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Chapter Four
Effectiveness of China’s strategy: The Case Study of Chinese Hydro-energy Dams Construction in Cambodia
he main goal of this chapter is to find out how China translates its accumulated power leverage into the real influence on Cambodia’s decision-making process. As I have elaborated in the previous chapter, China definitely possess the power resources;
however, is China capable to make Cambodia to do, what otherwise Cambodia would not? As we are soon to realize, in case of this particular country, China perhaps does not need the highest level of influence, as it is described in Goh’s theory. The case study of hydropower relationship between these two actors primarily seeks to elaborate on the political aspects. Attention to the discussion over the environmental factors of the hydropower energy will be marginalized as much as possible, since that topic has been described in large amount of working papers already, and besides the environmental implications, the dam building also reflects the regional politics, economics and social aspects. Firstly, we will look into the overall Chinese hydropower policies;
secondly, I will introduce the current situation and implications of Chinese dam construction in Cambodia with regards to the policy of ‘Peaceful Rise 2.0.’; and last but not least, I will tackle the theoretical approaches regarding the Chinese influence.
4.1. China’s hydropower strategy: modernization trough hydro-politics
In order to sustain the economic growth, it is in China’s interests to secure the sufficient and reliable source of energy. According to China Statistical Yearbook (2015), China consumed around 4 billion tons of SCE55 in 2013, estimating increase by 184% since 2000. China is capable of meeting the consumption and has the capabilities to put up with the growing demand.
However, the same data shows that it is neck on neck, since the primary energy output increased only by 159% throughout the same period. That means that China has to balance the energy demand with import, or invest more to renewable resources. Second problem is that to date, China still heavily depends on the coal-fired fueled source of electricity, which accounts for 80%
of China’s power generation (Zha 2015, 32). Coal fueling produces vast amount of greenhouse gas emissions and heavily damages the natural environment, and not only in China, since implications reach the whole world. Chinese government indeed attempts to deal with this tangible situation and investments in hydropower are one of the most available options, considering the geographical factors of China’s location. China is the upstream superpower of
55 Standard Coal Equivalent = 1kWh = 0.1229 kg SCE
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Asia, as Ho points out, less than 1% of water in China originates from outside the country, and its water outflows are 40 times as great as its inflows (2014, 4). More importantly, some of the largest rivers in Asia originate in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, where almost the largest freshwater resources flow down from the mountains, including the Mekong River. China’s location covers 19 international river basins, which brings about huge power and economic possibilities (Biba 2014, 23).
China takes advantage of this position and heavily invests into hydropower dams, which produce clean and renewable source of energy with fewer emissions. For example, in 2012 hydropower energy accounted for 16% of China’s electricity production, and 7% of total energy consumption (Zha 2015, 32). That would be absolutely all right, if the cost would not include such heavy negative impact on the surrounding environment. To name just some of them, given areas have to cope with environment issues such as “[…] degradation of water, soil and river erosion, and increasingly expensive and contentious population resettlements”, first of all (2015, 33). And second of all, if the dam is built for private money, not to mention the private money from companies connected to foreign government; or if the dam is built on the transnational river, hydropower constructions also bring about serious economic and political consequences.56 On the other hand, it is generally acknowledged that hydropower energy is a clean source of energy, and with current technological progress, it is up to each country to choose between, for instance, nuclear power or hydro power in order to fight with the worldwide increasing demand for energy. In case of china, hydro-dams construction has become the question of national pride, which represents a significant tool in quest for national modernization (Xing 2015, 64).
Hydropower is not only the mean to deal with power supply, it is also the important message.
Firstly, to the world that China is aware of its share on the climate change, and that it takes this issue seriously on the massive scale. Secondly, it is also the message for its own population, expressing the successful path of China’s grand strategy of modernization, which resulted in technologic capabilities to build its own sources of clean renewable energy. As Zha (2015, 35) also emphasizes, “[…] the official Chinese discourse demonstrates a determination to pursue sustainable strategies of development that are consistent with the preservation of the environment.” This dynamics has consequently made China to become the world largest hydro-energy producer, with estimated capacity of tits dams about 170 000 megawatts (Urban et al 2012, 303).
Mekong River is the life vein of the SEA region. Two thirds of the basin population makes their living from fishing activities, estimating 2.6 million tons of caught fish (Matthews and Geheb 2015, 1-5). That is naturally a vital source of proteins, concretely 47-80% of rural diet outside of China. Mekong River is shared by 6 countries, and China holds the most advantageous position among them, because of the up-stream location and by the historically proved role of regional leader with the biggest economy and political power. Yunnan, on the table number twelve, is with the 21% of the Mekong drainage (river plus tributaries) the key province for Chinese
56 Much more detailed look into direct and indirect environmental and social consequences is discussed in Urban et al 2012.
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development. To date Yunnan represents already 10% of China’s hydropower energy output – 8 dams are already put in operation, and it is estimated that the real potential might be 10 times more, which would overcome the current values up to 20% of country’s hydro-energy (Ho 2014, 8). Urban et al (2012, 303) concludes that these 8 dams generate more than 100kWh annually, which is be more than enough to “[…] power the regions of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan and Kunming combined.” Although Yunnan is landlocked by Guangxi AR and SEA countries, this province plays the key role in the ‘go west’ expansion strategy. Hydro-dam construction thus is one of the ways to bring the economic development to the poorer western area of China.
