By Mehmet Enes Beşer
Southeast Asia’s most lifeblood river, the Mekong, is being confronted with increasingly intense ecological and geopolitical stresses. Hydropower dams, especially on the upper Mekong, have controlled its flow, disturbed ecosystems, and compromised the food and water security of millions. Vietnam, located at the river’s delta and therefore most vulnerable to upstream decisions, has rightly made water diplomacy a core element of its foreign policy. Yet despite this growing engagement, Hanoi’s tools for influencing regional outcomes remain incomplete. To truly diminish Mekong’s unbridled exploitation, Vietnam must accompany its water diplomacy with a resolute and forward-looking energy diplomacy that prioritizes renewables like wind and sun over hydro-hubris.
The reasoning is simple. Hydropower growth has proliferated across the Mekong Basin in the last two decades, with Laos letting itself be the “battery of Southeast Asia” and rushing headlong to construct dams for export. Although hydropower is often branded a clean source of energy, its large-scale entry in the Mekong region has led to sediment loss, fisheries collapse, and saltwater intrusion—most horribly of all into Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, the country’s agricultural heartland. Water diplomacy, on forums like the Mekong River Commission and bilateral negotiation, has sponsored awareness raising and brokering of moderate mitigation efforts. But it has not transformed the creation of hydropower in the region by a radical margin.
There lacks an alternative of renewable energy that inflicts minimal environmental destruction and as much concomitance with regional development aspirations as is conceivable. That is where energy diplomacy comes in. Vietnam needs to lead regional efforts to move faster in developing non-hydro renewables—mostly solar and wind—and base cross-border electricity exchange on these cleaner energies. This would not only reduce the economic justification for new dams, but also position Vietnam at the vanguard of mainland Southeast Asia’s energy revolution.
Vietnam has a strong case to make. The country itself saw a remarkable boom of solar and wind power in the past half decade, and now today is one of the regional leaders of the clean energy. With the best solar irradiance, the best potential for wind—a gem in its coastal provinces—and growing private sector interest, Vietnam’s renewable energy industry is an Asian model to follow. The achievement provides Hanoi with rightful bases to call for regional transition away from hydro-dependency and towards clean, diversified, and decentralized energy systems.
Regional cooperative frameworks are already set but must be reinvigorated and infused with political will. ASEAN Power Grid (APG), as a vision of cross-border electricity market, has been advancing in incremental steps due to infrastructural shortages, regulatory divergences, and biased investment. Vietnam can utilize its regional weight to advocate the APG’s upgrading to more emphasis on renewables, coordinated standards for clean energy trade, and financing arrangements supportive of upgrading grids across borders. By linking its own excess renewable capacity to Cambodian, Laotian, and Thai demand, Vietnam can ease pressure to build more damaging dams and support the development of a market for sustainable energy exports. Multilateral lobbying is also an essential element of energy diplomacy.
Hanoi must use forums such as ASEAN+3, Mekong-Japan Cooperation, and the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) to lobby for regional funding of renewable energy. It will have to collaborate with development banks, overseas investors, and climate funds in an attempt to upgrade the infrastructure to replace hydropower. Platforms must put energy into its Mekong policy so that the debate is redirected from dam management and water flow to structural energy alternatives that would benefit all riparian nations. Such an offer, of course, comes with its disadvantages.
Domestic energy markets are still fragmented, and political concerns about sovereignty and facility management are profound. Laos remains significantly reliant on hydropower export as an anchor economic policy, however. This will require to be changed by something greater than diplomatic leverage, however, but by economic rewards and actual alternatives. Vietnam must be capable of bargaining practically—offering joint ventures, grid interconnection, and capacity-building arrangements so that transition into renewables will become attractive to neighbors. Globally, Vietnam will need to ensure that domestic energy management is aligned with what it promotes in the region. Grid bottlenecks, regulatory uncertainty, and low storage capacity have slowed down complete integration of renewables. Repairing the latter in the domestic market will make Vietnam a more influential player in global affairs and demonstrate the feasibility of a shift to clean energy.
Conclusion
Vietnam’s effort to save the Mekong Delta through water diplomacy is insufficient, yet requisite. To slow the source of environmental degradation, i.e., the excessive dependence of the region on hydropower, Hanoi must enforce a complementary energy diplomacy policy. By spearheading the growth of wind and solar power, enhancing cross-border exchange of renewables, and offering reasonable alternatives to new dams, Vietnam can transform itself from a helpless lower-stream participant into an engaged regional champion.
This choice is not development vs. ecology. It is a choice of either continuing a trend of unsustainability or a wager on an alternative future built upon clean energy in order to provide for environmental safeguard and local prosperity. Both Vietnam has the need and is able to—and it is on whether it will depend on the Mekong’s future.