ABSTRACT
Great rivers may both form boundaries to separate communities and function as means to bring people together. Yet age-old intra-regional fragmentation, colonial rivalries, Cold War tensions, and, over recent decades, rapid shifts in Asia’s power dynamics and geoeconomic contexts have seen the Mekong River serve more as a political frontier than a reminder of ecosystemic interconnectedness and communal interdependence, even though both bear significantly on sustainable livelihood and cultural continuity along its waterways. By tracing the history of major external and local political entities engaged in Mekong affairs, their different interests and resultant diverse positions, this study intends to demonstrate that reference to the “Mekong region” or “subregion” or “greater subregion” is a matter of construction rather than description. Accordingly, economic judgement in and for the region has often been moulded by political purposes or pressures.
