Mekong Meetings

In 2001, when I was running a tour company, I was warned by an industry insider “If you want to go anywhere in the world you’ve got about 10 years to go before everywhere will be completely run over by Chinese tour groups.”   If you haven’t experienced this crush of Chinese tourists already, you’re about to.  If you have gone touring anywhere in Asia, you know that they are just about everywhere!At the end of 2007, the NYT proclaimed Lao the travel destination of the year, mostly because it was “like Thailand 30 years ago” and because it was had very few visitors.  I guess whomever wrote the article couldn’t tell the difference between the local Lao and the visiting Thai and Chinese.  Figures.Well, whatever the other flaws with the NYT may be, today this week officially ends any semblance of “very few visitors” and any dreams of Lao remaining like “Thailand of 30 years ago.”  See here.Lao has 6 million people and no economy and as a neighbor, this is a godsend to resource-poor China. So let’s just call this what it really is, China just bought itself another province (and Thailand will continue to rent a goodly portion too).   If traveling Beijing to Singapore were a) feasible for freight, or b) used only for tourism this might be a good thing. As it stands it will be used for sending power and resources to China and returning cheap goods (see here) and relocating Chinese people to SEA.The Mekong meetings are really just the extended exasperations of the SEA countries—they’ve been trying for years to stop China for damming up the river.  But like all issues that are physically inside of China’s boarders, China claims it’s purely a “domestic issue” and repeated says it has nothing to do with Lao, Thailand, Cambodia or Vietnam.  This would be like Illinois damming up the Mississippi river and tell all states south that it was absolutely a state issue alone.  Not just arrogant, but mean too.So China will take all the water (before it gets there), then take all the minerals (via mining rights) and all the timber and then sell to the Lao Cheap goods in Chinese department stores.  You’re right, Mr. Hu.  It’s sounds like a win-win for everyone!