[Text/Observer Network columnist Yu Pengkun]
In November, warm Southeast Asia welcomed two global events in succession: first, the G20 Summit with the theme of "Together Recovery, Strong Recovery" was held in Bali, Indonesia, on November 15-16; Two days later, the 29th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting, which called for "openness, connectivity and balance", opened in Bangkok, Thailand.
However, in response to the organizers' good intentions, there are many Cold War mentalities of a few countries, "small circles" of gangs, monsters who actively friction and confrontation, and robbers who take advantage of the fire and robbers.
As far as the G20 has closed, some people say: "This may be the most intense summit in the history of the G20". Typically, meetings like the G20 with short but wide-ranging agendas are more retreats and handshakes to show international goodwill. But at the G20 summit, the atmosphere can be described as gunsmoke, and even the summit declaration was almost difficult to produce due to the differences between member states on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
It is not difficult to imagine the impact of such a tense and cold international air.
In sharp contrast, on the 16th local time, President Xi Jinping and Indonesian President Joko Widodo jointly observed the trial operation of the Yawan high-speed railway in Bali, Indonesia, and watched the video of the results of cooperation between the two countries. As the comprehensive inspection vehicle drove out, the atmosphere at the scene became warm.
This is the signal that "openness, connection, balance" should be.
After the train left, Indonesian President Joko Widodo was very happy (Image source: CCTV)
The "Tao" of China's Relationship with Southeast Asia
The trial operation of the Yawan high-speed railway is timely, reflecting another method of civilization interaction different from the West, and has had a strong impact, which has made many Western media also pay attention to this method and its achievements.
According to the order of historical development, the Tiavan Railway has to mention the previous China-Laos Railway, the twists and turns of the China-Thailand High-speed Railway, and the earlier Trans-Asian Railway network, and then the recent China-Vietnam Railway docking problem.
In fact, the Trans-Asian Railway network has not been fully completed in reality, and this planning concept can be traced back to the Kunming-Singapore railway planned by the British and French colonial authorities in 1900. More than 100 years have passed, the host and participants of this concept have changed several times, the planning of the route has changed I don't know how many times, and there is still no timetable, the difficulty of the game behind this can be imagined.
Schematic map of the Trans-Asian Railway network (Infographic/Dagong Network)
The number one problem for the Trans-Asian Railway is the issue of coordinating operations.
Any mode of transport must reflect superiority, and regrouping must be reduced. From Kunming in Yunnan to Singapore, not counting China and Singapore, at least through Laos, Thailand and Malaysia, if each country has to be regrouped, even reloaded and unloaded and all operators are replaced, it will lead to a serious increase in freight costs for railway transportation, or even lose market competitiveness.
Ideally, countries should negotiate a mutually acceptable customs and railway charter and send customs officers to each other to ensure that the same quarantine inspection standards are enforced. This ensures minimal loading and unloading and marshalling operations and optimal overall benefits.
However, imagine such a scenario: country A sends an elite force to forcibly board a train at a station in country A, and then prevents the personnel stationed in country B from reporting, and in a few hours it can reach the important town or even the capital of country B, control key areas, guide large troops to parachute, and thus complete a perfect blitz...
Obviously, the realization of the Trans-Asian Railway requires a high degree of mutual trust among countries.
Projects like the Channel Tunnel have never been easy to coordinate. What's more, Southeast Asian countries are not only worried about external threats, but also wary of each other. The increase in operational concerns arising from safety anxieties makes it easy to see why the Trans-Asian Railway has made little real progress in the long period from the end of World War II to the new century.
Coordinating operations is a programmatic problem, and although it is difficult, as long as you make up your mind, I believe that it will be solved quickly.
The standard issue, on the surface, may seem like a subordinate operational issue, but in fact it is highly technical. This kind of technical problem is often mixed with politics and diplomacy, and finally makes a cannabis flower, so that people can't find the thread.
Taking track distance as an example, many lines in Southeast Asia still use 1067mm narrow gauge, while China has already fully applied international standard gauge. If Southeast Asia uses a narrow gauge, it is enough, narrow gauge and narrow gauge are also different, and different locomotives and speeds can be supported by different sections in different countries. Among them, many countries are very much looking forward to adopting international standard gauge in interconnection, but lack the funds to upgrade it...
Different gauges lead to different train performance and cost
The gauge problem is just the tip of the iceberg, just think about it: which country operates the cross-border railway? How to coordinate and solve the problem of land acquisition? How can countries solve the problem of reciprocal fairness when acquiring land for investment? How many languages are used to report the station, and in what order? If you carry out passenger transport business, what dishes do you offer in box lunches? What percentage of operations staff are by country? If a case occurs, what is the jurisdiction? Wait a minute.
Isn't it a little dizzy? This is without taking into account the interaction between Southeast Asian countries, which, depending on short-term policies and long-term preferences, may either take the initiative or exert pressure to delay the project.
Everything has to have a head, and the China-Laos Railway is coming.
The China-Laos Railway is a railway jointly invested and operated by China and Laos. The China-Laos Railway has two highlights:
First, the world's first overseas railway directly connected to China's railway network; The China-Laos Railway is built in accordance with the China National Railway Class I electrified railway standard, with a total length of 508.53 kilometers, which is a standard gauge electrified railway, of which the section from Yuxi to Xishuangbanna is a double line, and the section from Xishuangbanna to Mohan and Laos is a single line. The maximum travel speed of passenger cars is 160 km / h, and the maximum travel speed of freight trains is 120 km / h.
