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Last update: 24/09/2017
By Mohd Haikal Mohd Isa
BANGKOK, Sept 24 (Bernama) -- For more than 300 years,
the question of whether to build the Kra Canal or not has been discussed and
deliberated repeatedly in Thailand without any firm decision taken on the
controversial multi-billion dollar project.
As China's One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiatives gained
acceptance among the regional economies, there seems to be a new and
coordinated drive among proponents of the project to push for Kra Canal's
speedy realisation.
During the recently-held 'International Conference on
Technology for Sustainable Paths to Thailand's Future. Kra Canal', several of
China's experts as expected, were the most enthusiastic group in lobbying the
Thai government to give its blessings on the proposed 130km-long canal.
They argued that the Kra Canal or Thai Canal as it is known
now, would save shipping cost and valuable time as the canal linking the Indian
and Pacific Oceans would cut more than 1,200 km or "two to three
days" of a ship's journey without traversing the narrow and congested
Malacca Straits.
The Chinese experts wanted Bangkok's military-led
government "to stop wasting any more time" and to immediately start a
feasibility study on the canal, as the first step into fulfilling more than 300
years of a long-awaited dream.
"After China proposed the initiative (OBOR), many
people in Thailand generally believe that the opportunity to build the canal is
coming. The initiative provides a golden opportunity for the Kra Isthmus Canal.
"As the development of the Kra Canal is of great
significance to Thailand, it is recommended that the relevant departments in
Thailand start the feasibility study as soon as possible," said Prof Zhou
Dawei from Peking University when tabling a paper entitled, 'The Kra Canal
under the Belt and Road Initiative' at the conference.
Another expert, Dr Jingsong Zhao in calling for the
construction of Kra Canal, said the canal would bring immense benefit to the
country and turn it as the new international shipping hub by clustering
shipping, trade and financial services in Thailand.
The Kra Canal project, according to him, is a "great
century project" and would bring significant impact to Thailand not only
in the economy, politics, science and technology but would also be strategic in
the maritime domain as it connects the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean.
Despite the rosy assessment of Kra Canal from its
proponents, critics of the project have "punched a hole" into its
economic viability as the canal, located in southern Thailand's Kra Isthmus,
according to them, would only save 1,200 km of sea journey, compared to
"saving" 10,000 km for the Suez Canal and 7,000 km for the Panama
Canal.
The economic benefits would be negligible, they said.
The critics have always counter-argued the economic
benefits from Kra Canal as "too small" to justify its exorbitant
price tag, with experts estimating the 130km-long canal to cost between US$30
billion to US$50 billion or more to build, depending on the width, depth and
route of the canal.
Meanwhile, Kra Canal Study Team head, Pakdee Tanapura has
allayed the much talked about fears of the possible negative impacts of the
canal on regional countries, especially Singapore which depend heavily on
maritime trade.
While Thailand will derive many economic advantages
associated with the construction of Kra Canal, the multiplier effect from the
mammoth project, according to him, will be too enormous and benefit the whole
South-East Asian economy.
"South-East Asia will be the economic hub of of the
world," said the long-time advocator of the Kra Canal.
Despite the fears of its impact to neighbouring
countries, Pakdee said finding an alternative shipping route to Malacca Straits
was actually long overdue as the straits where 20 percent of world's trade
passed was just "several more years" from nearing its saturation
point.
He cited a study by the Maritime Institute of Malaysia
(MIMA) which pointed out that the straits could only accommodate a maximum
quantity of 122,000 ships per year, while the World Bank estimated that 122,640
ships would navigate the straits by 2020.
The Kra Canal, he said, would divert much of the current
congestion in the straits and minimise the risk of ship collisions as what
happened between the United States' Arleigh Burke guided-missile destroyer, USS
John S.McCain and Liberia-registered merchant vessel last month, which killed
10 US navy personnel.
-- BERNAMA
Original post: bernama.com
Kra Canal The Development of Southeast Asia
Published on Sep 23, 2013
The concept of cutting a canal through the Kra Peninsula
in southern Thailand has been a conception in the minds of visionary thinkers
for hundreds of years. In the early 1980s, it nearly came to fruition, as
associates of Lyndon LaRouche, including especially Pakdee Tanapura of
Thailand, mobilized leaders of the Thai government, American scientific
institutions, Japan’s Mitsubishi Global Infrastructure Fund (GIF), and leaders
from every major country in the region (except Singapore and China) to two
conferences in Bangkok dedicated to implementing this great project to unite
the Pacific and Indian Ocean Basins via a canal.
But the
British Empire has repeatedly, throughout history, acted to stop the building
of the Kra Canal – both because they wanted to maintain the strategic choke
point over Asian trade which they enjoyed through their colonial outpost in
Singapore and the Malacca Strait, but primarily because such a project would
facilitate cooperation among the Asian nations for mutual development and
resistance to western imperial dictates– a result to be feared and undermined
by the Empire.
Financial and political crises in the 1990s, caused by British financial
interests and their lackeys such as George Soros, prevented the implementation
of the Kra Canal project during the final decades of the 20th Century and early
21st Century. But now the world is experiencing a global revolutionary
transformation, and the British Empire, including its puppet Bush and Obama
regimes in Washington, is facing dissolution. A new paradigm has emerged,
centered in China, bringing Russia, India, Southeast Asia, and potentially the
entire world into its development orientation, the “win-win” perspective of
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s New Silk Road perspective, known as the Belt and
Road Initiative (BRI).
In
South and Southeast Asia, China’s “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” concept
(map), introduced by President Xi in 2013 while speaking to the Indonesian
Parliament, has already brought the nations along the South China Sea, the
Malacca Strait, the Andaman Sea, the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean, the
Arabian Sea, and through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean, into an entirely
new economic and political geometry based on rapid infrastructure development.
But
missing in this geometry has been the hub represented by the potential of the
Kra Canal. Now that potential is very close to realization, as the entire Asian
region is breaking away from British/American constraints, and acting in its
own interests to facilitate win-win development for all parties. At the same
time, leading political forces in Thailand are now in a position to launch the
project.
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