Asia Pacific
By MIKE IVES
MARCH 31, 2017
An ethnic Kachin fisherman hauling his
net in the Irrawaddy River, near the planned Myitsone Dam in Myitkyina,
Myanmar. Critics said the dam would irreparably harm the river and destroy fish
stocks downstream. Credit Minzayar Oo for The New York Times
AUNG MYIN THA, Myanmar — For six years,
Daw Kaw Bu has waited to return to the village she was forced to leave to make
way for a dam that has yet to be built.
“I pray to God to let me work on my own
land again,” she said on a recent afternoon, sitting outside the wood-shingled
home in Aung Myin Tha, where she was resettled in early 2011.
She may get her answer soon, when a
government-appointed commission makes a recommendation on the fate of the $3.6
billion, Chinese-financed Myitsone Dam.
The confluence of the Mali Hka and
N’mai Hka tributaries of the Irrawaddy near the site of the dam project. A
government-appointed commission will soon make a recommendation on the fate of
the dam. Credit Minzayar Oo for The New York Times
The decision is a daunting test for Myanmar’s
leader, Daw
Aung San Suu Kyi, who risks angering China,
the region’s economic powerhouse, if she cancels the project, or the public if
she lets it go forward.
Analysts say the commission’s report
would provide her the political cover to kill an unpopular white elephant that
she inherited from Myanmar’s former military government.
But getting out of the deal would be
difficult. If her government cancels the project outright, it could have to
repay some $800 million that the state-owned Chinese developer says it has
already spent on the project.
Yangtze
River
BHUTAN
INDIA
KACHIN
STATE
CHINA
Myitsone Dam
BANGLADESH
Mekong
River
MYANMAR
VIETNAM
Irrawaddy
River
LAOS
Bay of
Bengal
Yangon
200 Miles
THAILAND
MARCH 31, 2017
By The New York Times
If Myanmar offers China other dam
projects in return, a compromise her government has floated, they are likely to
impinge on disputed ethnic areas where they could threaten the peace talks she
has championed since her political party came to power last year.
“If she is the leader she claims to be,
I think she should cancel” the dam, said Yun Sun,
a specialist on China-Myanmar relations at the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan
think tank in Washington. “But then she has to somehow deal with an $800
million disbursed investment: It cannot be swept under the carpet without
giving China something major, and I cannot think of anything that she could
give to China without generating a bigger pushback.”
The Myitsone Dam is among the largest
of many Chinese-financed energy and mining projects approved by the military
junta that ruled Myanmar until 2011. It is especially contentious because it
would be the first dam to cross the Irrawaddy River, the mythic cradle of
civilization for Myanmar’s ethnic Burman majority.
Resettlement housing in Aung Myin Tha,
where about 300 families were relocated. Residents said that their new village
had some advantages, but most families now have less farmland and diminished
access to the Irrawaddy. Credit Minzayar Oo for The New York Times
But as Myanmar moved toward democracy
and controls loosened on public expression, rising anti-Chinese sentiment burst into the open, and
the dam became a focus of protest. While officials said the dam would provide
Myanmar much-needed cash and electricity, critics said it would cause
irreparable harm to the river, destroy fish stocks downstream and displace
thousands of villagers.
But perhaps the most incendiary
objection was that under the deal struck by the ruling generals, 90 percent of
the dam’s electricity could go to China. As protests spread to Myanmar’s
cities, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s revered pro-democracy leader at the
time, spoke out against the dam.
In 2011, the military-backed
transitional government yielded to public pressure and suspended the project.
A woman from the Myitsone area
collecting banana leaves and other vegetables and plants to sell. If the
government cancels the dam outright, it could have to repay some $800 million
that the state-owned Chinese developer says it has already spent on the
initiative. Credit Minzayar Oo for The New York Times
The decision, widely seen as a victory
for the forces of democracy, shocked Chinese officials and businessmen. Many
remain incredulous that the dam was delayed at all in a country that needs more
electricity to power its fast-growing economy.
Although the contract has never been
publicly disclosed, details have leaked out over the years. A person who
supports the dam and is familiar with the contract, who spoke on the condition
of anonymity, said Myanmar was guaranteed 10 percent of the dam’s electricity
at no cost and could buy more on request.
The government’s 15 percent stake in
the dam would earn it about $18 billion over a 50-year concession period,
analysts and local news reports said.
The site of the Chinese dam project. If
Myanmar offers China other dam projects in return, they are likely to impinge
on disputed ethnic areas where they could threaten peace talks. Credit Minzayar
Oo for The New York Times
Asia World, a domestic conglomerate
with deep ties to the military and roots in the heroin trade,
owns 5 percent and also stands to profit handsomely, they said. Asia World is subject to American sanctions because of its ties
to the junta.
The Chinese developer owns the
remaining 80 percent.
The Myitsone was meant to be the first
and largest of seven dams planned by the Chinese developer. It would
generate more power than the entire country produces now, according to some
estimates, but would still not cure the country’s chronic energy shortages.
One reason for that, experts say, is
that there is no grid connecting the dam to Myanmar’s major towns and cities.
