🇰🇭 How the canal will threaten unity, the environment. And why the Huns want it anyway.

Hello friends!

There are two things that I knew about the Funan Techo Canal in Cambodia. 1) the name was often misspelled as Funan Techno Canal, which would’ve been a great electroclash band in 2006 and 2) it is very complicated but very, very important.

So I thought I better call Brian Eyler, who has been doing brilliant work sharing his observations and wisdom about the canal and the broader Mekong through his work at the Stimson Centre.

This is a story that’s only going to get bigger and I feel much better equipped to understand it all now after our conversation, and I hope you do too!

Thanks,
Erin Cook

Fear and loathing on the canal trail

If Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet — and his father, predecessor Hun Sen — have their way, the Funan Techo Canal will stretch from the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port all the way down to the Gulf of Thailand 180 kilometres away. The powerful pair say construction, with financing from China-based backers, will begin in the final quarter of this year and revolutionise Cambodian manufacturing and exporting by allowing local firms to easily send products out of the country without cruising down the Mekong to Vietnam. If only it were so easy!

This project has the potential to become the flashpoint in the Mekong we’ve been warned about. But how, exactly, does a canal threaten to disrupt longrunning transboundary agreements between Mekong states while offering such an apparently raw deal to Cambodians? I called Brian Eyler at the Stimson Centre to understand more. Eyler is the author of the fantastic Last Days of the Mighty Mekong, and more recently has been sounding the alarm on the environmental impacts of the planned canal in the media, as well as upstream damming with the Mekong Dam Monitor project.

While watchers like Eyler and environmental activists the region over have expressed concern with the project, as far as the Cambodian government is concerned they’re on to a winner. Shortly before speaking with Eyler, Prime Minister Hun Manet had, once again, told local (state-aligned) media that the project has widespread support across the country and claims to the contrary are simply sour grapes from outside agitators. This probably isn’t the full story, Eyler says. 

“There is little room within Cambodia for civil discourse on the canal because of the high level of political prioritisation that Prime Minister Hun Manet has placed on it. He seems to be using it as a tool to unify the country to rally around his new administration and by and large that seems to be succeeding,” he says. 

Online, plenty of criticism can be found, Eyler notes, and most of that revolves around the environmental impact of this project, as well as other concerns like water levels Tonle Sap, or what likely resettlements will look like if and when the project does get underway. 

Funding remains hazy, with a Chinese firm expected to bankroll the project but the recouping of costs unknown. “There have been some contradictory statements coming out of Hun Sen lately,” Eyler notes, including that Cambodian nationals will use the canal free of charge which is “impossible.” The project lease looks to be about 40 to 50 years, which is a “long payback period where the users of the canal, Cambodian boats and commercial interests, will be paying tolls to travel through it or to repay their canal the Cambodian government will tax its citizens. Those are really the only two ways to get income to the canal owner.” 

Currently, Cambodians can essentially travel free down the river into Vietnam and onto the ports. While Cambodians may find it quicker, Eyler flags, in the long run, the costs may outweigh the benefits. 

Increasing the ease of exporting is one motivation, but there’s another, larger, historical story happening, Eyler says. Cambodia has two great civilisation claims in history: the Angkor empire, and the Funan kingdom. Through this, Phnom Penh often winks at an irredentist claim over much of the Mekong Delta which, “indeed, was their territory prior to Vietnam taking it, or settling their people there 200 years ago,” according to Eyler. 

“So there are these deep historical antagonisms and within the canal discourse, we see that harkening back to the air of greatness in the name of the canal, the Funan Techo Canal. The canal is being used as a kind of tool to remind the Cambodians that they were the great ones in the Mekong and that they can be great again if we build this canal,” he adds. 

It’s also a little bit about restoring the greatness of the Hun clan. The ‘Techo’ refers to an honorific for Hun Sen, Eyler tells me of Hun Manet’s enthusiastic spruiking, “So not only is it a project that will restore Cambodia to its greatness but ‘we’re going to do this for my father, too.’” 

Whatever to all that is the message from Hanoi, at least publicly. Typically, a project of this sort involving the Mekong would involve consultation with other member states. By arguing that the canal will be from a tributary rather than the mainstream of the river, Phnom Penh has cut that consultation process in favour of heading straight to construction.