Table 12: Mekong River drainage share by countries (sq. km, %)
Country Drainage area (sq. km) Share of whole river (%)
China (Yunnan) 165,200 21
Myanmar 24,000 3
Laos 202,300 25
Thailand 184,000 23
Cambodia 155,000 20
Vietnam 65,500 8
Source: adopted by Impact of China’s rise on Mekong Region (2015, 30)
However, it should not be at the expense of cooperation with other states, which is actually one of the risks of hydro-dam development. In fact, hydro-dams on Chinese part of Mekong River heavily impact down-stream riparian states. From the environmental perspective, Chinese constructions are built at massive-scale, creating cascades of dams with length often overcoming 100 meters. Although it is estimated that the whole river gains only 16% of the water-flow in Yunnan Province (Matthews and Geheb 2015, 9), riparian states’ voice concerns about the impacts on the river ecology. For example, Cambodia and Thailand express panic due to reportedly decreasing fishery amounts, suggesting that this might have been caused by inconsistent changes in temperature of water from up-stream reservoirs (Yeophantong 2014, 711). Actually, this does not have to necessarily mean that Chinese dams are to blame, since the complex research on this issue is not complete yet. Problem is somewhere else. Besides environmental damage, the main controversy is the lack of coordination and consultation from the China’s side. According to some observes, China’s behavior bears the signs of hydro-hegemony.57 Although it is in the foundation of ‘Peaceful Rise 2.0.’ to raise the China’s commitment clout in multilateral institutions, the story of China’s hydro-development does not quite follow this trend. In fact, China does not coordinate its hydropower plans with any Mekong riparian state, and everything is decided behind the closed door. That does not mean that regionalism is totally forgotten; however, if it comes to national interests, China is pursuing the
57 “Hydro-Power and Hydro-Hegemony: China’s Prolific Dam-Building”, Available online: www.chinafolio.com /hydro-power-and-hydro-hegemony/, [Accessed 10th-Aug-2016].
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up-stream unilateral approach. Ho (2014, 3) clarifies that signing for the multilateral channels’
rules would weaken the Beijing’s sovereignty over the Mekong development decision rights, and limit the maneuvering room. For example, China is one of the three countries who rejected to UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Use of International Water sources.
Likewise, as stated in the previous chapter, China rejected to join the MRC, which is the key institution dealing with the coordination of development of the Mekong River. Ho (2014, 7-10) further elaborates that China’s policies on Mekong matters could be described as:
1. Limited multilateral cooperation – e.g. mainly GSM group and FDI, but also matters over area navigation in order to accelerate trade, joint patrols to crack down on criminals involved in piracy and trafficking, and tourism support;
2. Preference for bilateral engagement – foreign assistance, memorandums of understandings, strategic partnerships over the investments on hydro-dam constructions and its consequences in riparian states;
3. Unilateral approach in Yunnan (and other provinces) dam building
Such approach is the direct challenge for the China’s peaceful strategy, and also it might underline Beijing’s huge investments into the generation of goodwill. However, China has adopted the idea which killed several birds with one stone. Escalating promotion of a successful story of modernization and innovation in terms of hydro-energy reaped its fruit. As Goh (2016, 13) explains, Beijing does not have to change other’s preferences if they manage to meet the common ground. The preference of economic and development growth is shared among all riparian states, mainly in countries like Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia. In the case of hydro-dam construction, China might have used so-called ‘discursive persuasion’, which is type of influence used in the cases, when targeted state is not determined about something, but wielder can use its power to promote its cause as a win-win situation, making the target to agree. In this scenario, the hydro-dams construction has become the national goal for modernization in most of the riparian countries. Of course, it is hard to prove whether there was firstly the egg or the chicken – wielder or target. However, what is for sure, with huge contribution of World Bank and ADB, the promoting and funding of hydro-energy facilities in abroad have brought about the situation that riparian states want to ‘dam’ their part of Mekong as well, and do not pay as much attention to the up-stream part. Thanks to the fact that hydro-dams have been largely pushed forward also
“[…] as a tool for poverty reduction, locale economic development and the development of infrastructure” (Xing 2015, 64), China is able to carry on hand-in-hand with its transnational expansion to the states on its periphery. In order to make it to the top level of hydro-dam technology, Beijing have financed research, innovation, support for engineering companies, loans, subsidies, even the countries specifics research (Leet and Griffin, 2014). Simply said, China did everything in order to facilitate the best position for its companies’ success. Urban et al (2012, 305-315) recognizes 4 actual motives of China’s hydro-energy projects expansion:
1. To increase the energy security, fuel economic growth and development;
2. To spare China’s own rivers and avoid re-settlement;
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3. To foster regional cooperation among neighboring countries;
4. To use low-carbon energy for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions leading to climate change.
To this set of motivations I would also add one more – To silence the concerns of riparian states over China’s development on its share of Mekong River by creating the align preferences for all states, in terms of taking advantage of criticized hydro-dams, and to avoid the participation in multilateral institutions, which undermine China’s hegemony position in this area. Needless to say, it is a paradox that such commercial engagement is actually facilitated by the only relevant multilateral initiative – GMS. Zha (2015, 44) points out that “[Without] GMS as a diplomatic cover, it would be unimaginable for a hydropower company from China to engage in either cross-border electricity connectivity projects or obtain central government approval for loans to a project in LMR.” Therefore, despite the success of China’s hydro-dam strategy, the lack of institutional channeling should be considered as the weakness point of China’s foreign policy on Mekong development. In the discourse of influence, I suggest that the accumulated power might not be enough to adopt the ‘institutionalize shaping’ according to China’s rules.