🇹🇭 Never mind the fear, here's the digital wallets!

Hello friends!

We’re joined this week but a whole lot of new readers so I thought I’d let this Mekong update out from under the paywall to celebrate/let everyone get familiar with what our premium subscriptions look like. See you Thursday for our maritime update.

Erin Cook

🇹🇭 Digital wallets are a go! I might wait for Aug. 1 before I start celebrating

Punters can finally start enrolling in the controversial digital wallet program from next month, Bloomberg reports. The Aug. 1 open date comes after Prime Minister Srettha Thaivisin and a panel convened to hatch out the finer details of this tricky plan. 

“The digital wallet program is a massive state program to inject money into the pockets of people, entrepreneurs and the overall economy. To ensure caution, whether legally or technically, especially regarding security, it has taken a long time. But the people won’t be waiting in vain,” Srettha promised, as per Bloomberg. 

Manufacturing is facing a nightmare with long-established factories — such as a Suzuki plant that churned out up to 60,000 cars a year — closing down as cheaper Chinese imports take over. “The Chinese are now trying to export left, right and centre. Those cheap imports are really causing trouble,” Supavud Saicheua, chairman of the state planning agency National Economic and Social Development Council, told Reuters. He added that Thai manufacturing is fundamentally broken and it is time for reform. 

For workers, it’s left many shocked, broke and with few options: “I don't have any savings. I have hundreds of thousands of baht of debt. I'm old, where will I go to work? Who will hire me?” said Chanpen Suetrong, who has worked at the recently closed VMC Safety Glass factory in central Samut Prakan province. 

Please do not send Y Quynh Bdap back to Vietnam. That’s the message from Thai human rights groups after the co-founder of the Montagnards Stand for Justice group was picked up by police a day after meeting with officials from the Canadian embassy. He has refugee status in Thailand. 

Vietnam alleges he was involved in last year’s anti-government riots in Dak Lak, a claim he denies. “I am a human rights activist fighting for religious freedom and advocating for people’s rights. My activities are peaceful, consisting only of collecting and writing reports on human rights violations in Vietnam,” he said in a video provided to the Associated Press by Thai pro-human rights lawmakers. 

A court on Monday delayed Bdap’s extradition hearing after it agreed with the defendant’s complaint that there simply had not been enough time to get everything together. “We did not have time to prepare the fight for the case today, which was politically motivated,” lawyer Nadthasiri Bergman told media outside the court, as per Benar. Hearings will be closed to the public citing national security concerns. 

🇱🇦 Discontent in the economy, but few options

I love nothing more than when the brains at Nikkei Asia turn their attention to the Lao economy. A big, beautiful one here from Nikkei this week that looks at movements in the central bank and what they tell us about the state of the economy. Governor Bounleua Sinxayvoravong has walked out after two years — a period that has seen truly staggering inflation numbers, shortages in essentials and a general malaise in employment — but it’s unclear if he’s been forced out, or taking a different role focusing on these structural issues.

The reshuffle comes as Laos faces a tough question, is it time to call in the IMF? Vientiane desperately needs cash to service its foreign debts, but foreign exchange reserves are circling the drain. “Laos doesn't want to default on its foreign debts. But it also does not want to go to the IMF for a bailout out because of the political consequences,” one foreign banker who works with Lao clients told the outlet. 

China and Laos are almost done with a two-week joint military exercise on the outskirts of Vientiane, Radio Free Asia reports. A reported 300 Chinese personnel have joined 900 of their Lao counterparts in the exercises. “The Chinese side might have weapons and experiences that can be shared with us. The drill will help strengthen our military ties, organise and modernise our armed forces,” Lt. Col. Santi Chanthalangsone, who leads training for Lao personnel, told the outlet prior to the July 5 launch. 

We don’t want their hydropower electricity — that’s the message from residents in northern Thailand to their government which is planning to buy electricity generated from Laos’ Pak Beng Hydropower Dam. A petition to the Thai government includes signatures from eight Mekong provinces in Thailand, all of which fear territorial losses and water security issues. This has been a long-running issue along the border — court cases targeting Thai agencies for a perceived lack of action on their behalf have been running since at least 2017. 

