China on Monday denied that its dams were reducing water levels on the Mekong River and blamed problems along the river on unusually dry weather, but it also offered to share more data with its neighbors.

Leaders of Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, badly hit by the Mekong’s biggest drop in water levels in decades, met in the Thai coastal town of Hua Hin to discuss management of Southeast Asia’s longest waterway. Some 65 million people depend on the river.

China sent vice foreign minister Song Tao to rebut criticism of the eight hydropower dams it has built or is building in its south.