The Strait of Malacca is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. It runs between the Malaysia and Singapore on one side and the Indonesian island of Sumatra on the other. The reason why it’s so important is because it’s the shortest route between the Indian and Pacific Oceans – it’s how oil gets from the Middle East to the energy-hungry economies of East Asia, and how most of the industrial exports of the latter get to Europe and everywhere in between.
But what if there were a shorter route? One could be created by building a canal across Thailand’s Kra Isthmus. This wouldn’t be as big a shortcut as the Suez or Panama canals, but the savings would still be considerable – reducing the trans-oceanic journey by 1,200 kilometres. Vast sums in fuel costs could saved on every trip – hundreds of thousands of dollars for the biggest vessels.
Of course, the civil engineering challenges would be daunting – not to mention the financial, environmental and political obstacles. However, this is just sort of game-changing investment that China’s Belt and Road initiative is designed to take on.
In a piece for Foreign Policy, Bruno Maçães speculates as to what else the initiative might have achieved by by 2049 (the hundredth anniversary of People’s Republic):
“A bridge crossing the Caspian Sea—125 miles, from Azerbaijan to Turkmenistan—has made road transport between Europe and China fast and easy, changing old mental maps that separated continents… In Africa a high-speed railway connects the two coasts, traversing Djibouti, Ethiopia, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and Cameroon in under twenty hours. Trade between Africa, Asia, and South America increasingly uses this route.”
Even if the Belt and Road ends up skipping the very most ambitious challenges, it will lay down a new global infrastructure whose impact will go well beyond commerce alone.
When European explorers, starting with the Portuguese, established global trade routes from the 15th century onwards, they didn’t just move cargo around the world – they mobilised money, power and culture. Furthermore, because they controlled the routes, they controlled the terms of exchange (in their own favour, of course).
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