Laos is a landlocked developing country that is starting to recover from a war-torn past. Laos aims to be the Battery of Southeast Asia by building hydropower dams to power the region, develop its economy, and lift its people out of poverty. These developments, which are mainly financed through loans provided by China, have received backlash from downstream countries (Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam) who criticized these dams, and other dams in southern China, for contributing to droughts and ecological harms to the Indochina region.