12/11/2023 0 Comments Unknown vice lord lit“In the future, some Mekong states may increasingly turn to the U.S. “This tough new China policy toward any obstacles to their Mekong commerce could in future be met with charges of gunboat diplomacy,” said Paul Chambers, an American academic who co-authored “Cashing In Across The Golden Triangle” with Myanmar economist Thein Swe. re-engages with Asia, where Thailand is one of its oldest military allies. The patrols, ostensibly conducted with Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, are a major expansion in Beijing’s role in regional security, extending its law enforcement beyond its borders, down a highly strategic waterway and into Southeast Asia. Shipping resumed five weeks later, with the departure of 10 cargo boats from the Mekong port of Guanlei - protected by heavily armed Chinese border guards on speedboats. Cargo volumes between Thailand’s Chiang Saen and ports in China’s Yunnan province have tripled since 2004, with about 300,000 tonnes of mainly agricultural goods now transported along the Mekong every year, Mekong River Commission statistics show.Īll Chinese shipping on the Mekong was suspended after the October massacre, which sparked popular outrage in China, with photos of the sailors’ bodies circulating widely on the Internet. The Mekong is an increasingly lucrative trade route. Beijing has invested heavily in the Mekong as part of a strategy to expand its economic and diplomatic influence in Southeast Asia, dynamiting some sections to allow bigger ships to pass, streamlining import and export procedures, and improving shipping support facilities. The geopolitical murder mystery is set against the backdrop of Southeast Asia’s famed Mekong River, which flows from the Himalayas through China, where it is called the Lancang, and into Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.Īround 60 million people depend on the river and its tributaries for food, transport and many other aspects of their daily lives. The country’s decision last year to end a half-century of isolation by freeing political prisoners and reaching out to the West has the potential of to reshape this promising but impoverished nation and the entire region. The events are unfolding at a time when Myanmar is in the international spotlight. Its Chinese owner regards it as a “second homeland” others worry it could morph into a strategic Chinese outpost. Incongruously, just across the river from where the ill-fated ships were found moored, on the Laos side of the triangle, Reuters also discovered a vast casino complex catering to Chinese tourists. But a visit to the Golden Triangle also found that attacks on Mekong shipping continue. New patrols by Chinese gunboats were supposed to restore peace to the region. But then the investigation turned to nine members of an elite anti-narcotics taskforce of the Thai military. Initially, the prime suspect was a heavily armed Mekong pirate who terrorizes shipping in Myanmar. But evidence gleaned from Thai officials and unpublished police and military reports suggests that some, if not all, of the sailors were still alive when their boats crossed into Thailand, and that they were executed and tossed overboard inside Thai territory. The Thai military says the victims were killed upriver before their ships floated downstream into Thailand. But a Reuters investigation casts serious doubts on the official account of the attack. It was the deadliest assault on Chinese nationals overseas in modern times. It was here, according to the Thai military, that 13 Chinese sailors on two cargo ships laden with narcotics were murdered in early October. “I’m scared to go any further,” says Kan, a 46-year-old boatman, cutting his engine as he drifts just inside Myanmar waters from Thailand. In Myanmar, where the jungly banks of the Mekong River vanish into the mist, lies an anarchic realm of drug smugglers, militiamen and pirates on speedboats. A model of the future development of the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, run by Chinese company Jin Mu Mian, in Laos on the Mekong River opposite Sop Ruak in the Golden Triangle, where the borders of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos meet January 14, 2012.
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