China Seeks to Improve Mekong Sub-regional Cooperation: Causes and Policies

Abstract

The Mekong sub-region has important signifcance in China’s peripheral diplomacy and regional cooperation strategy. The Greater Mekong Subregion Economic Cooperation Program (GMS-ECP) is one of the earliest and most effective regional cooperation programmes that China has participated in. However, after more than 20 years, the development of sub-regional cooperation is still hindered by bottlenecks in economic, political, social, and other felds that need to be jointly addressed by the relevant countries. Since China put forward the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21stCentury Maritime Silk Road Initiative in 2013, various signs indicate that China has been seeking to upgrade sub-regional cooperation. On 12 November 2015, China launched the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC). The author will analyse the causes for the upgrading and related policies, and offer three main reasons for the upgrading of the Mekong River cooperation. First, sub-regional economic cooperation has reached a higher level. In the context of a marked decrease of the marginal effect of lower tariffs, there is a need for an economic cooperation upgrade. Second, there is an urgent need for subregional economic cooperation to expand to include security, political and social felds. Third, China hopes to play a fuller and more dominant role within the sub-regional cooperation framework.