Eric's Insight: LMC mechanism gains new steam for regional prosperity

The Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) Week 2024 was launched in central Yunnan’s Kunming city on March 25, marking the 8th anniversary of the cooperative mechanism and kicking off a new wave of regional cooperation. The year 2023 saw LMC countries poised to embrace a shared future for the region, while Yunnan province continued its role in boosting regional cooperation and prosperity.

LMC region poised for shared future

At the 8th LMC Foreign Ministers' Meeting in December 2023, Wang Yi, Member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Foreign Minister, said the six LMC countries will jointly make the region an example for Belt and Road cooperation, a pacesetter for implementing the Global Development Initiative, a pioneer for implementing the Global Security Initiative and a front-runner for implementing the Global Civilization Initiative.

The Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) Week 2024 is launched in central Yunnan’s Kunming city on March 25.

In response, Myanmar's Deputy Prime Minister and Union Minister for Foreign Affairs U Than Swe said that Myanmar attaches great importance to developing relations with China, admires China's development achievements, and is willing to deepen cooperation with China in various fields and jointly build a Myanmar-China community of shared future.

Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara said as the 2024 co-chair of the Mekong-Lancang Cooperation, Thailand looks forward to collaborating closely with other Mekong-Lancang colleagues towards the realization of a community with a shared future of peace, sustainable development and prosperity.

With the goal of building a better future for their people, Vietnamese Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son proposed fostering innovation and technology transfer, emphasizing the need to promote environmental protection and green growth by strengthening cooperation in developing green economy, clean energy and smart agriculture.

Also in December 2023, the fourth Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) Leaders’ Meeting was held with the theme of “Join Hands on the Building of a Community of Shared Future and Modernization among Lancang-Mekong Countries”. The attending leaders spoke highly of the LMC achievements, adopting a Naypyidaw declaration, an LMC five-year plan (2023-2027), and an initiative on regional innovation.

In particular, China announced with Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Viet Nam respectively the bilateral decision to build a community with a shared future, which will further boost efforts to build a Lancang-Mekong community with a shared future and provides a great example for building a community with a shared future for mankind.

Participants at launch meeting of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) Week 2024 in Kunming on March 25

By renewing the LMC mechanism’s position in the Community with a Shared Future for Mankind -- Chinese proposal for global governance, as well as in the three China-proposed initiatives for global development, security and cultural exchanges in specific, the Lancang-Mekong region has the potential be a brighter community of a shared future that features a more interconnected economic belt, a safer development environment, and closer people-to-people bonds.

The LMC mechanism will continue to support a community with a shared future with prosperity for all as a promising development for the region, said Cambodian Foreign Minister Sok Chenda Sophea on the occasion of the 2024 LMC Week. "For the last eight years, the LMC has transformed the region into a region of peace, development and prosperity," echoed Thong Mengdavid, a research fellow at the Mekong Centre for Strategic Studies based in Cambodia.

As climate change will greatly affect the region's poor population, especially those relying on forestry and agricultural resources, Phouphet Kyophilavong, dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business Management at the National University of Laos in Vientiane, said he hopes LMC countries can enhance their cooperation to support the poor while promoting sustainable development.

Yunnan contributes to LMC prosperity

As a major Chinese province participating into the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) mechanism, Yunnan has continued pushing forward pragmatic exchanges and cooperation with Mekong countries in 2023, gaining results in policy coordination, connectivity, smooth trade, security and folk bonds.

An exchange event on the joint prevention and control of tropical diseases in the Lancang-Mekong region takes place in Kunming on March 27.

For more political confidence and common development in the LMC region, Yunnan provincial government delegations visited the five Mekong countries, carrying out all-round coordination bilaterally in policies, mechanisms, industries, projects, livelihood and others. Consensuses were reached at the cooperation mechanisms between Yunnan and Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.

In regional connectivity, the Kunming-Vientiane international passenger train service on China-Laos Railway was launched in April 2023. Up to now, it has benefited 145,000 passengers from more than 80 countries and regions. The railway has operated more than 9,000 international freight trains, of which 984 belong to the Lancang-Mekong express trains. By connecting with the China-Europe freight trains and the Kunming-Shanghai trains, the LMC express trains helped to transport the Lao and Thai goods to European countries in 15 days.

The Siem Reap Angkor International Airport in Cambodia began its operation in October 2023, ushering in its first flight from Thailand. Built, operated and transferred (BOT) by the Yunnan companies, the Cambodian airport marks another high-quality project under the LMC and Belt and Road Initiative at large. The province also shortened the distance for its standard-gauge railways to connect with those in Vietnam and Myanmar in the near future.

Thanks to regional trade liberalization and investment facilitation, Yunnan’s trade volume with the five Mekong countries reached 15 billion US dollars in 2023, and the province has set up more than 600 investment enterprises in the countries, with the actual investment exceeding 8.5 billion US dollars.

An international freight terminal on the China-Laos Railway

Yunnan has 20 plus dry ports that border the Mekong countries. With port economy gaining speed in 2023, the Yunnan land ports have seen 39 million tons of good pass through, a record high. With e-commerce and the internet of things readily available at 12 Yunnan border gates, Mekong fruits had better access to the market of Yunnan and China at large.

In regional security, China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand fully resumed joint patrol on the Mekong River in 2023, and Yunnan province regularly participated in the joint law enforcement, water investigation and segmented operations on behalf of China. By jointly holding the 2nd LMC security forum, the Watch-2023 joint rescue, law-enforcement training, and border police cooperation, Yunnan contributed a lot to cracking down on cross-border telecom fraud, human trafficking, drug trafficking, gambling and other illegal activities in the LMC region.

As for cultural exchanges, the year 2023 saw Yunnan province recruit more than 5,800 international students from the five Mekong countries, granting them scholarships. The Lancang-Mekong vocational education base in west Yunnan’s Ruili offered vocational training to some 55,000 professionals in the region. Cultural exchanges that involve art festivals, film weeks, marathons, sepa takraw and goodwill games boosted folk friendship between Yunnan and Mekong countries.

With 25 cooperative projects rolled out at the Yunnan LMC Week 2024, the province will usher in more cooperation and exchanges with the Mekong countries in economic and trade, cross-border security, cultural exchanges, policy coordination, education and sports in the coming months. Yunnan’s role in LMC is promising.

Regional tourists have leisure at a Lancang-Mekong riverside beach in south Yunnan's Xishuangbanna prefecture.

Writing by Wang Shixue and Han Chengyuan (with inputs from regional media); Photos and video by Yunnan Daily and Mekong News Network; Proofreading by Zu Hongbing and Wang Huan