by BRIAN BERLETIC
For anyone who travelled through the rugged landlocked Southeast Asian country of Laos years ago, they will remember the twisting mountain roads and the many days by bus it would take to traverse the terrain from China’s border with Laos at Boten to the Laotian capital of Vietniane across the Mekong River from Thailand’s city of Nong Khai.
From Kunming to Vientien, the trip would take at least 3 days – an unforgettable experience for tourists and backpackers, but a gruelling obstacle for people travelling on business or trying to transport goods.
This changed over the years as China, Laos’ neighbor to the north, repaired existing roads and built new modern highways. The new transit routes cut the trip from 3 days to just 22 hours.
And just mid-October 2021 China completed a high-speed rail link between Vientiane and the Boten border crossing meaning that now – a trip from Kunming to Vientiane will take much less than a day.
The long-anticipated completion of the rail line, the delivery of Laos’ first high-speed passenger train, and the opening of the line for operations on December 2, 2021 mark another achievement of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Xinhua News in an article titled, “Bullet train for China-Laos railway arrives in Vientiane,” would note:
Ambassador Jiang [Zaidong] said in his speech at the Saturday ceremony that Laos receives the first modern train in her history today is decisive progress in the construction of the China-Laos railway, and it is also a landmark achievement of the strategic docking between the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and Laos strategy to convert itself from a landlocked country to a land-linked hub.
Now, passengers can travel by train from Singapore to China, albeit through a combination of traditional train lines through Malaysia and Thailand before reaching Laos’ new high-speed rail line. From Boten, travellers then have access to China’s massive high-speed rail network – the largest in the world and connecting China’s most remote areas to the nation’s thriving economic centers.
This signifies the opening for Loas a number of doors of opportunity, from increased tourism from China as well as from Southeast Asia via Thailand, but also new opportunities for exports and imports.
China through the BRI has transformed an isolated, landlocked nation in Southeast Asia into a conduit that will connect Southeast Asia to China and enjoy all the benefits of becoming a crossroad between Southeast and East Asia.
The concept of “landports” has been explored and the use of the high-speed rail line for moving freight prioritized from December onward until restrictions related to COVID-19 are lifted and passenger services can be brought online.
Laos is not only now connected to the rest of China through its new high-speed rail line but also connected to the world well-beyond it. The China-Europe freight train – which has already connected Vietnam (Laos’ neighbor to the east) to European markets – could eventually end up transporting goods from Laos and the rest of Southeast Asia as well.
China is Building, US is Bullying
The ultimate irony is that Washington has accused Beijing of bullying nations throughout the Indo-Pacific region. In reality the US is referring to ordinary maritime disputes that China has with not only other nations in the region, but disputes all other nations in the region have with one another as well.
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