China will share more data on the Mekong River with countries downstream, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said, amid long-standing criticism that its projects have caused flooding and drought in the river's lower reaches.

This was to "share the dividends of cooperation and push development", Wang said at a meeting of foreign ministers from the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation in Bagan, Myanmar on Monday.

He also said China would "inspect the safety of 20 reservoirs and dams to control floods, safeguard food and water supply and ecological safety for 70 million people in the basin", according to a Chinese foreign ministry statement.

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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (third from left) with his counterparts from the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation in Bagan, Myanmar on Monday. Photo: Xinhua alt=Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (third from left) with his counterparts from the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation in Bagan, Myanmar on Monday. Photo: Xinhua>

The group brings together countries that share Southeast Asia's longest river - called the Lancang in China - which are crucial for Beijing's trade and infrastructure scheme, the Belt and Road Initiative. The United States is also positioning itself as a better partner for these downstream nations - Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam - in managing the river.

Environmental groups have blamed China's dams upstream for causing floods and droughts further down the Mekong that have damaged the local ecology and cost fishers their livelihoods. Last year, China cut water flow by half at a hydroelectric dam for nearly a month to fix a power line without warning downstream countries first, adding to distrust among its neighbours.

Wang also told Monday's meeting that China would build new water-monitoring and weather stations, speed up the construction of photovoltaic irrigation facilities, and set up pilot projects for rural water supply and management, according to the statement.

The undertakings formed one of six projects proposed by China at the meeting. Another, on space cooperation, would involve China developing an Earth observation satellite with the five countries, the foreign ministry statement said. Beijing also proposed building cloud computing facilities in the region and helping to develop "modern information technology systems", without providing details.

Foreign ministers at the meeting approved in principle the next five-year plan for the group from 2023 to 2027.

The action plan for the US-led equivalent, the Mekong-US Partnership, is set to end in 2023. That partnership focuses on addressing the environmental impact of infrastructure projects and making management of water resources in the Mekong more transparent - issues for which China has been criticised.

Unlike China's initiative, the US-led one involves countries from other regions such as Japan, South Korea and New Zealand that provide expertise in areas such as energy and natural hazard forecasting.

In a joint communique on Monday, the six foreign ministers said they "encouraged" the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation to complement the belt and road plan and Chinese President Xi Jinping's new Global Development Initiative. Projects in the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation rely on funding from Beijing's belt and road scheme.

Leaders of the group's member nations are expected to meet at a separate summit later this year.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2022 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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