This isn’t right says Hanoi, and Eyler for that matter. The Mekong starts all the way up in China and the mainstream flows all the way down to Vietnam before spitting out into the sea there are all sorts of arteries that come off it along the way but, for this project, it’s all about the mainstream. 

The tributary status of the project has been widely rejected as a fabrication from Phnom Penh. “We know that because all the water in it comes from the mainstream, it’s a simple test,” Eyler says. Despite this intractable and easily provable fact, Hun Sen continues to promote this view, including tweeting recently that the canal does not connect to the Mekong. “That is absolutely inaccurate,” says Eyler. 

That ‘simple test’ involves the quick and easy testing of water proving origin, but by dodging the ‘mainstream’ claim Cambodia has bypassed the 1995 Mekong Agreement. The agreement, in which all Mekong states are represented for deliberations over the river and any potential harms development can bring to the states, is sidelined when it comes to tributary projects — or those claimed to be. 

“Because of this tributary designation, the Mekong River Commission cannot become involved in a meaningful way,” Eyler says. “ And cannot apply 30 years of transboundary water governance experience to reduce the tensions and improve the environmental impacts of the project.” 

It’s the environmental impacts that have Eyler particularly concerned. Downstream in Vietnam may be an issue and something Hanoi has already flagged, but Phnom Penh’s enthusiasm obscures that the environmental impact at home may be devastating. 

The area that is earmarked for the canal’s construction cuts across an active flood plain “where water typically flows freely,” Eyler stresses. “It’s around 40 kilometres across during the wet season and all moving downstream towards Vietnam … Currently, there are canals along that pathway, but they have low levees so the floods pass right over them. But these high levees will introduce a new type of structure into that landscape,” he warns. “The floods will constantly knock them down, cut under them and require much more maintenance.”

It’s not just an environmental mess waiting to happen — it’s a potential rip-off for Cambodians who will have to foot the bill. “I don’t think the Cambodians have factored those costs into their costing of the lifetime of the canal. The Cambodian government will likely pay for that, not the Chinese construction owner.”

Eyler, well aware of the potential drawbacks of the project, stresses that whole-hearted scrapping of the canal isn’t the right answer, but rather more consultation and a deeper look into the environmental impacts. 

“Maybe this canal is the right decision for Cambodia,” he says. “But the Cambodians have a lot more work to do to prove to their own people and the rest of the region, the world, that it is a good idea.”

FURTHER READING

Impacts of Cambodia’s Funan Techo Canal and Implications for Mekong Cooperation (Stimson Centre)

Given the severe potential transboundary impacts, evidence of changing functional descriptions over time, incorrect designation of the project, and an overall lack of project documentation, concerned parties should advocate for the CNMC to correctly designate the canal as a mainstream project. This will initiate MRC prior consultation processes which provide a pathway and sufficient time to comprehensively assess canals impacts, propose mitigation changes, and explore alternatives. Failing to initiate the MRC consultation processes will result in an erosion of the MRC’s ability to carry out its mandate set forward in the 1995 Mekong Agreement and set precedent for other MRC member countries to ignore their international treaty responsibilities when developing future projects.

Vietnam’s Geopolitical Anxiety Over Cambodia’s Funan Techo Canal (Fulcrum)

For Vietnam, the Funan Techo Canal will lead to lost earnings from Cambodia-bound ships. Moreover, it is another indication of Cambodia’s shifting position between China and Vietnam. Since the July 1997 political crisis, Cambodia’s overtures to China have been driven partly by tension with Vietnam resulting from the issues of illegal Vietnamese immigrants in Cambodia and Vietnam’s alleged border encroachments. Tension over the canal would reaffirm China’s importance for Cambodia’s security.

The canal raises two related predicaments for Vietnam. On the one hand, it needs to tread carefully since Beijing will back the canal financially under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). On the other hand, overreactions or inflammatory comments from Hanoi will stir up nationalistic sentiment among Cambodians pushing the project forward. The project symbolises Cambodia’s quest for greater sovereign ability to transport and trade goods domestically and internationally.

Cambodia’s US$1.7 billion China-backed canal sparked unease. Here’s how it can soothe concerns (SCMP)

Policymakers need to ensure that the canal’s economic benefits do not come at the cost of any unwarranted social, environmental, and stability implications for Cambodia and the wider region. To improve the odds of this being the case, lessons should be learned from other successful case studies; domestic grievances should be addressed appropriately; and all stakeholders should be involved in the decision-making process to mitigate the potential for negative outcomes.