CHIANG RAI, Thailand - Chiang Rai, a province of
farmers and tribal highlanders in Thailand's far north,
is emerging as central China's southern trade gateway
now that transport routes are being upgraded and a
free-trade agreement is in place. As trade and
investment grow, China's economic gravity will wrest
Thailand from a century of Western embrace.
Not
so long ago, Chiang Rai was an economic dead end, a
place tourists stopped off to poke around its border
markets, perhaps dash over to Myanmar for the day, or
visit a little piece of China called Mae Salong, a
village strung along a misty ridge inhabited by old
Kuomintang rebels and their offspring.
These
days China is never far from the lips of businessmen,
planners, officials and politicians. Students are
dropping English for Mandarin. Indeed, China spent
US$1.5 million on a striking Chinese-language center at
Chiang Rai's Mae Fah Luang University, which aims to be
the academic hub for the region, drawing scholars from
the mountains of Yunnan, Laos and Myanmar.
Better roads, bigger river ports, new railways
and a huge Chinese industrial park earmarked for Chiang
Rai are raising optimism - and fear.
Route 3
West, linking Thailand's Mae Sai via Myanmar's Kyaing
Tong with Jinghong in southern Yunnan, has just been
upgraded, allowing trucks to complete the trip in as
little as 10 hours - before it took a day, often two or
three.
China, Thailand and the Asian Development
Bank are spending $90 million upgrading Route 3 East
that will connect Chiang Kong, via a new bridge, with
Laos and Jinghong by 2006.
Meanwhile work is
starting on a bigger port to serve Mekong river trade
between Chiang Rai and Yunnan, handling up to 40
500-tonne freighters a day. To allow passage of
300-tonne vessels, reefs and rapids, crucial to fish
breeding and river ecology, are being blasted. Plans see
even more environmentally damaging canalization to
facilitate bigger ships.
To save Chiang Saen's
medieval heritage for China's tourist legions from ruin
by rising traffic through its current port, which serves
100-tonne vessels, the new port is being built a few
kilometers south of Chiang Saen. A new four-lane
highway, bypassing Chiang Saen, will take trucks
straight to Chiang Rai from the new port, due to open in
2006.
Chinese investors, mainly from Yunnan, are
eager to get started on the industrial park hosting
factories producing clean products such as
pharmaceuticals. A decision on the site is expected soon
from the Thai government.
A railway is also
drawn across planners' maps. One route links Chiang Saen
with the Chiang Mai-Bangkok line at Den Chai. Another
sees a Chinese-gauge railway crossing Laos to Chiang
Kong and on to Den Chai, where freight would switch to
Thailand's smaller one-meter-gauge tracks. In all
probability, whichever option is chosen, by 2010 it will
likely link Chiang Kong, Chiang Saen and Mae Sai with
Laem Chabang, a deepsea port near Bangkok providing a
faster export route for China's hinterland than choked
railways to the east-coast ports.
More than just
an export shortcut, Thailand is also a growing bazaar
for Chinese manufactures, temperate fruits and
vegetables, thanks to last year's free-trade agreement.
In return Thailand should export more tropical produce,
such as the prized durian, to China, along with such
commodities as rice, rubber and palm oil, plus tourism.
However, many Thais worry that Chinese imports
will destroy their manufacturers and efforts to grow
temperate produce in northern provinces. Chinese
investors are already moving in, buying up firms or
starting new ones. Increasing migration from rural areas
to towns and cities, where jobs in tourism or
Chinese-owned factories and offices may be had, will be
one result.
Such concerns hint at an
increasingly complex relationship between the two
countries that will see trade force Thailand into being
a provider of commodities and services to China. Of
course owning the gates gives Thailand some leverage,
but if it pushes too hard, China can opt for similar
trade routes through less stable, less-developed Myanmar
or Laos and Cambodia. It may do so in any case.
From Beijing, Thailand and its neighbors look
little different from China's provinces. They are
conduits for releasing economic pressure and stepping
stones to the world, much like colonial Hong Kong after
1949.
Balancing China in the economic equation
with Europe and the United States will be difficult for
Thailand given China's proximity, economic prowess and
hands on the Mekong taps. Consequently Thailand will be
less beholden to major Western powers, but more likely
to feel Beijing's bamboo cane as and when China's
interests diverge from those of Europe or the US,
especially over such questions as Taiwan and trade.
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