ABSTRACT
Under the GMS umbrella, China has been actively engaging with the Mekong Subregion through investing in cross-border infrastructure projects and initiating partnership-building schemes. These efforts and pragmatic approaches have, unsurprisingly, been accompanied by a rapid increase in China’s power presence in and political influence on other Mekong countries. Washington has, on the other hand, been endeavouring to maintain its leading role in the region by rolling out a “Lower Mekong Initiative” under the Obama administration and an “Indo-Pacific” concept in the Trump era. This chapter examines how China and the US characterise their rivalry in the development of the Mekong and their methods of attaining strategic objectives in the Subregion. The author argues that while it remains an open question whether China is gaining the upper hand in Southeast Asia, the “America first” doctrine and “greater burden sharing” policy are fuelling regional anxiety over the possibility that Washington’s pragmatic policy drift may make its relations with the five Lower Mekong countries more volatile, and may in turn exacerbate ASEAN’s internal cleavages in responding to regional challenges.
