This volume presents a contemporary analysis of the impact of China's rise on the Mekong Region at a critical point in Southeast Asian history. As the most populated country and the second largest economy in the world, China has become an increasingly influential player in global and regional affairs in recent decades. Economic ties between China and her southern neighbors are particularly strong. Yet relations between China and the Mekong region are embedded in complex socio-cultural and political issues. China's accelerated growth, increasing economic footprint, rapid military modernization, and global search for energy, natural resources, and food security have created a wide range of new challenges for smaller countries in Southeast Asia. These new challenges both encourage and limit cooperation between China and the emerging ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). The authors pay close attention to these challenges with particular focus on the impact of Chinese investment, trade, foreign aid, and migration.

Impact of China's Rise on the Mekong Region

Santasombat, Yos

Science & Math

PALGRAVE~MACMILLAN

The Thai—Yunnan Project is proud to present this English-language version of Professor Yos Santasombat’s fascinating ethnography of the Tai in Daikong, southwestern China. It represents a significant contribution to the ethnographic record of the Tai peoples.  The village of Lak Chang is located close to the edge of the Tai world and is increasingly embraced by Chinese influence. Professor Yos skilfully weaves ethnographic and historical writing to chart the course of Lak Chang’s incorporation into the modern Chinese state. This has been a painful history but what emerges in this account is a sense of Tai cultural identity that is vigorous and adaptive.  “The Tai ethnic category is thus a complex and dynamic construct which takes place within the context of changing power relations and socio-economic conditions where the past is reconstructed to give meaning to the present and hope for the future.”  In his account of the labours, rituals and beliefs of the Tai villagers of Daikong, Professor Yos brings contemporary ethnic identity to their life. Among the patchwork paddyfields and haphazard laneways of Lak Chang we come to a greater understanding of how global and regional processes of modernisation are managed and selectively incorporated by one local community.

Lak Chang: A Reconstruction Of Tai Identity In Daikong

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Pandanus Books

In northern Thailand, Laos, and southern China, marginal fishing communities along the Mekong River and its tributaries are experiencing the adverse effects of changing ecosystems on their fish stocks, local economies, lifestyles, and cultural practices. Transnational mega-projects are causing great environmental degradation and endangering people's livelihoods. While depicting a stark future for less advantaged Mekong communities, this book sees reasons for hope in the communities' capacity to respond to these changes. Using their knowledge and experience to cope with evolving historical realities such as erratic water levels, many local communities have devised conservation measures for fishing. The author advocates bottom-up planning and transnational civil society alliances between local groups and regional and international organizations to bring about more balanced development and sounder natural resource management in the region. Appendixes contain an extensive inventory of fish species, habitat, conservation status, and fishing techniques.

The River of Life

History

Asia

Silkworm Books

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Books by Santasombat, Yos