Dear MEL Topic Readers,
China is trying to connect Southeast Asia by high-speed rail. Here’s
how that’s going
The 1,000-kilometer rail line, which links Kunming, the capital of
China's Yunnan province to Vientiane, the capital of Laos was completed in
December 2021. If you take the 8:08 am train at Kunming South Railway Station,
you’ll get to Vientiane Station at around 5:38 pm. For Laos, an economically
lagging small landlocked country, such a mega-infrastructure wouldn’t have been
built without China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Although the
number of Chinese tourists to Laos has been increasing since the opening of the
high-speed train line, will the money spent by Chinese tourists and investments
made by Chinese firms pay the toll? Furthermore, the high-speed railway is
planned to be extended to Bangkok, Thailand, one of the most popular destinations
for Chinese tourists. Then it is also projected to connect to Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia, and finally to Singapore. This ambitious project isn’t just for tourism
but it is thought to be part of the Road and Belt Initiative to expand China’s
economic, cultural, and geopolitical influence over Southeast Asia. Since China
already has the technology and know-how to build and operate the world’s most
extensive high-speed railway network. it is certainly beneficial to have more sustainable
transportation infrastructure in other countries of the region, whatever the intention
might be.
Read the article and learn about high-speed railways in Southeast Asia.
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