Landlocked at the crossroads of China, Southeast Asia and South Asia, Kunming first gained international attention as the terminus of an ambitious French rail project connecting French Indochina with Yunnan.

Back then it might not have been difficult to imagine a pan-Asian rail network centered upon the city, but the turbulence of the 20th Century fragmented the continent, impeding the flow of people and goods across borders.

In recent decades relations among Asian countries have experienced a general thawing and once again, rail transport is bringing Kunming's crossroads status into international focus. But this time around it is high-speed rail rather than the locomotive that will drive Kunming's resurgence as a transport hub.

Within a decade, Kunming will be at the center of a high-speed rail network that extends westward across India and Pakistan to Iran, southward to Singapore on the South China Sea, eastward to Xiamen and Shanghai on the Chinese coast and northward to Chengdu – if Beijing has its way.

After India's decision last year to pull out of the plan to rebuild the Stilwell Road connecting northeast India with Kunming, it may be surprising to learn that Beijing and New Delhi are discussing a Chinese-built high-speed rail line crossing. The Hindu reports:


It appears that the long-planned rail network connecting Kunming with Singapore via cities in Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia will also be a high-speed rail network, according to Chinese media.

Since beginning to develop its domestic high-speed rail network, China has begun to market its growing prowess in the industry to other countries. State-owned Chinese companies are already involved in projects in Venezuela and Turkey and Chinese companies plan on bidding for upcoming high-speed rail project tenders in the United States.

China recently announced its intention to build a high-speed rail link between Beijing and London. Chinese officials are predicting the completion of a China-built Eurasian high-speed rail network by as early as 2025.

On the domestic front, a new dedicated high-speed passenger line from Kunming to Shanghai is under construction and expected to be completed by 2015. The new route, which will run through provincial capitals Guiyang, Changsha, Nanchang and Hangzhou, will cut travel time from about 37 hours to around 10 hours.

Plans also exist to upgrade existing tracks between Kunming and Chengdu and build a new direct line to Chongqing that will deliver passengers from Kunming in about three hours instead of the current 19-plus hours.

Finally, construction commenced on a high-speed line from Kunming to Nanning last December. There has been some recent speculation that this line will eventually extend to Xiamen, and even Taiwan via tunnel.

China plans on having 42 high-speed rail lines by 2012, covering 13,000 kilometers, which would make it the world's largest rail network of its kind. The new lines will use China's homegrown high-speed rail system, which is a mix of foreign locomotive and carriage technology and domestically designed switching and control systems that is capable of speeds up to 350 km/hour (217 mph).

For the last decade, the elephant in the living room of China's relationships with the countries through which the Mekong River flows has been the growing number of dams built on and planned for the Lancang River – as the Mekong's headwaters in Yunnan are known.

The river - which in February was at half its normal level for that month - is a source of food and livelihood for the 65 million people living in its basin in Yunnan, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia.

On Monday, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva met with Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Hu Zhengyue, telling Hu that residents of the lower Mekong region were concerned about the river's recent low water levels and were uneasy regarding the lack of clear information about China's dams on the Lancang, according to a Nation report.

Despite Abhisit's polite request for better information, Thai officials came to China's defense, saying that the recent low levels in the lower Mekong basin – the lowest in half a century – were primarily due to a drought in Laos. Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said that rain in Laos normally accounts for 35 percent of the Mekong's water supply and that only four percent of the river's total water was held behind Chinese dams.

China currently has three dams operating on the Lancang, with a fourth at Xiaowan scheduled to commence operation in 2012. If completed, the Xiaowan hydropower station will be the world's tallest dam, rising almost 300 meters and capable of retaining 15 billion cubic meters of water.

Plans for a protest outside the Chinese embassy in Bangkok next month by residents of the northern Thai city of Chiang Rai suggest that residents of China's neighbors downstream may become increasingly vocal about the impact they feel Chinese dams are having on the river.

The Bangkok protest will be timed to coincide with the first Mekong River Summit, organized by the Mekong River Commission (MRC) and scheduled to be held in the Thai beach town of Hua Hin from April 2 to April 5.

The conference's theme, "Transboundary water resources management in a changing world" is slightly undermined by the fact that the MRC's membership only includes Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, with Myanmar and China only participating as "dialogue partners".

It is difficult to imagine China making concessions to protestors, governments or anyone else for the time being. The Bangkok Post is reporting that a letter sent last month to Yunnan Governor Qin Guangrong by the Chiang Rai provincial government demanding the release of water from Lancang River dams was rebuked by Qin, who said the water was needed in Yunnan for agriculture during the dry season.

