China’s Controversial Role in the Development of the Mekong River Basin

The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University presents Suzanne Ogden.

Suzanne Ogden, Northeastern University

The source of the Mekong River (known as the Lancang Jiang in China) is in the Tibetan Plateau, so what China does to affect the flow and ecology of the Mekong through Yunnan Province is important for the other five Mekong River Basin (MRB) countries. A common perception shaped by NGOs is that China is the regional bad actor; but research, including field research conducted for five weeks, suggests that China’s approach to natural resource and hydropower development in Yunnan Province has much in common with that of the lower MRB countries. Professor Ogden asks whether the impact of China’s development has necessarily been detrimental to the lower MRB countries, and she examines the incentives China has—the costs and benefits—that hydropower and natural resource development can bring to downstream riparians.

Suzanne Ogden is professor and interim chair in the department of political science at Northeastern University and an associate in research at the Fairbank Center. She has focused primarily on the interplay of culture, development, and politics. Professor Ogden is best known for her books Global Studies: China (11th edition, 2007); Inklings of Democracy in China (2002); China’s Unresolved Issues: Politics, Development and Culture (3rd edition, 1994); and China's Search for Democracy: The Student and Mass Movement of 1989 with K. Hartford, L. Sullivan, and D. Zweig (1992). During her sabbatical in 2010-2011, she took up new research on China’s role in the Mekong River Basin.