| Roads and ports in Pakistan, ports and a canal in Thailand? The wily Communist Chinee sure does get around. |
[ATimes] General Saiyud Kerdphol, the military engineer of Thailand’s winning Cold War-era anticommunism campaign, believes now is the time to build the Kra canal – a long-envisioned channel through the country’s southern isthmus that would connect the Indian and Pacific Oceans and dramatically shorten East-West shipping routes.And for the massive infrastructure undertaking to finally break ground after centuries of pondering, the nonagenarian former supreme commander believes the monumental decision cannot be taken by any government and thus must be conceived and graced as “the king’s canal.”
While it’s unclear if any formal representations have been made to the monarch, the canal does have one rich and powerful new backer: China.
Beijing’s newly appointed ambassador to Bangkok, Lyu Jian, has said in recent high-level meetings that China envisions the Thai canal as part of its US$1 trillion ‘One Belt One Road’ (Obor) global infrastructure initiative, according to Thai government officials and advisors briefed on the discussions.
While China aims to link the initiative with the junta’s Eastern Economic Corridor industrial, logistical and real estate development plan, including via a long-stalled high-speed rail line connecting the two nations via Laos that broke symbolic ground in December, it is apparently the first-time Beijing has actively promoted the canal as part of the Obor program.
Until now, Beijing has publicly distanced itself from private Chinese companies which have engaged Thai trade groups to probe the project’s potential. That includes a memorandum of understanding entered by the China-Thailand Kra Infrastructure and Development Company and Asia Union Group to study the canal signed in Guangzhou in May 2015.
Jinsong Zhao, a maritime expert at state-led Shanghai Jiao Tong University, suggests the canal could put Thailand at the center of a “third revolution” of fast-transport global trade, where e-commerce driven sales require ever quicker door-to-door delivery of goods that is limited in the region due to the long shipping route through the Malacca Strait.
“To my Thai friends: Don’t waste your time, don’t delay this project,” Jinsong implored at a conference on the canal held last September in Bangkok. “We have technology, we have capacity, we have money, we are happy to help. It’s good for Thailand, Asia and the whole world.” He said if Thailand waited another 20 years, it would be “fatal” to winning China’s support.