The rise of a great power: starting with military industry

Chapter 936 Southbound Passage
The leaders’ visit to Kunming City this time is not only to inspect Dianchi Lake and Kunming City.

Instead, we need to survey the entire Southwest.

This month, the authorities dispatched workers to various provinces to conduct inspections in order to get a thorough understanding of the situation.

After all, this year is the final year of the Eighth Five-Year Plan, which is of extraordinary significance.

The leader personally led a team to inspect the entire southwest, understand the context of the southwest, and prepare for the "Ninth Five-Year Plan".

The first stop is to choose the southwestern city of 'Kunshi'.

There are three major cities in the entire southwest, namely Rongcheng, Shancheng and Kunshi. Although Longyuan is also rising rapidly, it is still not as good as Rongcheng, Shancheng and Kunshi.

Chengdu has always been the core area of ​​the southwest. In terms of national positioning, it is a megacity, a core city of the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle, an important central city in western China, an important national high-tech industrial base, a commercial and logistics center, and a comprehensive transportation hub.

In terms of national positioning, Shancheng is a national central city, a megacity, an economic center, a financial center and an innovation center in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, a center of politics, culture, science and technology, education and art, and is to be built into an international metropolis. Shancheng is a comprehensive transportation hub for water, land and air in the central and western regions. At present, the time is ripe to restore the establishment of Shancheng as a central municipality, and it is only a matter of time before Shancheng breaks away from Sichuan and Shu and becomes independent.

Kunming City, the central city of the central Yunnan urban agglomeration and one of the important central cities in the western region, has a unique location of "connecting with Guizhou and Guangxi to the coast in the east, entering the Central Plains through Sichuan and Chongqing in the north, going to Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia in the south, and connecting with Myanmar, India and Pakistan in the west". It is located at the intersection of the north-south international channel and the third east-west Eurasian Continental Bridge with Pengcheng as the starting point. It is a gateway city for China to open up to Southeast Asia and South Asia, and is located at the intersection of the ASEAN "10+1" Free Trade Area Economic Circle, the Greater Mekong Subregion Economic Cooperation Circle, and the Pan-Pearl River Delta Regional Economic Cooperation Circle.

With Panshan Group as the core, the southwestern region has developed an entire industrial cluster, all outbound channels have been opened up, and it is only a matter of time before railways and shipping are opened. The development potential of the entire southwestern region is no less than that of the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta.

The most important thing is that Panshan Group has money, and the southwest region generally has money as well, so the central government does not need to invest too much money.

The annual revenue from power transmission from the southwest region to the east and south China regions alone is no less than 2000 billion yuan.

What we need to do to help the southwest now is further integration and relevant policy support.

In the future, China will further develop the central, western and northeastern regions, and try to make economic development more balanced and reasonable.

In the Panshan Group conference room, Liu Tao personally introduced the current construction status of the external channels.

"The China-Myanmar Railway has been fully opened. Our goods can be imported and exported directly along the China-Myanmar Railway." Liu Tao pointed to a major railway artery in the west, the China-Myanmar Railway, which directly connects southwest China to the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean, and connects to the port of Panshan Group here. This port has been leased by Panshan Group for 99 years and is an important overseas support base.

This railway is the earliest and most elaborate railway built by Panshan Group in Southeast Asia. For this railway, Panshan Group invested countless time, energy, material and financial resources, united all forces along the line, and supported a group of Chinese families, finally making the entire line connected as it is today.

Only Liu Tao knows best the energy and effort put into this.

"The China-Thailand Railway is expected to be open to traffic in another two years!" Liu Tao pointed to a major artery in the middle. The China-Thailand Railway was a consensus reached only a few years ago. It starts from Vientiane Station, the core hub station of the China-Laos-Cambodia Railway, and connects to Bangkok. It is 610 kilometers long and ends at Bangkok Port, the largest port in Thailand. This line can allow goods from the southwest region to be transported directly to Bangkok Port, and then loaded onto ships through the Kra Strait for export to the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.

"The China-Laos-Cambodia Railway has been opened to traffic. Now we plan to carry out technical transformation of the Laos-Cambodia section, and the train speed will be increased to 2000 kilometers per hour by 120." Liu Tao pointed to the China-Laos-Cambodia Railway, which was officially opened to traffic in 1990. In order to complete this artery as soon as possible, the construction standard of this railway is not high and is designed for 60 kilometers per hour. This railway is to solve the problem of whether there is a problem or not. When the traffic is improved and the economy along the line develops, the railway will be transformed.

As for the land along the railway, sufficient land had been reserved as early as the time of construction.

"The Kunlong Railway has been opened to traffic. The current train speed is 150 kilometers per hour. It goes directly from Kun City to Longyuan City and arrives at Longyuan Port." Liu Tao introduced these four important road transportation hubs.

These four railways are all designed to open up road routes from the southwest to Southeast Asia and speed up the exchange of personnel and the transportation of materials.

Except for the China-Thailand Railway, which will have to wait two years to be completed, all the others have been completed.

"For shipping on the Red River, the middle and upper reaches can meet the waterway standards for 500-ton ships, and the lower reaches can meet the waterway standards for 2000-ton ships. Currently, all the ports in cities along the line have been built." This is inland waterway shipping within Yunnan Province. The construction speed and efficiency are not comparable to those of foreign projects.

China has the advantage of concentrating its resources to accomplish major tasks, and has never been vague when it comes to such large projects.

In just a few years, this large area has fully realized water supply, electricity supply, communications, and internet access. National highways, expressways, provincial roads, county roads, and rural roads have been built, connecting various towns, county towns, and cities.

In order to improve navigation conditions along the entire Red River, large reservoirs and hydropower stations have been built to achieve inland navigation through locks or ship lifts, and water and electricity are supplied to a large area.

Just for inland waterway shipping on this one river, the total cargo throughput of ports along the route is tens of millions of tons, and the transportation costs are very low, which drives the economic development along the entire shipping section.

"The first phase of the Mekong River shipping project has been completed, and the second phase will be completed in a few years. The joint law enforcement team conducts regular river patrols and law enforcement!" Liu Tao introduced the Mekong River. The upper reaches are called the Canglan River, and the middle and lower reaches are called the Mekong River. The name of the river system has not changed.

The four countries signed an agreement to form a joint law enforcement team after the launch of the Mekong River shipping project to patrol the entire Mekong River and crack down on criminals.

The Mekong River Joint Law Enforcement Team has a total of 50 people and patrol law enforcement boats, maintaining shipping safety along the entire Mekong River.

"The first phase of the Chao Phraya River project was just completed this year, the second phase is expected to be completed by the millennium, and the third phase will be completed by 2010!" Liu Tao introduced the Chao Phraya River.

The first phase of the Chao Phraya River project mainly involves dredging along the river, building large reservoirs and hydropower stations, building ports along the river, and digging an artificial canal connecting the Chao Phraya River and the Mekong River. This is to solve the problem of whether there is a problem or not.

The second phase of the project is to dredge the channel deeper and wider, improve channel conditions, and allow 1000-ton ships to pass through.

The third phase of the project will continue to improve navigation conditions based on the second phase of the project, making the entire section navigable for 2000-ton ships.

As for the Salween River and Irrawaddy River in Myanmar, it has been difficult to connect the various forces along the route, so there is naturally no question of starting construction.

(End of this chapter)