There are many reasons why South Korea was able to become one of the very few developed economies after World War II? There are many reasons for this, such as the efforts of the Koreans themselves, the high level of education in South Korea, the determination of many leaders to develop the economy, and the right decisions.
However, there is no doubt that these are not unique to South Korea, but the vast majority of the world's more than 200 countries and regions, with the exception of more than 10 old European and North American powers, have always been developing countries and have never entered the ranks of developed countries.
Therefore, one of the most crucial factors for South Korea to become a developed country is because of the support of the United States. Since the victory in World War II, with the 38th parallel dividing the Korean Peninsula in two, South Korea has become the forefront of the capitalist world led by the United States and the socialist camp led by the Soviet Union.
This is precisely the fundamental reason why the United States did not hesitate to assist South Korea after the outbreak of the Korean War, and even did not hesitate to go into battle shirtless when South Korea was on the verge of national destruction.
This is because the United States sees South Korea as the forefront of the fight against the socialist camp, and at the same time, it also sees it as a benchmark. In the eyes of the Americans, if South Korea's development is supported to overwhelm North Korea, then South Korea will become a window for Western countries to show to the socialist camp and achieve their goal of peaceful evolution.
Therefore, the fundamental reason why both Japan and South Korea were able to rise after World War II was the support of the United States, the help of technology, and the transfer of industry.
The United States regards South Korea as the front line of confrontation between the two camps and supports it as a benchmark.
China, which has now developed into the world's largest industrial country and the second largest country in terms of GDP, is in urgent need of such a benchmark. Laos, which is directly adjacent to China and has a population of just over 8 million, is perhaps one of the best benchmarks.
Laos is located on the Indochina Peninsula, bordering China to the north, Cambodia to the south, Vietnam to the east, Myanmar and Thailand to the west, covering an area of about 230,000 square kilometers.
However, this is a country twice the size of China's Jiangsu Province, with a population of just over 7 million, which is a typical country with a large area and a sparsely populated country.
The reason is not difficult to understand, because, as a landlocked country, Laos not only does not have access to the sea, but also its territory is mainly mountainous, the country is either a plateau or a mountain, not only the traffic is extremely inconvenient, but also the environment can be called bad, and the plain areas that are really suitable for a large population to live in are very rare.
This, coupled with the fact that Laos has a tropical and subtropical monsoon climate, makes Laos, located on the Indochina Peninsula, one of the few countries in Southeast Asia that is vast and sparsely populated.
Moreover, because Laos has such a low presence, many people may not know that Laos is still a socialist country, one of the only five remaining socialist countries in the world today.
What many people may not know is that Laos not only has a long border with Vietnam, but also has a very special relationship between the two countries.
This special relationship is more intimate than the relationship between countries, and Vietnam and Laos refer to this relationship as a special relationship. The two sides have even fixed this special relationship in the form of the "Laos-Vietnam Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation."
Therefore, Vietnam not only has extensive influence in Laos, but even has a large number of Vietnamese in the Lao Party and the Lao government.
Therefore, once Laos has a problem, then, Vietnam will provide assistance at the first time, high-level visits between the two countries are very frequent, and Laos from the central to the local will be helped and guided by Vietnam, and even Vietnam is the main object of Laotian study abroad, and the number of Lao students studying in Vietnam is as high as 15,000.
It is precisely because of this special relationship that Laos and Vietnam not only have extremely close relations and frequent exchanges, but also have a strong psychological advantage over Laos, which is to some extent similar to the ancient Chinese looking at the surrounding vassal countries.
However, this psychological advantage has changed dramatically with the opening of the China-Laos Railway. Even, it was rumored on the Internet that Laotians began to buy daughters-in-law from Vietnam, and many Vietnamese directly broke the defense.
What's going on here?
As mentioned above, Laos is a typical landlocked country, and the territory is surrounded by high mountains and dense forests, which is a typical area with harsh environment and inconvenient transportation, which is the key factor for Laos' sparse population and lagging economic development today.
So, as widely advertised in China, if you want to get rich, you must first build roads. However, the extremely backward level of economic and industrial development has made it almost impossible for Laos to build railways and roads on its own.
As a result, Laos has had to maintain a backward situation of traffic congestion for a long time. However, all this has changed with the rise of China and the implementation of China's planned Belt and Road Initiative.
On May 21, 2010, the construction of the China-Laos-Kunwan Railway, a railway connecting China and Laos, officially began. Because the railway straddles the two countries and passes through mountains, plateaus, rivers and inaccessible forests, the construction of the railway was extremely difficult from the beginning.
The road and railway construction has also been repaired for 11 years under the full efforts of infrastructure madness China. On December 3, 2021, the China-Laos-Kunwan Railway was finally opened to traffic, and since then, the traffic problems that have shackled Laos' economic and industrial development have been greatly relieved.
Specialties from Laos can smoothly enter China, and high-quality and low-cost industrial products from China have also begun to enter Laos at a very low cost, and Laos' economy has begun to develop a new page.
How important is the China-Laos Railway to Laos' economic development?
Taking Yuxi City in Yunnan Province as an example, in 2021, before the opening of the China-Laos Railway, the value of foreign trade imports in Yuxi through railway transportation was only 9 million yuan, which is almost negligible. Just a year later, in 2022, that number has multiplied more than 50 times to 520 million yuan.
According to figures released by the China State Railway Group Co., Ltd., in the two years since the opening of the China-Laos Railway, the cumulative number of passengers sent is 24.2 million and the cargo sent is 29.1 million tons, and the China-Laos Railway has become the most important golden corridor between China and Laos, as well as between China and the Indochina Peninsula.
For Laos, a vital railway in a small country of just over 8 million people is critical to boosting the economy, and the results are almost immediate.
With this railway, products that could not be shipped out or sold due to transportation costs and other problems can be marketed, and natural resources that cannot be exported are more profitable.
Due to the small population of the country, the Lao people have greatly improved their domestic economic development level, various industrial expansion and international trade figures, including personal income, since the construction of the China-Laos Railway.
This kind of improvement includes a scene that makes the Vietnamese break their defenses, because with the continuous increase in economic income, Laotians, who have more money, not only married daughters-in-law, but even a few people, and began to buy daughters-in-law from Vietnam, which has a special relationship with them, which makes the Vietnamese who have always had a psychological advantage break the defense.
Of course, this is just an inconspicuous silhouette of Laos' economic development after the change of the China-Laos railway. It is believed that with the continuous operation of the China-Laos Railway, this golden passage connecting China with Laos and the countries of the Indochina Peninsula will play a more important role, and the economic ties between China and the Indochina Peninsula and even Southeast Asia will also become closer.