Half the Story
Issue 59 — Key Developments Across Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia
Editor’s Note
by Mattia Peroni, Lead Editor - Mekong Belt Desk
This week in the Mekong Belt, stories share a quieter question underneath the headlines: what gets left out when governments announce a win. In Laos, the Luang Prabang Mekong dam has passed 72% completion, but officials still haven't disclosed the UNESCO heritage impact assessment they agreed to conduct, even as 7,000 people are resettled and sediment flows are altered downstream. In Cambodia, a new 10% US tariff over unresolved forced-labor enforcement is being framed by officials as a negotiating win because it undercut competitors' rates, a reading that says little about whether the underlying labor practices have actually changed. Meanwhile, in Thailand, Bangkok's "calibrated re-engagement" with Myanmar's junta is being sold as pragmatic regional leadership, but it leaves an unmanaged displacement crisis at the Thai border largely unaddressed. And in Myanmar, while the regime talks of peace processes and stability, a new report documents 148 political prisoners who died from medical neglect since the 2021 coup, a toll that rarely factors into the official narrative at all.
Lao PDR 🇱🇦
Progress on the Dam, Silence on the Heritage Risk
by Thongsavanh Souvannasane, in Vientiane
Workers have pushed the USD 5 billion Luang Prabang Mekong Hydropower Project past 72% completion, Lao and Thai officials announced after a joint site visit on 18 July.
The milestone raises a question officials have yet to answer: what happens to Luang Prabang’s UNESCO World Heritage status once the dam starts turning its turbines?
Lao Minister of Industry and Commerce Malaithong Kommasith and Thai Minister of Energy Ekaniti Promphan inspected the site straddling Chomphet and Pak Ou districts, 25 kilometers from the historic town.
Officials insisted studies and lessons from the Xayabouly dam, Laos’ first Mekong mainstream dam, had resolved concerns over the project’s impact on the World Heritage site.
Thai companies hold the overwhelming stake: CK Power owns 50 %, Gulf Hydropower 20 %, and CH. Karnchang and TTW Public Company 10 % each, for 90 % Thai ownership. Laos’ PT Sole holds the remaining 10 %, leaving the host country a minority share in a dam it will absorb the resettlement and heritage risks for.
UNESCO tells a more cautious story.
It first raised concerns in March 2020, after Laos notified it of the project, and in March 2023 issued a report urging Laos to protect the town’s heritage sites and regulate nearby tourism development. UNESCO also triggered a Heritage Impact Assessment that Laos agreed to undertake, one whose outcome authorities have not disclosed, leaving the question of whether officials are declaring victory prematurely.
As a run-of-river project, the dam keeps water flowing constantly, but it will also trap sediment that has long nourished riverbank farming and fishing downstream, a cost rarely mentioned alongside turbines and megawatts.
Many villages across Chomphet, Hongsa, and Nga districts in Luang Prabang, Xayabouly, and Oudomxay provinces, home to roughly 7,000 people, are already being resettled for the dam, designed to produce 1,460 megawatts once complete in 2030.
Officials call the resettlement compliant with policy, though how communities assess that trade-off remains unexamined.
The dam fits a larger pattern.
Laos’ electricity capacity grew from 9.4 gigawatts in 2020 to 12.3 gigawatts in 2025, and is expected to nearly triple to 30 gigawatts by 2035, with hydropower still supplying roughly 80% of capacity, an expansion showing little sign of slowing.
The dam also rises as Luang Prabang’s tourism economy booms. Arrivals climbed roughly 52 % year-on-year in 2025, reaching 3.5 million, up from 2.3 million. Authorities credit the surge partly to the Laos-China Railway, which has cut travel time between Vientiane and Luang Prabang and opened a direct route for Chinese tourists from Laos’ northern border, turning an arduous road trip into hours.
That contradiction sits at the project’s heart: Laos markets Luang Prabang’s preserved townscape to record numbers of visitors while building a majority foreign-owned dam upstream that heritage authorities have not confirmed is safe for that townscape.
Whether hydropower earnings and heritage tourism can coexist may depend less on engineering than on how transparently Laos shares an assessment it has yet to make public.
Thongsavanh is a journalist from Laos with a background in English-language media. He graduated from the Lao-American Institute with a Diploma of the Arts in English and contributes to independent news platforms. His reporting focuses on environmental issues, socio-economic development, and geopolitics.
