At the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Leaders’ Meeting in Sanya, Hainan province, China and five other countries along the 5,000-km Mekong river agreed to deepen cooperation and build a comprehensive connectivity network covering railways, highways, waterways, ports and aviation. China also promised CNY10 billion in preferential loans and a credit line of USD10 billion to support infrastructure and production capacity projects. The Mekong river, whose upper part is known in China as the Lancang, is an important water source for the five countries on the Indochinese Peninsula – Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who co-chaired the meeting with Li, called the gathering a “new chapter” in the Lancang-Mekong cooperation process. China is the biggest trading partner of Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, and the biggest source of investment in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. China’s bilateral trade with the five nations reached USD193.9 billion last year. The meeting decided to set up a water resource center to coordinate hydropower development and jointly deal with Mekong floods and droughts. China’s dam and hydro-electric project had sparked complaints from downstream states, but a week before the meeting, Beijing agreed to discharge water from March 15 to April 10 from a dam in Yunnan at the request from Mekong Delta countries suffering the worst drought in 90 years.