KUNMING, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) — It is getting darkish, however the Houqiao land port in Tengchong City in southwest China’s Yunnan Province stays busy as a seemingly infinite stream of automobiles move on a highway between China and Myanmar.↳
The highway, beforehand named after former U.S. General Joseph Stilwell, now facilitates the transport of recent fruits like bananas and watermelons from Myanmar to China, and groceries and development supplies in the wrong way.↳
“This is a land passage between China and Myanmar that facilitates our trade,” mentioned Li Jianping, who works on the port’s administration workplace.↳
While serving within the China-Burma-India Theater throughout World War II, Stilwell offered help for the Chinese folks of their resistance in opposition to Japanese aggression.↳
Linking the northeastern Indian city of Ledo and Yunnan’s provincial capital of Kunming by way of Tengchong, the 1,726-kilometer highway was as soon as dubbed a “lifeline” in the course of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. More than 50,000 tonnes of provides have been transported alongside the highway to battlefields in China.↳
Although some sections of the highway have been broken in the course of the conflict, cross-border exchanges and commerce by no means stopped.↳
In 2004, China funded upgrades to the highway between Tengchong and Myitkyina in Myanmar, decreasing the journey time on the 200-kilometer part from about eight hours to simply three.↳
In 2020, an expressway between Tengchong and Houqiao opened to site visitors, marking the completion of the high-speed highway between Yunnan’s capital of Kunming and Houqiao Port.↳
In the identical 12 months, the development of the Stilwell Road Museum was accomplished, with the constructing housing greater than 5,000 WWII artifacts, together with Dodge vans, Willys jeeps and highway development instruments.↳
At the identical time, commerce between China and its bordering international locations continued to develop.↳
In 2013, China and India proposed the development of a Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor, which, with a market of greater than 3 billion folks, is believed to spice up the built-in growth of the financial plates of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia.↳
Deng Zhongjie, who works on the logistics firm RUIHEJC, has been working in cross-border transportation and commerce between China and Myanmar for greater than seven years.↳
“The Stilwell Road is still an important route for Yunnan’s opening-up, which has also promoted the development of the planting industry in Myanmar,” he advised Xinhua, noting that the highway might assist combine the manufacturing and useful resource benefits of nations akin to China, Myanmar and India, thus aiding growth alongside the route.↳
In the primary 5 months of this 12 months, the variety of passengers crossing the border by ports in Tengchong rose 302.4 p.c from final 12 months, the freight quantity elevated 148 p.c, and whole imports and exports grew almost 400 p.c.↳
“While continuing to upgrade the Stilwell Road, we could boost its extention to form a land route with more openness and vitality,” mentioned Fan Yujin, an affiliate researcher on the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences.