China to Europe via a new Burma road
By David Fullbrook
KUNMING, China - Pipe dreams of a cheaper, shorter and safer trade route between China and Europe through Myanmar to the Bay of Bengal are once again edging onto official agendas. High oil prices, competitive advantages and strategic imperatives are set to midwife this route that might have painful implications for Southeast Asia's ports and shipping.
Driving a modern transport network through Myanmar from Yunnan province following an age-old trade route to the sea should cut shipping bills significantly by saving a week or more on shipping time from China to key European markets. Yunnan, situated in the southwest corner of China, borders Tibet, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam.
It would also ease fears of disruption to Middle East oil supplies should terrorists wreak havoc on Southeast Asia's pirate-infested Malacca Strait, the waterway through which most of Northeast Asia's fuel and goods pass.
Bhamo, an old port far up the Irrawaddy River about 12 hours from the Chinese border, is the likely linchpin where goods will switch between Chinese trucks or trains and riverine ships ferrying goods along the Irrawaddy. The river, Myanmar's most important commercial waterway, flows 2,170 kilometers across the center of the country, and empties into the Bay of Bengal.
"Earlier, there were talks about a multi-modal transport route through Yunnan to Bhamo and onwards by river. It was then postponed. But now interest is reviving," said Professor Wang Chung Lee, director of the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences (YASS). "It's the attitude of the Myanmar government. Now they agree to have discussions, previously they refused," he told Asia Times Online.
This route could open within a few years if China gets investment approval from Myanmar. Preparations appear to be under way. Traders report that Chinese engineers have been surveying Bhamo port, which needs modernizing and expanding in order to handle a sharp increase in trade that more China traffic would mean.
A Chinese railway might later bypass Bhamo, running to the Myanmar railhead at Lashio, the terminus of the railroad line from Mandalay made famous during World War II as the starting point of the Burma Road. But for now, cost, time and the challenges of rebuilding the poorly maintained railway between Lashio and Mandalay count against it. "At present we are yet to discuss investment in the railway. The focus is on the multi-modal road and river transport," said Wang.
Meanwhile, Chinese construction crews are building a railway from Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, southwest to Mangshi, the capital of Dehong Dai. People in China's Ruili - a busy cosmopolitan border town astride roads to Bhamo, 80 kilometers west, and Lashio - expect the railway to arrive from Mangshi within a few years. That will leave the Chinese and Myanmar railways only 145km apart.
If the Bhamo river-road nexus proves a success, the case for pipelines through Myanmar, complementing those from Central Asia to China's booming east coast, will be strong. "There are rumors of all kinds, but there are no clear plans. It is reasonable. China's need for oil is great and urgent. Any pipeline, any route would be beneficial," said Wang. An idea tried and tested. In Yunnan's Baoshan, villagers curiously call water pipes "oil water pipes". A few rusting remnants of the first pipeline they saw, one laid by the allies in World War II from Kolkata to Kunming, still litter Yunnan and Myanmar.
And not just China's oil, but Japan's and Korea's too could conceivably flow through pipelines from Myanmar's coast via China, earning Beijing a pretty yuan or two in pipeline fees. Then again, Beijing might well waive such fees in order to burnish an image as the friendly Big Brother.
Such an alternative oil and freight route could cause traffic to slow, fall even, at key Oriental ports, including Malaysia's Johore Bharu, Singapore and even those dotting China's Pearl River Delta. It would almost certainly snuff out talk of a link across Thailand's Isthmus of Kra.
...
atimes.com |
