China to share Lancang water data with SE Asia

China’s Premier Li Keqiang pledged to share more water management data from Lancang River with its neighbors in Southeast Asia.

China announced a series of proposals to promote Lancang-Mekong cooperation on Monday when Li attended the third Lancang-Mekong Cooperation leaders’ meeting in Beijing via video link.

“Starting from this year, China will share the Lancang River’s hydrological data for the whole year with the Mekong countries,” Li said at the meeting.

He noted that China will work with other LMC countries to establish a Lancang-Mekong Water Resources Cooperation Information Sharing Platform to better tackle climate change and natural disasters such as floods and droughts.

Lancang and Mekong differ in name, but refer to the same river. It is called the Lancang River in China, while in its downstream after flowing out of China’s Yunnan Province, it is called the Mekong River, running across Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Calling the six Lancang-Mekong countries a community with a shared future linked by the same water, Li said their cooperation originates from water and enriches the LMC spirit of friendship and mutual benefit.

He said the legitimate rights and interests of Lancang-Mekong countries to develop and utilize water resources should be fully respected, and all parties’ interests and concerns should be accommodated.

“China is willing to offer more assistance within its capacity to other Lancang-Mekong countries for better utilizing water resources,” Li said.

On promoting connectivity, Li proposed synergizing the LMC with the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, which traverses western China and connects Southeast Asia with the Eurasian continent.

“Greater synergy between the LMC and the New Trade Corridor will make trade routes more convenient and enable the leveraging of more resources from western and southwestern China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries, and thus channel more inputs to the Mekong countries,” said Li.

Regarding the ongoing global anti-pandemic efforts, Li said once developed and deployed in China, COVID-19 vaccines will be provided to Mekong countries on a priority basis.