ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates China's role as the world's largest builder of an investor in large dams, and focuses on the Greater Mekong Sub region in Southeast Asia. The Asian Drivers framework was developed to help understand the rise of Asian tiger economies such as Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and later China. The chapter also focuses on the views and motives of Cambodian and Vietnamese actors towards Chinese hydropower investment and transboundary river management. The dam-building and its severe downstream impacts have caused concern amongst government officials, experts, and scholars, some arguing that the Mekong River could soon be considered a diplomatic challenge akin to the South China Sea, which could potentially threaten Sino-Association of Southeast Asian Nations relations. The Political Ecology focuses on environmental and ecological implications of power relations that relate to natural resource management, and this approach is therefore useful for understanding China's impacts in overseas dam-building and related water management.
