Laos

The businessman Zhao Wei has established close relationships to Laos's communist elite.

Ballooning external debt and growing fiscal deficits augur political storm clouds for the ruling LPRP.

The building highlights Vietnam's desire to prevent Laos from spiraling off into China's orbit.

The deal will deepen China's involvement in the Lao government's goal of transforming itself into the "battery of Southeast Asia."

The U.N.'s cultural agency fears that the project might endanger the World Heritage-listed town of Luang Prabang.

Ongoing anti-graft campaigns in Vietnam and Laos focus on officials' moral conduct without addressing the political structures that incentivize corruption.

The Sanakham dam is one of seven mega-dams that the landlocked country is planning, in defiance of environmental and economic sense.

The Lao communist party's newly selected General Secretary Thongloun Sisoulith once promised change. Now he sits atop a closed and sclerotic system.

But costs and competition could leave the putative "battery of Southeast Asia" running on empty.

Another Mekong dam project threatens to cost the former royal capital its UNESCO World Heritage status.

The country's longstanding ties with its neighbor Laos constitute an alliance in everything but name.