"Specter of dams and diversion looms over Southeast Asia’s Salween River" 19 June 2025

At least 20 dams have been proposed or planned along the Salween [...]. But many of these projects [...] appear to have stalled.

Chinese and Thai investors [...] have been waiting for the dust to settle, leaving the seven planned dams in limbo as conflict rages on. [...].

Three of the seven dams planned on the mainstream of the Salween River in Myanmar are in Shan state: the 1,400-megawatt Kunlong Dam, the 1,200-MW Nao Pha Dam and the 7,000-MW Mongton Dam. [...].

[...] the Nao Pha Dam [...] could still go ahead; Hydrochina continues to work on the 225-MW Mantong Dam, being built on a tributary of the Salween as part of the same 2009 agreement.

The Mongton Dam, meanwhile, is a joint venture [...] by EGAT International [...] and China Three Gorges Corporation and Sinohydro. [...] it’s still unclear whether this EIA was ever approved. EGAT faced significant criticism for its involvement in the project, which played a role in the displacement of an estimated 300,000 people [...].

[...] the Hatgyi Dam [...] also attracted significant attention from EGAT [...]. Protests have flared up periodically throughout the 2010s [...].

Should Hatgyi go ahead [...] the whole of Sob Moei village would be submerged under the dam’s reservoir.

[...] diverting water to the rice fields of Chao Phraya would come at the cost of depriving Karen communities that depend on the Salween and Yuam rivers.

[...] at least 36 communities are set to be directly affected by the project, [...].

The 2019 EIA process was fundamentally flawed [...] because it excluded local communities by only consulting them in Thai [...] affected communities were required to pay 20,526 baht (roughly $630) to get a single photocopy of the document.