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Laos embarks on the China train


Laurent Weyl

The new Kunming-Vientiane high-speed train, the flagship project of Xi Jinping's Silk Roads, is speeding up the satellisation of this small South-East Asian country. The former "kingdom of 68 ethnic groups" has become a vast construction site.

Sebastien Falletti, in Vientiane and Boten


  • This article was originally published in Figaro Magazine


On the dusty ochre plain bordering the Mekong, it rises like a monumental pagoda of glass and steel in the dawn light. "Vientiane railway station", say the red letters on the façade, interlaced with Lao script and Chinese characters. At the entrance, saffron-robed monks pull their wheeled suitcases along the VIP lane, while crowds of travellers wait through the strict airport-style security checkpoint. Mandarin mingles with the nasal tones of Thai and Lao languages. Twenty minutes' drive north of the small capital of Laos, long a languid tropical town, Xi Jinping 's China is knocking on the door at high speed.


Middle Kingdom

The debonair smile of the president of the world's second most powerful country sits majestically on the shelves of the bookshop, with his latest opus alone at the head of the gondola under the dizzying vault of the departure hall. Controllers in large uniforms, their faces covered with surgical masks, march martially across the immaculate tiled floor. The station, built in the centre of one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia, is a carbon copy of those that dot the Middle Kingdom's 42,000-kilometre high-speed rail network. The same rows of grey armchairs and propaganda magazines glorifying the Chinese leader's "Silk Roads".


A new leap forward

“The Train ZE040303 to Kunming will leave at 8 . 50am" blares the loudspeakers, beckoning us towards the imposing boarding platform, surrounded by uniformed soldiers. The slender, shell-shaped locomotive, emblazoned with the midnight blue and red colours of the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR), purrs under the catenaries, ready to devour the 1,035-kilometre journey to the capital of the neighbouring Chinese province of Yunnan. An epic rail journey inaugurated in April, winding through the jungle and valleys of upper Laos, between dizzying sugar loaves, twice spanning the majestic Mekong. A Pharaonic project, boring 167 tunnels and building 301 bridges across the remote north of the former kingdom of the Million Elephants. A colossal project costing over 5 billion dollars, 70% of which is controlled by Beijing, whose banks are lending to Laos under a confidential arrangement. "Even the IMF doesn't know the details of the deal", says a lawyer in Vientiane.


The Laos railway is one of the few completed flagship projects that Xi can brandish on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of his "New Silk Roads", which he is celebrating with great fanfare in Beijing on 17 October, in the company of Vladimir Putin. A precious trophy at a time when his grandiose vision is getting bogged down in the giant's economic slowdown, the piles of debt owed by poor countries and international criticism. This train is the "pride" of Laos," declared Thongloun Sisoulith, president of the communist regime that has reigned unchallenged over the landlocked nation's 7 million inhabitants since 1975. The completion of the work in just five years is a tour de force, highlighted by the propaganda, whereas the French colonial master had never been able to build more than 7 kilometres of railway at the time of the Indochinese Union...


It's like a great leap forward in modernity for a country where the minimum wage is 70 dollars a month, equipping itself with a state-of-the-art train before all its neighbours in Asean (Association of South-East Asian Nations). "We want to try out the train for the experience", explains Sandy, who has come with her daughters to sample a macchiato ice cream in the country's first Starbucks, in the capital's gleaming Parkson shopping centre. With anApple Watch on her wrist, the mother is the embodiment of the new affluent classes that are burgeoning in Vientiane, driven by robust growth of over 6% before the pandemic, but now struggling, devoured by galloping inflation. The wagon pulls out and leaves the outskirts of Vientiane, with its Greco-Roman colonnaded villas built by Lao People's Revolutionary Party apparatchiks. "The country is in the hands of around twenty families, eaten away by institutionalised corruption. They're selling it to China", sums up an agricultural specialist, who insists on anonymity.


