ASIAN SECURITYThailand Seeking Investment for Strategic ‘Landbridge’
Thailand is trying to drum up investment for a “landbridge” across its southern neck, which would cut cargo transit times from the Pacific to Indian oceans and boost the kingdom’s strategic importance by providing an alternative route for Chinese trade that could bypass Singapore and the Straits of Malacca. Beijing has historically preferred the idea of a deep-water, Suez Canal-style route across Thailand for its ships, but the landbridge idea appears to finally put an end to aspirations for the so-called Kra Canal, a generations-old vision to dig a deep waterway across southern Thailand to allow large ships to pass, cutting at least a day off of sailing time around the Straits of Malacca.
Thailand is trying to drum up investment for a “landbridge” across its southern neck, which would cut cargo transit times from the Pacific to Indian oceans and boost the kingdom’s strategic importance by providing an alternative route for Chinese trade that could bypass Singapore and the Straits of Malacca.
Critics, though, are questioning the wisdom of the $28 billion plan, which so far has received no formal comment from China. Beijing has historically preferred the idea of a deep-water, Suez Canal-style route across Thailand for its ships.
“China is a strategist. It won’t give away its position that easily until it sees the other investors,” said Chulalongkorn University professor Sompong Putivisutisak, who has studied the landbridge extensively.
But there are “two reasons that China would invest,” he told VOA. “First, financial benefits, secondly geopolitics. Financially, this project is not worth the investment, but geopolitically it could be interesting as China would have control over both seas.
“It’s a matter of how badly it wants that access to both seas,” he said.
The landbridge proposal, already touted in Beijing and San Francisco by Thai premier Srettha Thavisin, envisages cargo ships dropping containers at ports on either side of the proposed nearly 90-kilometer road and rail route.
Under the plan, road and high-speed rail would cut across southern Thailand from Chumpon province on the Gulf of Thailand to Ranong on the Indian Ocean, to be loaded onto waiting ships.
If a feasibility study currently underway is given a green light, work is due to start in 2030.
Thailand says it is open to interest from all investors, including those dependent on Middle Eastern oil, which currently passes through the Straits of Malacca to reach China and East Asia, with consumer goods flowing the other way.
The Bangkok Post and Deutsche Welle have reported potential interest from Germany. Following a recent trip to Japan, where Thailand’s premier spoke with Japanese businesses and politicians about the plan, he said – without elaborating – that there was interest in the project.
The landbridge would “connect the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean without requiring ships to sail down along the tip of Singapore, known to experience congestion and would cut transport duration,” Srettha told the APEC CEO summit Nov. 15 in San Francisco, saying it is a “very important project, not just for Thailand, but also for the world.”
