China reawakens trans-Asian railway ambitions (Feature)

By Peter Janssen Sep 20, 2010, 3:30 GMT

Bangkok - Plans to link mainland Asia by railway have been around for decades.

In 1960, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia Pacific (ESCAP) initiated the Trans-Asian Railway project to establish a 114,000-kilometre rail network between Asia and Europe.

The project was derailed by wars in Indochina, the Cultural Revolution in China and a lack of finance for Asian mega-projects.

The scheme was given a new shot in the arm, on paper anyway, in 2006 when 22 Asian governments signed a deal to cooperate on the rail link. That agreement finally went into effect in June last year after China ratified it.

More significant than the agreement itself has been China's push to turn the rail network dream into reality, especially in South- East Asia, which accounts for the lion's share of the 8,000 kilometres of 'missing links.'

Thailand and China this year started talks about constructing a high-speed standard-gauge 850-kilometre new rail link from Nong Khai, on the Thai-Lao border, to Bangkok. A second 1,000-kilometre line, between Bangkok and Padang Besar, on the Thai-Malaysian border, would be built later.

The two lines would cost an estimated 300 billion baht (9.7 billion dollars).

'The Chinese government believes this can be implemented within three years,' Thai Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanich said. 'If there is any delay, I suspect it will be at our end, not theirs,' he said.

One foreseeable obstacle is the State Railways of Thailand (SRT), which runs the country's existing rail network at a massive loss. It is highly politicized, prone to strikes and historically opposed to any attempts at privatization.

'If the SRT is given no role in the project, I will oppose it as an advisor to the SRT labour union and the head of the New Politics Party,' said Somsak Kosaisuk, a politician who formerly headed the SRT's labour union.

Another likely problem for the Thai-China rail project is the Lao link.

Having a high-speed rail link between Nong Khai and Bangkok makes little economic sense unless there is a similar link between Laos and southern China. Such a link is under discussion.

In August, senior railway officials from China visited Vientiane to discuss the project with the Lao Railway Authority, which manages the country's current rail network - a 3.5-kilometre link between the Thai-Laos Friendship Bridge and Dongphosy town, outside Vientiane.

China and Laos have signed an agreement to conduct a feasibility study on a medium high-speed (200-kilometre-per-hour) rail link between Boten, Luang Namtha province, and Vientiane, a distance of about 400 kilometres. The link would provide a connection for freight and passengers with Kunming, the capital of China's Yunnan province.

The cost of construction would be prohibitive.

'I understand they are looking at three different routes but all of them would be mountainous, and potentially very expensive,' said one Vientiane-based aid expert.

'But the Lao government is taking the project extremely seriously, as part of their aim to turn Laos from a landlocked to land-linked country,' he added.

A lot will depend on whether Laos sees sufficient economic returns from the railway for providing the link between its two economically much more active neighbours, China and Thailand.

'Laos is the weakest but most important link,' said Nipon Poapongsakorn, president of the Thailand Development Research Institute, a think tank. 'Unless there is a benefit for Laos it will just become a transit for goods and passengers. What will they get from this programme other than pollution?'

Meanwhile, China has already started building a rail link between Dali, Yunnan, and Ruli, on the China-Myanmar border. The project began two years ago.

One physical constraint to China's railroad ambitions in South-East Asia is the different gauges. China uses the standard 1.435-metre gauge, whereas all of South-East Asia uses 1-metre gauge.

Switching over to standard gauge would prove costly.

'Obviously, if a network decided to shift from one gauge to another, it would require a huge investment in running stock,' said Pierre Chartier, economics affairs officer at ESCAP's transport division.