Second, the direct access to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, plays a self-evident role in demonstration.
In fact, the construction negotiations of the China-Laos Railway were extremely difficult, and a consensus was reached in 2010, but it was finally opened to traffic at the end of 2021. The China-Thailand railway is even longer, since 2005 Thaksin, Sharma and Yingluck have expressed their willingness to cooperate, and as a result, after nine rounds of negotiations, it was basically determined in 2015, and the first phase of the project finally began construction in early 2022.
Compared with the China-Laos Railway, a major improvement of the China-Thailand Railway is that it directly adopts Chinese standards for construction and adopts a large number of Chinese enterprise technologies.
As Thailand's first standard gauge high-speed railway, the first phase of the China-Thailand Railway connects Bangkok and Koratchas, and the second phase of the project will be extended to Nong Khai, a major trade town in the northeast, which is only across the river from Vientiane, the capital of Laos, and will realize the connection with the China-Laos Railway, and reach Kunming through Boten Laos and Mohan in China.
With the previous example, the Yawan high-speed railway launched almost at the same time was relatively smooth, and this time also contributed to the outstanding performance.
After the 20th Party Congress, Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, paid an official visit to the mainland, after which the joint statement said: "Focus on promoting negotiations on the Lao Cai (Vietnam)-Ha Kou (China) railway docking plan." Chinese and foreign netizens were excited by this, and some even launched a romantic imagination, believing that the reconstruction of the railway in northern Vietnam is likely to be won by Chinese enterprises and transformed according to Chinese standards.
In fact, many railways in Vietnam have been remodeled to Chinese standards in the past, and raising the issue of China-Vietnam railway docking is a greater step forward. As for who spent the reconstruction of the northern Vietnamese railway, it is not so important.
How can cooperation be win-win?
Or someone asks, is it worth spending so much effort to build railways in Southeast Asia?
It is undeniable that it is troublesome to build railways in Southeast Asia, but in turn, it also shows that the threshold here is very high, and once the market is obtained, it is also troublesome for others to come in.
China Railway can go in and do a lot of localization work. Taking the Yawan high-speed railway as an example, the shape and decoration of the high-speed railway station are highly localized, the painting style of the car body is also localized, and the wind resistance design and operation part of the car body are also adjusted according to the environment.
Coating scheme
Targeted technical improvements
Correspondingly, these standards, systems and technologies are provided by China. The author notes that many participating companies use "all-round" to describe the role of Chinese technology. China's standards and technologies have played an "all-round" role, which means that through project traction, the scale of the industry that can be driven is huge, and the timeliness is even more durable.
When economic and trade exchanges between the two sides become more frequent, especially after technical exchanges become more frequent, China's cultural influence and even soft power will play a more role, thereby enhancing diplomatic centripetal force, which is crucial to exerting the strategic value of the Belt and Road.
The famous Austrian diplomat Metternich said: "A mere exchange of interests cannot build a truly valuable alliance; it must have a vivid soul." This is also a key factor in the reluctance of Japanese railway companies to give up despite repeated defeats in Southeast Asia, and sometimes even try to reverse money to win the bid.
The reasons why countries choose China's railway technology also have considerable practical considerations. The most common reasons are the low quality of China's infrastructure and its desire to boost the economy. "Iron River: Railways and the Power of China in Southeast Asia" records the views of a Laotian government official:
"Laos is landlocked and there are other opportunities unlike other countries. Cambodia has a sea and a railway, Thailand has a good infrastructure, and we don't have it. If we don't join the rail plan, we will lose the opportunity to connect with China, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. If we don't build railways, we will lose opportunities for development; If we don't accept it, we won't be in debt, but we'll stay poor. ”
In the 10 months since the opening of the China-Laos Railway, the economic role of the "golden channel" has indeed become increasingly apparent. As of October 3, a total of 7.39 million passengers had been sent and a total of 8.51 million tons of goods were transported, including 1.54 million tons of cross-border goods.
This is not to say that U.S. and Western diplomacy is sustained entirely by power, while China relies solely on trade and investment. Needless to say, Vietnam and Indonesia, which actively introduced Chinese railway technology, have had many twists and turns in their relations with China during a specific period, and there are still certain antagonistic sentiments among the people of the two sides.
The reason why these countries are now leaning on is inseparable from the fact that the United States has been trying to instigate "color revolutions" in Southeast Asia. We find ourselves prevalent in the problem of simultaneously developing the economy and maintaining stability, and we share common interests with China on this fundamental issue.
In other words, similar challenges are another important reason to promote cooperation, in addition to economic factors.
epilogue
At the Sino-US meeting of the G20 summit, the expression "China and the United States are following different paths" appeared for the first time in the press release of the Chinese side, but at the same time, China still firmly believes that "the vast earth can fully accommodate the respective development and common prosperity of China and the United States".
If China wants to go its own way, it is crucial to unite partners and comrades. If China's "way" of civilization coexistence wants to go through, it cannot only rely on economic subsidies and moral standing, but it is equally important to provide a sense of security and common value support.
The world needs new wisdom theories to have the courage to face the Cold War mentality and hegemonism.
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