"[We can't] call the project a clean energy [project] because it is bound to come at the expense of livelihoods, economic well-being and the culture of people living along the Mekong River,” the petition said, as per the Bangkok Post. 

🇰🇭 Mother Nature activists jailed, Cambodian government flounders response

The Cambodian military lost a helicopter in bad weather in the southwest, the Defence Ministry said over the weekend. There hasn’t been much update here and the facts are cagey — the Ministry is keeping mum but Air Force sources told the AFP that a Chinese-made Z-9 helicopter with at least two people on board was missing. 

Another beautiful interactive from the New York Times this week, where the team has turned its attention to the Ream Military Base in Cambodia. These NYT interactives don’t often have much in the way of new info, but they are fun to read. This one is extra good in that it compares features of the base to similar Chinese-built and backed bases around the world and focuses primarily on expansion and physical construction. 

The fall-out over the Mother Nature arrests continues. Ten environmental activists linked to the NGO were jailed at the start of the month following July 2021 arrests for ‘plotting against the government’ while campaigning to keep the country’s waterways clean and safe, BBC reports. Three activists, Sun Ratha, Yim Leanghy and Spanish national founder Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson, were sentenced to eight years, while the remaining seven were given six-year terms. 

Gonzalez-Davison and four others were convicted in absentia, while another was not present for sentencing. Only four attended sentencing, DW reports.

“No one benefits from [it], let alone the government. As we have seen with previous cases like this, this tends to send people into shock for a while, but ultimately backfires because it inspires many others to take [the jailed activists'] place,” Gonzalez-Davidson told the BBC. 

Cambodia’s Permanent Mission to the UN has rejected comments from UN Human Rights spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan, who called the events “highly prejudicial” against the judiciary and called on the government to reassess the case, CamboJA reports.

Whatever, says the Permanent Mission. “The environmental activists were charged not because they were exercising their rights and freedom, but for plotting against the government and insulting the King,” it said in a statement. 

The Mother Nature 10 are set to make appeals, with supporters noting that those that have been jailed have been split up among various provinces making it difficult for family and friends to rally behind them. 

🇻🇳 Deals! Deals! Deals! (I feel like there are a few neighbours who would be jealous of a list like this)

Vietnam is always a lot of business news, but it’s extra this week so let’s crank them out. Indian behemoth Adani is eyeing a port development in the country after securing “in-principle approval from the Vietnamese government,” Bloomberg reports. It’s still in the early stage of planning and there is little known about what functions the port would have, exactly, but similar projects in India, Sri Lanka and Tanzania have recently been launched. 

“The idea is to make India a maritime hub. We are targeting countries that are high on manufacturing or high on population, which will lead to high consumption. We are focusing on export volumes in these countries,” Karan Adani, managing director of Adani Ports and eldest son of founder Gautam, said, as per Bloomberg. 

Japanese lenders are gassing up Vietnam’s energy sector after the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and private investors pledged US$832 million, Nikkei Asia reports. The financing will go towards the development of gas pipes for Block B gas fields off the southern coast. The expected total cost of the project is around $10 billion. 

Vietnamese electric vehicle manufacturer VinFast is delaying the opening of its huge $4 billion plant in the United States ‘amid global uncertainties in the EV market,’ Reuters reports. It has revised its 100,000 EV production target this year down to 80,000 despite a bump in Q2 sales: “While the second-quarter delivery results were encouraging, ongoing economic headwinds and uncertainties in different macro-economies and (the) global EV landscape necessitate a more prudent outlook for the rest of the year,” the company said in a statement. 

Elsewhere, at least 11 people have been confirmed dead in a terrible landslide in the northern province of Ha Giang, China Daily reports citing Vietnamese news sources. 

And African Swine Fever is back, with authorities concerned this outbreak could rival the deeply destabilising outbreaks in 2018 and 2019. “The risk of wider spread of the disease is very high, and it can affect food supplies, consumer prices and the environment,” local authorities said in a statement last week.