China's high-speed rail has been shouting for many years, but it has been thunderous and rainy, as if I have never heard of any country opening China's high-speed rail, but this status quo is about to be changed.
On December 29, 2021, Indonesia's Yawan high-speed railway has begun the track laying stage, and if all goes well, it is expected that by June 2023, the Yawan high-speed railway will be fully opened.
Don't underestimate this Yawan high-speed railway, you know, this is the first railway in Southeast Asia with a maximum design speed of 350 kilometers per hour, and it is also a "golden brick" for China to pry open the international high-speed rail market!
As we all know, Indonesia is a shattered archipelagic country, with a total of more than 17,000 large and small islands, and a slightly larger area is Sumatra, Java and Kalimantan, and the traffic situation is very tight.
Jakarta is Indonesia's largest city, with an area of about 740 square kilometers and a population of more than 10 million people, which is equivalent to the size of a Chaoyang district, carrying half of Beijing's population, which is also crowded.
The consequence of the people getting together is that wealth and elite are too concentrated, Jakarta's GDP accounts for 28% of Indonesia's total, the gap between rich and poor is getting wider and wider, the rich live in the core area and developed countries are no different, next to the slums piled together, it is difficult to mix a food and clothing.
It is in this context that the Indonesian government decided to build a high-speed rail economy between Jakarta and Java Island, so that a large number of people will transfer to the high-speed rail line, which will not only alleviate the population pressure in Jakarta, but also drive the development of cities along the high-speed rail.
In the bidding stage, Indonesia originally wanted to let Japan take over this job, but the Japanese did not give a force, not only a series of accidents occurred on the Shinkansen, but also exposed a scandal.
So Indonesia set its sights on China, because only China has the same advanced technology in this field and has a much better reputation than Japan.
After several rounds of bargaining, Indonesia was pleasantly surprised to find the same project, in the case of equal quality, the quotation given by the Chinese side exploded the Japanese side, and the Chinese side also provided low-interest loans, Indonesia used its toes to calculate, very painful to hand over the project to the Chinese enterprise.
Don't think it's a loss-making deal.
You know, Indonesia does not have any railway construction, material production and maintenance capabilities, the railway built the train always have to buy it, the line must be maintained for a long time, this follow-up supporting supply and line maintenance, the profit is quite considerable.
Therefore, the key to the Yawan Railway is to let the "Chinese standard" go out, and the things behind it will be easy to handle, and the old ancestors do not have a cruel saying that "put a long line to catch big fish".
As the "first order" of China's high-speed rail system, all elements and full production chain going abroad, the Yawan high-speed rail project is also a landmark project of the "Belt and Road" initiative, which quickly attracted global attention after the full start of construction in June 2018, not only because it is the largest order won by China's high-speed rail in the world, but also because its construction technology is quite difficult.
Indonesia is a country with abundant rain all year round, making the clay layer have a high water content, low strength, and the foundation is very easy to deform, which is simply a large swamp, and the difficulty for the high-speed rail construction party has reached the hell level.
This is something that Chinese high-speed rail companies have never encountered in China, but the infrastructure demon has never disappointed everyone, and It took only 36 months for Chinese engineers to show Indonesia "what is China's speed and Quality".
The Chinese side first sent a large number of experts to Indonesia, repeatedly explored the predetermined site, measured the geological parameters of each formation and soil, and formulated a unique construction plan, and later sent hundreds of engineering teams and a large number of self-developed advanced equipment to overcome the difficulties, which made the railway smoothly built locally.
The 142-kilometer Yawan Railway departs from Halim Station in Jakarta and passes through 9 cities and districts before reaching Dekarur Station in Bandung.
After the completion and opening of the train, the running time of the Jakarta to Bandung train will be shortened from the current 3 hours to 40 minutes, and Indonesia will become the first country in Southeast Asia to have a high-speed rail.
For China, this is the first high-speed rail to go to sea, which is equivalent to a hard-core advertisement for China's infrastructure, which makes the Philippines and Malaysia envious.
