Sparks fly as China moves oil up
Mekong By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - Energy-hungry China has started
to use the Mekong River as a new oil-shipping
route, raising new environmental concerns that
accidental spills could adversely affect the
livelihoods of nearly 60 million downstream river
dwellers and eventually evolve into a bone of
diplomatic contention between Southeast Asian
countries and China.
The maiden journey on
December 29 of two Chinese ships carrying oil up
the Mekong underscored Beijing's steadfast
determination to find alternative routes for
transporting the oil and
gas
it imports from the Middle East. The two vessels
arrived at a port in China's southwestern province
of Yunnan carrying a total of 300 tons of refined
oil, which was shipped from a port in Thailand's
northern province of Chiang Rai, according to
Xinhua, China's state news agency.
This
journey along the Mekong marked ''the trial launch
of China's oil-shipping program with its Southeast
Asian partners", Xinhua said. "Experts say the
waterway will serve as an alternative to the
Strait of Malacca as a route for oil shipping and
help to ensure oil supply to Yunnan and southwest
China at large."
About 75% of China's fuel
supplies currently flow through the narrow,
pirate-infested Strait of Malacca, positioned
between peninsular Malaysia and the Indonesian
island of Sumatra. On the strategic front, Beijing
has repeatedly expressed its concerns that in a
potential conflict US naval vessels could move to
choke off Chinese fuel shipments through the
waterway.
The fate of the Mekong, which
originates in Chinese territory, has long been a
point of contention between China and Southeast
Asia. China's plans to develop as many as a dozen
hydroelectric dams along the upper reaches of the
river have raised concerns and drawn criticism
about the impact on downstream riparian
communities in Southeast Asia. Beijing recently
scaled back those plans, but the two dams already
in operation have at times appeared to dry up the
river in northern Thailand.
The Mekong
River was made accessible to large cargo ships
only in 2004, when a series of rocky rapids in
Laos were cleared by Chinese engineers. Since,
there has been a growing trade along the river in
mostly agricultural and manufactured goods,
flowing mainly from southern China to northern
Thailand. There have been concomitant concerns
that the route has opened the way for human
traffickers to move Chinese people more easily
into Laos and Thailand and destinations outside
the region.
Environmental groups first
raised the alarm in 2004 when Beijing unveiled
vague plans to use the new trade route for
shipping oil. Those same groups expressed concerns
in mid-2006 when China moved to secure an increase
in the quota of oil it intends to move up the
Mekong River. The initial agreement, signed last
March by Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and China,
permitted a monthly shipping quota of a mere 1,200
tons of refined oil.
When the two Chinese
ships made their landmark journey last month,
Beijing had set its sights on transporting close
to "70,000 tons of refined oil each year from
Thailand alone via the Mekong River", Qiao Xinmin,
a Chinese maritime-affairs official, was quoted as
saying by Xinhua.
Muddying the
waters The shipment of oil on the Mekong
has environmental groups up in arms. "The whole
deal was done in secrecy with no information
released to the public or attempts to get the
people's views, especially those living along the
Mekong River," said Premrudee Daoroung,
co-director of the Towards Ecological Recovery and
Regional Alliance (TERRA), which is based in
Bangkok. "This confirms who controls the Mekong."
With blueprints to dam the Mekong on the
table, Beijing managed to win over Southeast Asian
governments when it changed course and offered to
deepen the Mekong by blasting rapids in Myanmar
and Laos and open the way for large ships to
navigate the river. "China led this effort and was
the first to give the money for it, because it was
going to be the main beneficiary," Premrudee said.
Environmentalists' fears of possible oil
spills have been fed by the Chinese ships already
plying the Chiang Rai-Yunnan route. "These cargo
boats have been polluting the river, and that is
upsetting people living along the banks," said
Pianporn Deetes, campaigner for the Southeast Asia
Rivers Network, based in Thailand's northern city
of Chiang Mai.
The 4,880-kilometer Mekong
River begins its journey on the Tibetan Plateau,
snakes south through Yunnan province, and flows
along the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand
before making its way through Cambodia and Vietnam
and emptying into the South China Sea. An
estimated 60 million people in Southeast Asia live
along the Mekong's muddy banks and depend on it
for food, transport and water.
Communities
living along the river's lower basin in particular
depend on it for its bountiful fish supply,
according to the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an
inter-governmental body comprising the lower-basin
countries of Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.
The annual fishery in the lower Mekong accounts
for nearly 2% of "the total world catch and 20% of
all fish caught from inland waters of the world",
says the MRC, which is based in the Laotian
capital Vientiane.
Significantly, China's
decision to use the Mekong River as a new oil
route comes as its demand for energy soars, with
its total annual oil imports now estimated to have
reached 140 million tons per year, according to
available reports. Moreover, China's oil route
along the Mekong River is one of two plans it
unveiled in its bid to avoid the Strait of
Malacca. Last April, China inked a deal with
Myanmar to build an oil pipeline linking Myanmar's
deep-water port of Sittwe to the Yunnan provincial
capital Kunming.
One of the proposed
routes for the pipeline begins at the Myanmar port
in the Bay of Bengal, heading east through Arakan
state to the Arakan Yoma mountain range, through
the Magway and Mandalay divisions and then through
Shan state before entering southern China.
Chinese-funded energy deals have helped to prop up
Myanmar's previously cash-strapped military regime
financially and undermined US-led trade and
investment sanctions.
The pipeline
proposal has also raised concerns about a possible
wave of new abuses as the military government
moves to clear areas for construction inhabited
mainly by various ethnic minority groups. "There
will be a lot of forced relocation ... because the
[pipeline] route goes through heavily populated
areas," said Wong Aung, spokesman for the Shwe Gas
Movement, a group fighting for the rights of the
ethnic-Arakan community in Myanmar. "The Chinese
don't care about environmental destruction in
their need for oil."
(Inter Press Service
with additional reporting by Asia Times Online)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East, Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
