The China-Laos Railway train arrives in Boten, Laos, in April. The railway has become a posterchild for success in China’s Belt and Road Initiative despite questions about the project’s economic viability.
Photographer: Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images
China’s Bullet Trains Extend Toward Singapore Despite Debt Fears
Southeast Asian nations are embracing Beijing’s investments in a network of projects meant to tie the region together.
Just outside the capital of Laos — a country with an economy smaller than Vermont — a $6 billion rail line carves its way through rice paddies and forested mountains toward the border with China.
Further south, Malaysia’s king is seeking Chinese investors for a high-speed rail to Singapore, while in Vietnam, a $6.3 billion trio of railroads built by Beijing are a linchpin in the nation’s efforts to bolster its economy and regional trade ties. Together they form the missing links to what China calls a “golden corridor” that would eventually connect the nation’s manufacturing provinces more than 4,000 kilometers (2,490 miles) to Singapore.