Cambodia 🇰🇭
US Imposes 10% Tariff on Cambodian Goods Over Forced Labor
by Malai Yatt, in Phnom Penh
Following a Section 301 trade investigation, the United States will hit Cambodian exports with a 10% tariff after determining Phnom Penh failed to effectively enforce forced labor import prohibitions.
On July 23, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) declared a new 10% duty on goods imported from Cambodia and 59 other nations, which some Asian nations also included. They include Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Japan, for their failure to enact and uphold an import ban on forced labor.
USTR confirmed that “Certain products of Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and more that would encourage these economies to fulfill commitments regarding forced labor import prohibitions or to encourage these economies to enact and effectively enforce a forced labor import prohibition”
Speaking in a recent interview, Cham Ninul, the Minister of Commerce in Cambodia, confirmed that by taking steps across three ministries to stop forced labor goods from entering the country, Cambodia successfully kept its tariff under 19 %.
“Cambodia is on the negotiating path for a quota system with the US as well, alongside a few other trading partners like Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Malaysia, for specifically sourcing raw materials for garments from the US and to be processed and reimported into the US quota-free and duty-free,” she said.
Based on the latest report by the General Department of Customs and Excise, Cambodia exported more than USD 7 billion worth of goods to the US in the first half of 2026, a 29.8% increase over the previous year.
According to USTR Ambassador Jamieson Greer, President Trump acknowledges that forced labor has persisted in international supply chains despite decades of moral persuasion. It’s long overdue for our trade partners to follow the United States’ strict enforcement of a nearly century-old ban on the importation of forced labor.
“Today’s action will begin to correct what is both a human rights abuse and a distortive trade practice to improve the welfare of workers everywhere. I am encouraged by the trading partners who have moved quickly to adopt forced labor import prohibitions, and look forward to ensuring their effective enforcement.”, he added.
Continuing to the deal, after receiving export tariff pressure, Sun Chanthul, Deputy Prime Minister and First Vice President of the Council for the Development, confirmed, “I would probably range close to the 9% because we want the USTR to have the rate in the same lending zone as our competitors in ASEAN and that is a commitment,” he said
In response to the new tariff evolution, Chanthul said the Cambodia first to zero out all tariffs for imports from the US to Cambodia, as part of a commitment that both countries have agreed on a certain commitment, for instance, on environmental law.
To sum up, despite new 10 % US forced-labor duties, Cambodia aims to protect its growing export trade through strategic quota negotiations.
Malai is a reporter at Kiripost, where she has worked for more than three years, driven by a strong commitment to amplifying the voices of underserved communities. Her reporting focuses on economic and foreign affairs.
Thailand 🇹🇭
Decoding Bangkok’s “Calibrated Re-Engagement” with Myanmar
by Paranut Juntree, in Bangkok
Two weeks after Bangkok hosted historic informal consultations, the full diplomatic implications of ASEAN’s “calibrated re-engagement” are coming into focus. Far from a routine press briefing, the high-level meeting co-led by Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow and Philippine Foreign Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro represents a deliberate assertion of the Thai foreign policy agency on ASEAN’s Myanmar issue. For Thailand, managing relations with Myanmar is not an abstract normative exercise, like for many other ASEAN member states, but an urgent frontline security and economic imperative. By steering ASEAN toward a conditional, “two-way street” re-engagement tied to the Five-Point Consensus, Thailand is transforming its geographic vulnerability into proactive leadership, placing its strategic interests at the center of ASEAN’s diplomatic playbook.
Following Myanmar’s February 2021 military coup, ASEAN adopted a policy of institutional distancing, barring non-political junta representatives from high-level summits. Yet Thailand, sharing a 2,400-kilometer border, faced immediate security and economic fallout that rendered complete isolation impossible. While distant member states could afford a principled stance, Thailand wrestled with cross-border shelling, trade stalls, environmental haze, cross-border pollution and rampant scam syndicates operating along the porous frontier. Subsequently, Thailand’s approach evolved through distinct phases: (1) quiet bilateral engagement, hosting informal Track-1.5 (shuffling between diplomatic governmental officials and non-governmental stakeholders), (2) launching a Thai-led humanitarian corridor near Tak-Myawaddy. By 2026, Thailand recognized that maintaining a diplomatic freeze only prolonged deadlock, necessitating an active bridge-building role between Myanmar and ASEAN.
