UNESCO Chair Co-hosted an International Seminar “Emergence of Lancang Mekong Cooperation & its Impacts on the Mekong River Basin”

On July 15, 2026, an International Seminar on Global Governance for Human Security titled “Emergence of Lancang Mekong Cooperation & its Impacts on the Mekong River Basin” was held. The seminar was co-organized by Kobe University’s UNESCO Chair, the Global Research Center for Education Policy and Planning (GEPP) at the Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies, Kobe University, the Global Network Program, and the CAMPUS Asia Plus Program, and was conducted in a hybrid format.

The seminar welcomed Dr. Seungho Lee, Dean at Korea University. Using water diplomacy as an analytical framework, he examined how the relationship between China and the Lower Mekong countries had changed around 2015, when China established the Lancang Mekong Cooperation (LMC). In the Mekong River Basin, which spans a catchment area of 795,000 km² and is home to more than 70 million people, Chinese dams built upstream have raised concerns over downstream livelihoods and ecosystems. At the same time, concrete data showed how the LMC—built around three pillars (political and security issues; social and cultural exchanges; and economic development) and five priority areas—has emerged as a framework that rivals, or in some respects replaces, the Mekong River Commission. While achievements such as financial support through the LMC Special Fund and the Belt and Road Initiative, and progress in hydrological data sharing following the 2019 drought, were introduced, the talk also touched on challenges including limits to data sharing and overlapping roles with existing frameworks, as well as criticism that this amounts to "dressing up domination as cooperation."