In addition to the protest related to the Mekong's current low levels, some Thai villagers will also attempt to deliver a petition to China seeking compensation for flooding in 2008:


In May 2009, the United Nations said China's plans to eventually build eight dams on the Lancang "may pose the single greatest threat to the river". China, however, is not the only country building dams on the river. Laos has plans for 23 dams on Mekong tributaries and the Mekong itself to be finished in the coming year, with Vietnam and Cambodia also planning dams of their own.

Lancang River image: news.china.com.cn

Last Friday while much of the world was nursing the hangover of a decade of war and terrorism, economic turmoil and environmental degradation, China and its Southeast Asian neighbors took a big step toward regional integration with the launch of a new free trade area (FTA). The long term implications for Yunnan are massive.

China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have now entered the first phase of an FTA, eliminating tariffs on around 7,000 items including fruits, vegetables, textiles and machinery. These goods represent roughly 90 percent of trade in the new economic bloc, which is the world's largest in terms of population and third-largest after the EU and NAFTA in terms of GDP.

The first phase includes China and the more developed ASEAN members: Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. On Friday these countries also launched the first phase of an FTA within ASEAN itself. The remaining members – Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam – will join the ASEAN China FTA in 2015.

Although it does not directly border any of the first phase countries, Yunnan has much to gain from the FTA's launch. It has water, air and highway connections to Thailand plus air links to Malaysia and Singapore, all of which are expected to become even busier trade routes. The launch of the FTA has long been viewed as a major milepost in the rise of Yunnan as China's gateway to Southeast Asia.

As some observers note, the FTA is more than just a step toward trade integration, it is also a major strategic achievement for China, whose political power in Southeast Asia already greatly surpasses that of regional rival India and is also seriously challenging American influence in the region.

China's soft power in Southeast Asia will undoubtedly grow in step with trade within the FTA, and much of this influence will be projected from Yunnan.

In the coming decade, China and Southeast Asia will become increasingly connected by a vast network of highways and rail which will provide cities in Yunnan with cheap overland access to markets in Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. Seated at the northern end of this transport web, Yunnan is poised to become an increasingly important international trade hub.

The initiation of the ASEAN China FTA is a modern revival of the ancient tea and horse caravan routes from centuries ago known as the South Silk Road, which linked China with Southeast Asian markets as well as Tibet and India.

Total trade between China and Southeast Asia was US$100 billion in 2004 and US$231 billion in 2008, but this is just the beginning. Bilateral trade – much of which will be passing through Yunnan – is expected to double over the next decade.

Difficult as it may be to imagine, Yunnan's days as an economic and political backwater are officially over.

Engineers from China and Australia are preparing to commence work on the last remaining stretch of track of the east trunk line of the Trans-Asian Railway, which will link Kunming and Singapore via Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia, according to a Voice of America report.

The missing link in this rail line is Cambodia, which needs to upgrade hundreds of kilometers of colonial-era lines plus build a new east line to Vietnam in order to connect stations in China and Vietnam with Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.

If Asian Development Bank (ADB) projections hold true, this section of the Trans-Asian Railway could be sending travelers and freight between Kunming and Singapore within two years, the report said.

The Cambodian government has split the job in two, with the contract for the west line - consisting of old lines originally built by the French - going to Australia's Toll Holdings. This line will connect Phnom Penh with Thailand and will also dip southward to the port city of Sihanoukville, one of the largest ports in the Gulf of Thailand.

China Railway Group holds the contract for carrying out a feasibility study to link Phnom Penh with Vietnam to the east through a 255-kilometer rail line passing through the Cambodian border town of Snoul, the report said. It was only last year that Cambodia and Vietnam signed an agreement that will allow their respective rail networks to connect.

Analysts believe that completion of the Cambodia section will provide a major boost to Cambodia's economy and its role within the region. In addition to multitudes of tourists, trains traveling the Trans-Asian Railway are expected to transport large amounts of bulk freight such as rice.

As with most large infrastructure projects in Asia, resettlement of people living along the proposed route is a variable that will determine when the project is completed. An ADB official said he expects the resettlement issue to be resolved without major difficulty, in which case travelers may be taking trains between Kunming and Singapore within two years.

China's plans to build a series of eight dams on the upper reaches of the Mekong River have come under criticism by the United Nations, which released a report last week stating that the Chinese plan "may pose the single greatest threat to the river".

The Mekong River – known in China as the Lancang River – is a source of food and livelihood for the 65 million people living in the river basin in Yunnan, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia.

The river's water quality has deteriorated in recent years, but according to the UN report, it has not yet reached "alarming levels". However, China's dams would likely lead to "changes in river flow volume and timing, water quality deterioration and loss of biodiversity." The area's wealth of biodiversity recently received global attention with the discovery of 1,000 new species of animals and plants in the region.

