December 26, 2023 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - Thailand’s government has put together a serious proposal to build a land bridge across the Thai Kra Isthmus connecting ports on either side, providing an alternative for maritime shipping transiting the Malacca Strait, saving several days of travel in the process.
The project, if completed, would transform Asia’s economic and even security architecture. The land bridge, along with the still-under-construction Thai-Chinese high-speed railway, would solidify Thailand’s role as a regional logistics hub connecting the Indian Ocean with the Pacific Ocean, and also moving freight and people from across Southeast Asia to and from China and the rest of Eurasia.
The development would seriously undermine US economic and military dominance over the region, prompting Western commentators to disingenuously condemn the project as damaging and dangerous in a bid to generate opposition to it.
The Kra Canal and Land Bridge: Old Ideas, New Impetus
The idea of creating a Panama or Suez-style canal across Thailand’s southern Kra Isthmus isn’t new. It has been proposed in many different forms over the years, with feasibility studies conducted periodically. Because of the difficulty of building a canal, the idea of building a land bridge instead has not only been proposed, but Thailand’s Highway 44 completed in 2003 was built as the first stage of a much more ambitious land bridge infrastructure project.
Highway 44 was constructed with a particularly large median to accommodate the future construction of rail tracks and pipelines. Ports on either side of the isthmus also have yet to be built. While the project remains incomplete, the roadway serves the dual purpose of connecting other forms of traffic crossing the isthmus.
Under the previous Thai administration of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha, a new feasibility study was conducted along with the drafting of proposals. More recently, the current administration of Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin formally proposed the construction of a fully functioning land bridge during the 2023 APEC summit in San Francisco, United States.
In his statement at the summit, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin discussed the growing congestion through the Malacca Strait and the need for alternative routes. He described the land bridge as “an additional important route to support transportation and an important option for resolving the problems of the Malacca Strait. This will be a cheaper, faster, and safer route.”
The land bridge will reduce travel time by between 3 and 14 days, depending on the particular origin and destination of cargo.
The Thai prime minister’s statement also made it clear that the land bridge would not serve as a replacement for routes passing through the Malacca Strait, but rather as an alternative to existing routes, capable of moving up to 23% of the shipping currently passing through the Malacca Strait.
