A Bend in The River

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Few places on the Mekong have changed so dramatically as has the northern Thai river port of Chiang Saen. Located near the Golden Triangle, the point on the Mekong where Burma, Laos and Thailand meet, Chiang Saen was for centuries a drowsy temple town. But when Chinese engineers opened up the river by blasting nearby reefs, trade exploded. Laborers from all three Golden Triangle nations converged on the docks looking for work. A few years ago, only boats carrying less than 100 tons of goods could navigate this stretch of the Mekong — hardly worth the trip. Now, ships can handle triple that amount — and when other reefs are removed in the coming months, they will be able to transport even more. The knock-on effects of the China trade are big, too. A giant casino opened last year to cater to the Chinese tourists pouring from Mekong ferries into northern Thailand, and Sichuan restaurants crowd the Chiang Saen riverside. At local institutes, Mandarin classes have become as popular as English ones. "If you want to be successful in business here, you need to learn Mandarin," says Sittichai, a school director. So frenzied is the China trade that the Chiang Saen government is building a $63 million container port that's set to open in a few years' time, replacing the current port, which is itself only three years old. "Because of China, we have been able to breathe life back into Chiang Saen," says Ratchaphol Ornnim, the local chief customs inspector.

More than 250 miles (400 km) downriver, China Inc. is also reshaping Laos' riverside capital, Vientiane. The landlocked nation has been shunned by many international investors as one of the world's last remaining hard-line socialist regimes. But what others consider a pariah state, China sees as an ideological soul mate and business partner. The biggest thoroughfare in Vientiane, as well as the capital's main park and the National Cultural Hall, were all built with money given to the city by the Beijing government. More than 3,000 Chinese laborers are also busy constructing a national stadium, the centerpiece of Laos' debut as host of the 2009 Southeast Asian Games. "Laos is profiting from China's own development path," says Sun Lei, the president of the Lao-China Business Association and owner of the Mekong Hotel in downtown Vientiane. "Without China's help and advice, Laos would be much more backward."

Private Chinese cash is flowing in as well. More than 20,000 Chinese now work in Laos, up from a few hundred a decade ago. Some are farmers who were lured by land so cheap they can grow rubber, corn and fruit and sell their crops back home at a profit. Others have grander ambitions. Lin Bo graduated this spring with an accounting degree from the Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics in Eastern China, and he has come to make his fortune along the Mekong. "Many students at my university had never even heard of Laos," says the 24-year-old, who with his family has rented a space to sell mainland products at China Business and Goods City, an $18 million wholesale market and shopping complex that just opened in Vientiane. "But for traders, it doesn't matter where you go. Everywhere in the world, people need to buy and sell things."

Not all Southeast Asians are quite as sanguine about the flourishing trade. Memories of imperial domination still haunt Vietnam, which was colonized by China and repelled invading Chinese troops as recently as 1979. In Cambodia, many still remember the People's Republic's patronage of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, which oversaw the deaths of an estimated one-quarter of the population. And even in countries with less complicated historical ties to China, suspicions of an economic overpowering endure. Farmers in northern Thailand complain that they cannot compete with the influx of cheap Chinese-grown garlic, apples and onions. Even Thai customs official Ratchaphol expresses reservations about the future container port he is helping oversee. "We don't get many of the benefits," he says. "Most of our own people are not very educated, so the Chinese just bring in their own employees."

Such concerns are mystifying for the dirt-streaked farmers who are loading their produce onto ships in Guanlei, the Yunnan port from which most Chinese goods set sail down the Mekong. "I've heard it's hard to grow crops in the countries downriver," says Wu Zhencha, who has arrived in Guanlei with boxes of broccoli destined for Thailand and who is unaware that the Mekong basin is, in fact, one of the most fertile regions on earth. Because of the trade with Indochina, Wu's village now boasts a paved road linking it to the highway. Modern pleasures like electricity and television have followed. "I live a day's journey from the river," says Wu, "but my life still depends on it."