More importantly, the Yawan Railway has made China the formulator of the Southeast Asian high-speed rail game, "China's high-speed rail standard" will be the reference basis for Southeast Asian countries, you know, no matter what game to play, who sets the rules, who is the biggest winner!
If everyone only locks their eyes on the high-speed rail to the sea, it will be a small pattern.
In December 2021, the 1,000-kilometer Kunwan railway from China to Laos was officially opened, which is a big move to integrate Southeast Asia.
Laos is a typical mountainous landlocked country with a population of just over 7 million and a GDP of less than $20 billion, which is equivalent to a small fourth-tier city in China.
The China-Laos railway is only a thousand kilometers old, not even high-speed rail, it seems that there is no public opinion explosion, but it is of great significance to China.
The 1,035-kilometer China-Laos Kunwan Railway is the first overseas railway project to be built and operated by the Chinese side and directly connected to the Chinese railway network.
In the world, there are not few overseas railway projects with Chinese investment, construction and operation, and the entire line adopts Chinese technical standards and Chinese equipment.
But here to draw the point, the China-Laos Railway from Kunming in the north, through Yuxi, Pu'er, Mohan in the south, and then through Laos Moding, a pestle to Vientiane.
After the railway is opened, it only takes 5 hours and 20 minutes from Kunming to Mohan, and the fastest from Moding to Vientiane is only 3 hours and 20 minutes, even if the customs clearance time is added, 10 hours from Kunming to Vientiane is enough, which is more than 3 times more efficient than more than 30 hours of road transportation!
Don't look at the backward economy of Laos, but there are really mines in the family, there are 450 metal deposits found now, including 68 copper ore, 155 gold and silver ore, 91 lead zinc antimony ore, 56 iron manganese chromium ore, 5 bauxite, 69 tungsten tin molybdenum ore.
In terms of total, there are about 17 million tons of gold ore, about 800,000 tons of lead and zinc ore, about 182 million tons of copper, 1.6 million tons of tin ore, 125 million tons of bauxite, 14 million tons of iron ore, and 374 million tons of coal mines.
The point is that there are so many mines in the family, and only about 3% of them are mined.
On the other hand, Laos rounding is about equal to no railway, before the opening of the China-Laos Railway, there was only a 3.5-kilometer-long meter-gauge railway from Vientiane to the Thai-Lao border in Laos, or it was built to facilitate Laos to go to Thailand to work, and the overall effect was unbearable.
Rich minerals combined with extreme crotch-pulling transport nets, it is simply the Laotian version of the mountain, the man, the dog.
Everyone knows that if you want to be rich, you must first build roads, but before Laos, because its territory was full of mountains and poverty, it could not build roads at all.
Now, with Chinese investment, the Lao government only needs to come up with 33% of the funds, the Chinese government will take 7% to make up 40%, and the remaining 60% will be jointly borne by Chinese and Lao enterprises. However, it is said that it is a joint undertaking, in fact, most of this 60% is still produced by Chinese enterprises in Laos.
After the opening of the China-Laos Railway, Laos immediately transformed from a country sealed by land into a transportation hub connecting the Indochina Peninsula, the trade between China and Laos will be smoother, their resources can come, our products can pass, with the energy of Chinese capital, invest in a prefecture-level city in Laos, the economy has not yet taken off.
With the support of the China-Laos Railway, Laos's life will definitely be getting better and better in the future, which will also set a model for the whole of Southeast Asia, that is, to follow China and eat meat!
The China-Laos Railway is actually only a semi-finished product, and the next step is to extend to the south, all the way to Thailand, the full version, called the China-Thailand Railway.
The China-Thailand Railway is divided into four sections in Thailand, and the double-line railway is built at a speed of about 180 kilometers per hour, which runs through the north-south land north of Bangkok, Thailand, in the shape of a "human" character.