Roadwork along the Irrawaddy River near
the site of the planned dam. It would be the first dam to cross the river, the
mythic cradle of civilization for Myanmar’s ethnic Burman majority. Credit
Minzayar Oo for The New York Times
“Does Myanmar need electricity? Yes,
for sure,” said David Dapice, an economist at Harvard who has studied Myanmar’s
hydropower sector. “Does it need Myitsone? No. There are many other hydro sites
that could be developed. And in the country’s south, gas generation would be
cheaper than transmitting hydro over long distances.”
Canceling the dam, however, would upset
relations with China, Myanmar’s biggest trading partner.
Recognition is growing among Chinese
officials and experts, analysts said, that the diplomatic and business
strategies that worked well when Myanmar was ruled by generals are no longer
viable.
“We’ve
learned our lesson from focusing too much on the elites, and now we know that
deals and agreements are not solid if they are not based on people-to-people
relations,” said Fan Hongwei, a Myanmar specialist at Xiamen University in
China.
A gold mine in the village of Myitsone.
Under the deal struck by Myanmar’s former ruling generals, 90 percent of the
dam’s electricity could go to China. Credit Minzayar Oo for The New York Times
But the dam’s developer, State Power Investment
Corporation, has already spent $800 million on feasibility and
technical studies, bridges, electrical grid updates and other supporting
infrastructure, the person familiar with the dam contract said. The money was
borrowed from commercial banks, he said, so the cost keeps growing as the loans
accrue interest.
Executives at the company declined a
request for an interview. But in a written statement, Wang Qiyue, the project’s
general manager, said that the company would “listen carefully and offer our
practical advice” to any new proposals from Myanmar officials.
The dam would provide Myanmar “its own
cheap, renewable energy,” he said, a better option than importing power or
using more expensive or nonrenewable energy sources.
Breng Nan, 42, and his daughter Awng
Ding, 4, cooking in their old house in the village of Tan Hpre, whose residents
were relocated to Aung Myin Tha. His family moved back to its old villages even
though some relatives remain in Aung Myin Tha. Credit Minzayar Oo for The New
York Times
Officials close to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi
have said that negotiations were underway for Myanmar to pay China, or apply
the money to other projects, if the dam is not built.
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s spokesman, U Zaw
Htay, said last year that as a compromise for not building the Myitsone Dam,
she was prepared to offer the Chinese a series of smaller hydropower projects
that are less of a threat to the environment.
But Myanmar’s best potential hydropower
sites are all in conflict areas, said Tom Kramer, a researcher in Yangon at the
Transnational Institute, a Dutch organization that studies ethnic issues in
Myanmar. Approving new projects there, he said, could set off renewed fighting
among the very armed groups that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is struggling to bring to
the negotiating table as part of a fragile national peace dialogue.
But whether the money is used to repay
China or build alternative dams, it is not clear where Myanmar would come up
with $800 million, a sum greater than its roughly $600 million health budget.
A more palatable alternative, some
analysts say, may be for Myanmar to grant further concessions to China in the
western port town of Kyaukpyu, where state-owned Chinese companies have already
won
contracts to develop an industrial zone and a deepwater port.
On a recent afternoon near the site of
the Myitsone Dam, there was no sign of Chinese workers or dam-building
equipment. From the bank of the Irrawaddy, the only movement visible near the
unfinished dam site was a slender fishing skiff that drifted lazily on the
current.
Residents of Aung Myin Tha, a nearby
village where about 300 families were resettled, said it had some advantages,
like the 16-bed hospital and roads built by the dam developer. But most
families now have less farmland and diminished access to the Irrawaddy and
traditional hunting grounds, and opposition to the dam remains strong.
“If the Lady lets it happen, Kachin
people will protest,” said one villager, Daw Ja Khawn, using the popular
moniker for Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi. “We’ll get the whole country behind us, which
will be easy because the whole country is already against it.”
Dozens of families have taken matters
into their own hands, moving back to their old villages, even though
electricity was cut off there.
“I built my house to challenge the
Chinese,” said one, Daw Lu Ra, who was eating a freshly caught fish by
candlelight at a restaurant overlooking the headwaters. “Even if they told me
to move again, I wouldn’t.”
Wai Moe contributed reporting from
Yangon, Myanmar. Yufan Huang contributed research.
Supported by
The Opinion Pages |
Letter
A Dam Project in Myanmar
APRIL 17, 2017
An ethnic Kachin fisherman hauling his net
in the Irrawaddy River, near the planned Myitsone Dam in Myitkyina, Myanmar.
Critics said the dam would irreparably harm the river and destroy fish stocks
downstream. Credit Minzayar Oo for The New York Times
To the Editor:
“A
Chinese-Backed Dam Project Puts Myanmar in a Bind” (news article, April 2),
about the Myitsone Dam and China-Myanmar affairs, is important in reminding
your readers of a critical relationship.
We should also remember that Daw Aung
San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s leader, set up a government commission on the fate of
the dam just before her trip to Beijing last year, presumably so that she would
not have to deal with the Chinese on this thorny issue on her first visit as
state counselor.
Now she must decide, and there are no
good options for her. Her acclaim has diminished internally because of limited
progress on reforms, and internationally because she has not spoken out on
human rights issues related to the Rohingya and Muslims.
She has said her highest priority is
the peace process — ending decades of various insurgencies among ethnic groups
— but approving this or more dams in their areas further jeopardizes her
government’s credibility. Any decision she makes will antagonize important
political elements.
DAVID I. STEINBERG, BETHESDA, MD.
The writer is professor emeritus of
Asian studies at Georgetown University.
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