On board, comfortable blue fabric seats that can be removed to adjust to the direction of travel, like the Japanese Shinkansen. At the entrance to the carriages, a vending machine serves hot water in red and white cups bearing the slogan "LCR" (Lao China Railway). A crude copy of that used by Deutsche Bahn, the German SNCF. "The train is a showcase for Laos. The country has a huge need for infrastructure and they decided it was worthwhile, despite the debt", explains Dino Santaniello, President of the French Business Club in Vientiane. It's a risky gamble, and one that has led to a growing dependence on the country's big brother to the north, its biggest creditor, which is now supplanting the influence of its Vietnamese neighbour. Laos' debt has soared to 123% of GDP in 2023 according to the IMF, more than doubling since construction began, raising the spectre of a new Sri Lanka in the heart of Southeast Asia.


The Chinese yuan is gradually replacing the kip, the national currency. Laurent Weyl


"This will be a Tibet 2

The kip, the national currency, is plummeting, leading to galloping inflation of 38% in the first half of the year, and hitting the population hard, 18% of whom live below the poverty line. Insolvent, tiny Laos has no choice but to allow itself to be carved up by its "godfather" in the North. Chinese groups are getting their hands on the land and dams in this "hydroelectric battery" of Asia. To the point of ceding control of its national company, Electricité du Laos, and therefore of its juicy hydroelectric exports, the country's main source of foreign currency. "China's dominance is on the march. They can't resist their biggest creditor. Here it will be Tibet 2", whispers a business owner in a restaurant in the small capital, where a provincial omerta reigns for fear of "service" snitches.


Soon, the lush vegetation appears through the picture windows, eaten away by electricity pylons. Ninety kph, 110, 130, then 155 on the orange speedometer at the entrance to the carriage. The train, built by the state-owned behemoth CRCC, the world's largest rail manufacturer, does not reach the high speed of the Chinese "TGV", but it does offer a historic acceleration to the legendary Laotian torpor. As soon as you set off, the karst reliefs of Vang Vieng, a long way down the track for penniless backpackers, come into view. In fifty-five minutes, the blue, red and white cobra arrived at the station in Luang Prabang, the former royal capital with its glittering vats, a monastic city once suspended in time on the banks of the Mekong. It had taken us fourteen hours in the pouring monsoon to reach it in a bus adorned with Buddhist amulets, at the beginning of the century, along a tortuous mountain road that had long been infested with bandits. "The train is a good thing for Laos. The real problem is the distribution of the profits and the repayment of the debt to China", says Olivier Evrard of the Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD).


Land grabbing

In the silence of the train, a young couple huddle in the armchairs at the back of the carriage, struggling against the cool air conditioning. Dark-skinned, with a short moustache on his emaciated face, the man is looking for sleep under his baseball cap, while his wife, wearing traditional earrings, is snoozing. They belong to the Mien ethnic group and are heading back to their village in the highlands of Luang Namtha province, a two-hour drive from the Nateuy resort. "This is the first time we've been to the capital. It was to have a check-up at the hospital. By bus, it would have taken us two days. But I'm glad to be back in the village, it's too hot in town", explains the man. Up there too, the pressure of the giant neighbour is making itself felt.


"Many Chinese come to take our land to plant watermelons and mandarins. We're not happy about it, but we can't do anything about it because they're making arrangements with the authorities," adds the farmer. "They're being destroyed bit by bit, and the Laotians don't dare say anything", explains an agricultural specialist. The rare critical voices "disappear", like that of the activist Sombath Somphone, who was taken away in a car in 2012 and has never been seen since, or are eliminated at gunpoint, like Anousa Luangsouphom, alias Jack, in a café last April. "I don't want to become a Chinese slave", wrote the young blogger on his Facebook page, calling for democratic reforms. A single party, allegiance to Beijing and endemic corruption: this is the spiral that is sucking Laos towards satellite status.


The entrance to a limestone mine belonging to a Beijing consortium. Laurent Weyl


A political train

Between the world's second largest economy, with 18% of the world's GDP, and its small southern neighbour at the dawn of the industrial age, the battle is unequal. And the ideological connivance between the Marxist-Leninist regimes offers a boulevard for Xi Jinping's geostrategic ambitions, as he seeks an outlet to the dynamic markets of Asean, his biggest trading partner. The Kunming-Vientiane section is just one piece of the giant domino being constructed by the Red strategists to link Beijing to Singapore in order to place the Asia-Pacific region in China's orbit and outwit America. It is therefore imperative to extend the Middle Kingdom's sprawling rail, road and digital networks in every direction in order to marginalise the West in this lung of globalisation and give itself a window on the Indian Ocean.


