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Indybay Feature

China's road to economic development

by Song Yang
While we were all enthusiastically looking at Afghanistan and Central Asia, China has built a railway to the border of Myanmar with an access to the Indian Ocean for transiting goods.
The railway line stretches from Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province to prefecture-level city Lincang in Yunnan Province of China. Everything is located near the border trading town Chinshwehaw in the north eastern part of Shan State of Myanmar. As for geography, it's very simple: Lincang is located next to the self-governing Kokang region in the north of Shan State and only 150 kilometres from the biggest city of this state Lashio. The new line will allow China to handle cargo transshipment from the port of Singapore through Myanmar. In general, this is the first route connecting western China with the Indian Ocean. It is expected that it will stimulate the development of international trade between the two countries, as well as serve as a source of income for the local military regime.

Parallel efforts are being taken to create a border economic cooperation zone in Chinshwehaw within the framework of the Chinese "Belt and Road Initiative". This territory will become an intermediate economic hub for the import and export of Yunnan province.

Now Chinese are faced with the most interesting thing - to conduct a rout through a separatist state of Shan controlled by ethnic armed groups. Owing to the rapid movement in this direction certain agreements have certainly been reached. Move on to Mandalay where protests have recently subsided and to build a deep-water port in Rakhine state. Plans to construct these facilities have already been repeatedly announced now there is only one small problem. In a case of successful implementation of these projects China will go round the Malacca Strait and Singapore controlled by the USA and Great Britain. That's how China takes and draws its influence on another state and the USA has nothing left but to grumble and throw their hands up.

Against the background of Washington's constant grouching, Beijing calmly gets oil from the Persian Gulf and in general it feels quite well in Africa, Sri Lanka, Iran and Pakistan. What else do you need to successfully expand your economic influence?

But that's not all. Recently the Chinese have opened container terminal in the port of the Israel city of Haifa. The total cost was US$ 1.7 billion. And all this is within the framework of the Chinese "Belt and Road Initiative". It's worth noting that entrepreneurial Asians were able to drive out Americans even in Israel which has always demonstrated unwavering loyalty to the USA. After all, we all remember that the White House was against this project as an Israeli submarine base is located nearby. Apparently, weighting everything, the Israelis expressed a preference for the economic development and just ignored shouts of Washington.

So, what does that leave us? On the one hand, there are strong statements and some vague attempts of the USA to limit the growth of economic influence of China in various regions of the world, and, on the other hand, Beijing without regard to Washington recruits region after region, extends its influence to state after state and doesn't think to stop there. Apparently, the capabilities and forces of the USA are so limited that it has ho choice but to act as observers. It's possible that over time, the USA will have to sacrifice national interests and give way to its Chinese opponent.
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