Quote:
Originally Posted by SeijiSensei
Planning for a Chinese rail link to a new deep water port on the western coast of Myanmar have been underway for a couple of years now. It is rather intriguing that, just as China pushed hard to buy Myanmar's loyalty by big industrial developments like this one, Myanmar itself started moving, albeit slowly, in the opposite direction politically.
The linked article mentions the problem of the different track gauges used in China and Myanmar. This might sound like a technical issue, but it has important strategic implications. Right now the differing gauges provide protection against potential Chinese troop movements into or through Myanmar. Standardizing the rail network on the Chinese gauge removes this barrier.
Similar "gauge politics" are at work in northeast Asia. While China uses " standard" gauge, both Russia and Mongolia use the " Russian" gauge. New Mongolian rail developments will continue to be incompatible with Chinese standards despite pressures from international investors to build to standard gauge. |
Myanmar better have the same track standard with India, for otherwise, they are preparing for an Indian invasion.
As for Mongolia, I found any nationalistic stuff coming out of them funny since they are the ones who gave up their own written language for Cyrillic.