New water sheriff
An unprecedented Chinese response to a river’s lawlessness
MIST-DRAPED mountains and the serene ambience of the Thai city of Chiang Saen beguile visitors to the Mekong river in an area dubbed the Golden Triangle. This is where the borders of three countries, Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, converge.
But the serenity was shattered on October 5th by the sight of corpses floating downriver. Thirteen Chinese from two commercial vessels had been shot dead near Chiang Saen port and their bodies tossed overboard. Thailand's police found over 920,000 amphetamine tablets on board the boats, plying between China's Yunnan province and the Thai port. An angry Chinese government suspended its shipping on the Mekong until better security could be put in place. The ministers of China's three Mekong neighbours were summoned to Beijing for urgent talks.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline "New water sheriff"
From the November 19th 2011 edition
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