The July 2026 informal gathering in Bangkok, marking the first in-person engagement between ASEAN foreign ministers and Myanmar’s military-appointed foreign minister since the coup, formalized this strategic transition. By pairing Thailand’s frontline necessity with the Philippines’s institutional authority as ASEAN Chair, the initiative seeks to break a five-year stalemate to combat scam networks and revive border trade. However, broader geopolitical realities loom large. Given Myanmar’s deep structural ties with China, a genuine democratic transition remains highly improbable. Beijing views Myanmar as an irreplaceable strategic gateway to the Indian Ocean via the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, preferring a “manageable” government in Napyidaw to safeguard its maritime ambitions and interests. Recognizing this backing, Thailand’s re-engagement acknowledges that isolation cannot force regime change in Myanmar.
Yet, the most critical flaw in “calibrated re-engagement” remains the disconnect between top-down statecraft and ground-level humanitarian realities. As Thailand navigates great-power dynamics, an unmanaged human displacement crisis deepens. Since Naypydaw activated its forced conscription law in 2024, thousands of draft-evaders, youth, and conflict affected civilians, combined with many others since the coup, have crossed into the Thai border. Thailand remains non-signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, leaving these populations legally precarious and vulnerable to exploitation. If Thailand wishes to claim true regional leadership, its diplomatic pragmatism at the negotiating table must be matched by a humane domestic protection policy. Without addressing post-coup displacement, Thailand risks managing diplomatic symptoms while ignoring the human fallout.
Paranut has a background in advocacy, with experience in policy research, communications, and civic engagement across both the NGO and government sectors. As Thailand’s Youth Delegate to the United Nations, he represented Thai youth in global dialogues on migration, education, and human rights, championing inclusive policymaking. He holds a degree in political science with a specialization in international relations.
Myanmar 🇲🇲
Medical Neglect Behind Bars
by Mattia Peroni, Lead Editor
New data from the Political Prisoners Network Myanmar (PPNM), a group that monitors conditions inside the country’s detention system, shows that at least 148 political prisoners have died since the 2021 coup because they simply weren’t given adequate medical care, according to the group’s latest report.
The deaths span 32 facilities across the country, recorded from July 2021 through May 2026. PPNM says the deaths trace back to a familiar set of failures: treatment delayed past the point it could help, chronic shortages of basic medicine, and prison authorities dragging their feet on transferring seriously ill detainees to outside hospitals. The grim irony, per the group, is that many of these deaths were preventable. People came in with conditions doctors could have managed or cured, and died only because they couldn’t get timely access to care.
Two prisons account for nearly half the toll on their own: Insein Prison in Yangon (34.5%) and Obo Prison in Mandalay (12.8%). PPNM’s data shows men make up 86% of the dead, women 13%, with one recorded case involving an LGBT detainee. The victims range from minors to the elderly, though most were working-age men — the demographic most likely to have been swept up in the junta’s mass arrests since 2021.
This 148 figure is actually a subset of a bigger number. In a June 1 anniversary report, PPNM said it has documented 282 total political prisoner deaths in custody over its three years of tracking: the 148 medical-neglect cases, 75 deaths from what it calls unlawful killings by junta personnel and prison staff, and 59 deaths tied to the earthquake that hit Myanmar in March 2026. Laid out that way, medical neglect isn’t a side issue — it’s the single largest driver of death in the system, ahead of both direct violence and a natural disaster.
None of this is new, unfortunately. Rights groups have long documented medical neglect as a leading killer of Myanmar’s political detainees. The case of Zaw Myint Maung, a senior NLD official who died in 2024 after being released only once his leukemia had turned terminal, is the pattern in miniature: care withheld until it’s too late to matter, then a release that functions less as mercy than as damage control for the prison authorities.
The scale of the underlying detention system is worth sitting with. Human rights groups estimate tens of thousands of people have been jailed since the 2021 coup on charges as vague as incitement or defamation, or simply for belonging to a banned organization. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners puts current detainee numbers in the tens of thousands, though the count shifts as courts keep processing new arrests.
PPNM says the pattern reflects deliberate policy rather than isolated failures, arguing that "time restrictions" imposed on medical referrals function as a de facto denial of care. The group has called for international pressure on prison authorities to allow timely outside treatment, warning that the death toll will continue to climb without independent oversight of conditions inside Myanmar's prison system.
Mattia has a background in international politics with a regional specialization in Asian affairs. He has served as a Junior Analyst for the Asia/Oceania desk at the Istituto Analisi Relazioni Internazionali (IARI), where he focuses on conflict dynamics, maritime security, and strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific. His work reflects a strong interest in security studies and regional geopolitics, with a particular focus on Myanmar’s political crisis, ethnic dynamics, and its implications for regional stability.
Editorial Deadline 25/07/2026 11:59 PM (UTC +8)