Construction was originally started at the end of 2014 and put into operation in 2019. But after the construction of the China-Laos railway began in 2015, Thailand asked to solve the infrastructure part itself. As a result, there were a lot of moths in Thailand, and the whole project dragged on until October 2020, when China and Thailand re-signed the relevant agreement, and the China-Thailand Railway resumed construction.
Despite the twists and turns, the good guys are moving forward, because the China-Thailand railway is very important to China.
From the map, although Thailand does not border China and Vietnam, it connects Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia and Myanmar, which is considered to be standing in the C position of the Indochina Peninsula, once the China-Thailand Railway is completed and opened, and then connected to the China-Laos Railway, China's southwest direction will open an inlet in the Indian Ocean, and then extend to the south, it will be of great significance to China.
As we all know, in recent years, the country is a variety of rolls, in essence, there is no breakthrough in technology, the market is not innovative, the cake is not enough to divide, only by breaking through the Western encirclement to go out and open up new markets, can we solve the fundamental problems of the inner volume.
Although Southeast Asia is poor, but there are many people, their inland economic development is slow, the main reason is still poor mountains and bad water, transportation is not good. And China's southwest region is also because of traffic problems, economic development is fast, so China wants to understand one thing, that is, desperately throw money to the southwest provinces to engage in infrastructure, highways, bridges repaired a lot, basically opened up the main road of southwest transportation.
Once the railway network in Southeast Asia is completed, the entire region can be connected by rail, and the southwest region of China will have two outlets to the sea in Myanmar and the Beibu Gulf.
Because of the comprehensive opening of resources and transportation, and the original manpower and land advantages, the industry will be greatly developed, which will allow the southwest region to make blood like the southeast coast and produce a steady stream of wealth.
Southeast Asia can not only provide a resource package and a considerable consumer market for Southwest China, but also provide a stable and reliable granary for China to ensure domestic food security.
With the blessing of the infrastructure maniac, the property and human resources of Southeast Asia will also be fully released, and Southeast Asia will also rebind China's economy and culture.
In addition, we should know that the railway is a political and military extension, and the breakthrough of the Southeast Asian railway network to China's geopolitics is also strategic.
As we all know, China has a "Malacca dilemma", that is, more than half of China's raw materials and export commodities, as well as 80% of its imported oil, must be transported through the Strait of Malacca, which is equivalent to the half-life of China's foreign trade being held by the Americans.
Therefore, China wants to engage in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and invest in Gwadar Port, just to break through the malacca dilemma, but there is only one road from Gwadar Port to China, there are so many mountains in between, half of the road is still in The territory of Balochistan Province, and the cost of building a railway is very high.
In Southeast Asia, it is not difficult to carry out the Trans-Asian Railway.
Vietnam on the eastern front has not been very interested in China, afraid that China will influence them by rail, so it simply gave Japan the high-speed rail project on the eastern front, and as a result, after being slaughtered by the Japanese for $56 billion, Vietnam's high-speed rail is far away.
Myanmar on the western front also does not stop, the country is still in the period of warlord division, the political situation is also unstable, coupled with the frequent instigation and interference of Western forces, the China-Myanmar railway has not been smooth, the 1920 km of China-Myanmar railway, obviously only 130 kilometers left to build to the Indian Ocean, but it is not working.
Therefore, the central line through Laos and Thailand has become the safest choice, after all, these two countries have a good relationship with us, which ensures the smooth completion of the railway.
As part of the pan-Asian railway network, the China-Laos railway is mainly to seek a breakthrough, break the dilemma of the West to encircle China, and build a skeleton for the integration of Eurasia.
With the skeleton of the Pan-Asian Railway Network, coupled with the "Chinese standard" tendons, this body will gradually grow and grow, and Eurasia can be truly linked, whether it is the China-Laos Railway or the Yawan High-speed Railway, which is actually the first step in China's integration of the Indochina Peninsula.
It is also the first step in the return of Chinese civilization to the center of the world.
End of article.