U.S. secretary of state criticises China's dams on Mekong River

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attends a meeting with Foreign Ministers of the Lower Mekong countries, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam during the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Bangkok, Thailand August 1, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/Pool

BANGKOK (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday criticised China's dam-building on the Mekong River, saying its construction had left the crucial waterway at its lowest level in a decade in Southeast Asian countries downstream.

Pompeo spoke in Bangkok, where he met ministers of the Lower Mekong Initiative countries, who complain of drought caused in part by upstream dams on the river.