latter. (J Contemp China/GIGA)