Ma Zhouxu, spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, told reporters last week that the Chinese government is equally focused on the Mekong's development and protection.

China is not the only country with big dam plans for the river – Laos is planning 23 dams on the Mekong and tributaries of the river to be finished before 2011. Vietnam and Cambodia also have plans to build new dams on the river.

The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), which includes Yunnan and Guangxi plus the five countries through which the Mekong flows, is experiencing rapid development and economic and industrial expansion.

This dynamism will increase pressure on the river, but according to Mukand S Babel, one of the authors of the UN report, "The Mekong is in good condition at this time and can take more pressure such as irrigation development or industrial development."

The report did note that river basins along the Mekong including Tonle Sap in Cambodia, Nam Khan in Laos and Sekong-Sesan Srepok in Vietnam and Cambodia are in danger from increasing water demand and development and called for coordinated planning by the region's governments to deal with existing and future problems before they get out of hand.

The Yunnan segment of the land border between China and Vietnam has been completely demarcated, according to an official at Yunnan's foreign affairs office quoted by Xinhua.

Over the last eight years, government-appointed teams from China and Vietnam worked together to decide on the locations of 665 boundary tablets. Demarcation work on the Yunnan portion of the two countries' land border finished on December 20 of last year.

China and Vietnam normalized relations in 1990 after going to war in 1979 and engaging in open hostilities into the late 1980s. Yunnan is one of two administrative regions in China to share a land border with Vietnam, the other being Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. China and Vietnam also have a disputed sea border in the Gulf of Tonkin, known in China as the Beibu Gulf.

A key part of the demarcation work has been minesweeping work along the border – it is estimated that as many as two million mines may have been laid along China's border with Vietnam during the years of conflict. Since the end of hostilities, thousands of Chinese and Vietnamese have been killed or injured by these leftovers of war.

Relations between the former enemies have improved greatly since 1990, with bilateral trade totaling US$16.6 billion in the first 10 months of 2008, as well as cross border cooperation in the form of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) and preparations for the upcoming free trade area between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Images: Xinhua, China Surveying and Mapping Yearbook

When discussing China's environmental movement, few areas of the country get as much attention domestically or internationally as Yunnan does.

The reasons are plentiful: Yunnan is China's most biodiverse region, it is home to around half of the country's minority groups, it possesses massive hydropower potential and after a bit of a late start it is now fully on the economic development bandwagon.

Home to the headwaters of the Yangtze, Mekong and Salween rivers, Yunnan's abundant natural resources support not only Yunnanese but also millions of people elsewhere in China, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. Because of this, what happens in Yunnan has ramifications beyond the province.

China's Green Beat has recently produced two Yunnan-focused clips, the above piece looks at the Nu River, one of the two rivers left in China that has yet to be dammed. Although the Yunnan government appears determined to dam the river, there are hydropower options that would likely be able to electrify local villages.

However, exporting hydroelectric power has become big business for Yunnan, which sends electricity to markets including Hong Kong and Vietnam. For this reason alone, it is difficult to imagine the current plans to dam the Nu to be shelved by the provincial or central governments.


This second clip focuses on the consumption of biofuel in Lijiang. Overcollection of wood for fuelling inefficient stoves is one of the main threats to that region's ecological balance and biodiversity – the smoke from the primitive stoves is also responsible for eye disease among the local elderly.

More efficient stoves are being introduced to the region, reducing the average villager's wood consumption from 50 kilograms/day to only 15. These stoves also eliminate the danger of eye disease from cooking one's daily meal. This piece also takes a look at biofuel as a source of gas for cooking and fertilizer for food.

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Cambodia and Vietnam signed an agreement on Saturday that will link the two countries' railways, an important step in the creation of a Southeast Asian rail network that will connect major cities and tourist destinations between Kunming and Singapore.

China will help Cambodia with completion of the rail link with Vietnam, according to an AFP report quoting Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong. The Cambodian segment of the 5,382 kilometer (3,344 mile) rail network is expected to cost more than US$500 million - Cambodia's domestic rail network is still in disrepair after a civil war that ended in the 1990s.

Improvement of Cambodia's rail connectivity with its Southeast Asian neighbors is expected to boost the country's small but fast-growing economy. Hor Namhong said that Cambodia-Vietnam cross-border trade in the first eight months of this year totaled US$1.7 billion.

The opening of rail traffic between Cambodia and Vietnam will add to existing Southeast Asian cross-border rail connections between Singapore and Malaysia and Malaysia and Thailand. Cambodia has a rail connection to its western neighbor Thailand – with which it has recently been engaged in a violent border dispute – but it has fallen into disuse.