CHAPTER 6— THE MEKONG PROJECT: OPPORTUNITIES 

 AND PROBLEMS OF REGIONALISM 



I. Introduction 



The purpose of this study is to examine the concept and the out- 

 come to date of the Mekong proposal contained in President Lyndon B. 

 Johnson's peace initiative, April 7, 1965, expressed in a speech at 

 Johns Hopkins University and to a national radio and television 

 audience. The speech asserted U.S. willingness to negotiate an end to 

 the then-expanding conflict in Vietnam, defended U.S. policy of bomb- 

 ing in North Vietnam, and offered U.S. support for a large program of 

 regional development in Southeast Asia. 



The President offered a general program of rehabilitation of Viet- 

 nam, but singled out for particular attention the Lower Mekong Basin 

 Project, an ambitious scheme of river-related development in the four 

 nations of Southeast Asia that had been gathering impetus for nearly 

 a decade. 



Regionalism as a System for the Application of Science and Tech- 

 nology 



The significance of this study in the present series on "Science, Tech- 

 nology, and American Diplomacy" is that the principal type of region- 

 alism here discussed is above all a technique for applying science and 

 technology 1 systematically to a multinational region. 



Development of a country is inherently a process of technological 

 application toward an economic result, Regionalism — or more pre- 

 cisely, regional development — introduces the idea of a system within 

 which technology is applied more coherently to a geographic unit than 

 to a political unit. The technological system requires, first of all, an 

 intensive application of science. The scientific base of a regional de- 

 velopment scheme, of which the Mekong Lower Basin Project is here 

 the prototype, involves an enormous range of research disciplines: 

 meteorology, soil chemistry, biomedicine, forestry, plant genetics, so- 

 ciology, anthropology, marine biology, entomology, and geology, to 

 mention only a few. The technology and engineering base of such a re- 

 gional development scheme is similarly broad. It encompasses hydraul- 

 ics, electric power, flood control, electronic communications, computer 

 modeling, electrical industries, large demonstration farms, highway 

 and bridge construction, fish and agricultural food processing, and 

 many more fields of technological applications. 



The leadership role of the United States had been demonstrated in 

 the first regional development project to command worldwide atten- 



1 The broad implications of "Technology" in this context require explanation. The 

 term means more than tools, manufacturing processes, and advanced engineering. It 

 signifies the systematic, purposeful application of knowledge to modify an environment 

 toward predetermined goals. Regional application of technology means that the goals 

 are expressed in regional terms. The regional development scheme for the Lower Mekong 

 Basin started out as an ambitious, capital-intensive civil works program aimed at dams, 

 hydroelectric plants, flood control, and large-scale irrigation. Rut the application of 

 "knowledge" brought about important modification ; more modest, agriculturally-centered, 

 and labor-intensive activities received priority emphasis. The plan in 1972 remained 

 ambitious and far-reaching. Rut sophistication was more evident, and awareness was 

 sharpened as to the need for careful planning and study of the consequences of change. 



Note : This chapter prepared in 1972 by Franklin P. Huddle. 



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