Vientiane is just one step for a regime tormented by the " Malacca dilemma", the strait through which its crucial trade with the Middle East and Europe passes, and which is threatened in the event of a conflict off the coast of Taiwan. Provided it can win over the Burmese junta, and the Thai madrasa, where the rail route must continue, according to the Chinese map, before reaching Malaysia. "The train is purely political. The Chinese are in charge", sums up Jean Pierre Grzelczyk, head of Savan Logistics, casting doubt on its economic logic, as most goods still go by road. 80% of border freight goes by lorry, confirms Mixtha Keopranichan, head of the dry port of Boten. And this grand plan has come up against the mistrust of Bangkok, which has chosen a different rail gauge as a precaution....


A showcase for China

The steep green peaks, shrouded in clouds, pass by, interspersed with the blackness of the increasingly frequent tunnels. In the car-bar, you can enjoy cassava crisps or banh mi with sweet mayonnaise, but coffee is not on the menu, in keeping with the empire of tea. As we approach the border, the convoy climbs the heights of the elevated viaducts, in a grandiose natural setting. Standing facing the window, Oun, her complexion tanned, watches the landscape fade away at high speed as she breastfeeds her 3-month-old daughter. It's as if she's facing her country's accelerating destiny. "I left my village to join my Chinese husband. He works in a casino in Boten, on the border", explains the 20-year-old mother. That's where we come down.


A single party, allegiance to Beijing and endemic corruption: this is the spiral that is sucking Laos towards satellite status. 


In the arrival hall, the welcome committee of the Boten Special Economic Zone (SEZ) welcomes us with a smile, in Mandarin. And they set the record straight. "Here, we're on Beijing time. We're a Chinese company, so we have to comply", explains Zhao Ying, the representative of the Yunnan consortium responsible for developing this 1,640-hectare enclave, "leased" to China for ninety-nine years... In the shops, Mandarin is de rigueur, as are payments in yuan via the WeChat Pay system, and the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants are Chinese.


A country sold out

In the heart of the jungle, crenellated skyscrapers that look like tacky Taj Mahals have sprung up from the red mud since our last visit in 2017. In a showroom worthy of a 5-star hotel lobby, a giant model, topped with a photo of former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, promises a radiant city. "The aim is to reach 220,000 inhabitants within fifteen years," explains Zhao. A hospital, a pharmaceutical factory, luxury condominiums and even a racecourse were originally planned by the developer, who promised investors a logistics "hub" with the imprimatur of the "Silk Roads". It's going to be a long march, however, as the population has plummeted from 5,000 in 2019 to 3,000 since then. "Everyone left during Covid, and they're slowly coming back", concedes the developer's representative.


Boten is just another Chinese ghost town, like so many others in the Middle Kingdom, now caught up in the property crisis. The reopening of the border has done little to revive the town which, at night, plunges into darkness, streaked only by teasing purple lanterns in the windows of the brothels, betraying the main economic activity. In the main street, big men in tank tops, shaven heads, cigarettes in their mouths, from north of the border, ogle the "Lady boys" (transgender) who have arrived from Bangkok, or play mah-jongg, rattling dominoes on makeshift green mats. "I'm shocked. This isn't Laos any more. This is China ! They're selling out the country," exclaims Mr Sy, who is visiting for the first time since Luang Prabang. Long a haven for the Hong Kong triads, Boten is struggling to shake off its sulphurous reputation, despite the cranes and the promises of the "Silk Roads".


Indochine

The locomotive is already descending the Mekong valley, spanning the Himalayan river that looks like a stream, dried up by the dams built upstream by the big neighbour to the north. In less than two hours, the golden chedis surmounting the sacred mount Phu Si come into view. "Luang Prabang, two minutes stop", the loudspeaker announces. The Buddhist city, protected by UNESCO, remains a timeless haven, punctuated by the chanting of monks, but coveted by Chinese tour operators. "Welcome to Laos", exclaims a relieved Mr Sy, as if back home.


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