© New Strait Times
China is succeeding where the British, French and Japanese imperialist powers failed.
This year saw the full operation of the China-Laos Railway, the first link in an ambitious Pan-Asian Rail Network that will integrate eight Southeast Asian nations designed to carry freight and millions of passengers.The city of Kunming in China's southwestern province of Yunnan is the rail and road hub linking the world's second-biggest economy to its southern neighbors. The Pan-Asian Rail Network
covers Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia, converging on the port cities of Kuala Lumpur and Singapore (see map graphic).
Kunming, already connected to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou and other Chinese metropolises, is thus providing a gateway for the entire Southeast Asian region to global trading routes. It represents China's world-spanning Belt and Road Initiative in action.
The China-Laos segment of this transcontinental network was completed in December 2021 - on schedule after five years of construction - with a budget of $6 billion. The other regional segments are still under construction. A network of new motorway "expressways" complement the rail links, the configuration resembling a Chinese fan spreading out.
The Pan-Asian Rail Network is planned for completion by 2030 at a total cost of $112 billion. Some 30,000 kms of tracks will be laid, carrying both high-speed and conventional speed trains. Beijing is financing up to 70 percent of the construction costs, with the remainder capitalized through bilateral loans. The overall design is backed by the inter-governmental trade bloc, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).
It is an awesome mega-project that is aimed at boosting economic growth for the region. Inner land areas are to be opened up for agriculture, tourism and transport of goods.
Comment: It's rather telling that US educational institutes are turning out teachers like this. Bearing in mind the proliferation of high school teachers who have been exposed by the Twitter account Libs of Tik Tok, who boast of promoting warped LGBT ideology to highschool students, as well as using their captive audience to validate their gender-dysphoria mental disorder.