How China and Russia operate in the world

1 December 20212 years ago babelfish

What China and Russia do with Laos and Mali

While Italy is intent on stipulating treaties whose value is only that of a paper nature, China and Russia – the sworn enemies of America and NATO – are strengthening and consolidating their projection of power on a global level.

Let's start with China.

The agreement signed on November 30 with Laos for the railway that will connect China with Laos will serve to strengthen the New Silk Road project.

Regardless of the speed of the railway, the total length is 1035 km and will be able to connect the city of Kunming, in the province of Yunnan, to the Laotian capital Vientiane, passing through the Chinese border crossings of Pu'er and Mohan.

But there is another element of similar importance, and that is the fact that the electrified railway will be connected to the railway lines in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.

What benefits will this railway infrastructure have then? On the one hand, it will reduce the travel time from Vientiane to the border between China and Laos from two days to three hours; will reduce transport costs by about 30-50%; it will increase trade flows between China and Laos to 3.7 million tons by 2030; and, on the other hand, it will allow China to make the most of Laos' strategic position to allow it to open a channel of access to Thailand but above all to the Andaman Sea and the countries to the south, and therefore to export Chinese products to the Laos.

We come now to Russia.

Despite pressure from Macron and from the European Union, Russia delivered four Mi-171 military transport helicopters to Mali. This purchase by Mali must be included in the bilateral agreement signed on 11 November between the two foreign ministers. But does this agreement once again demonstrate – if there is a need for it – on the one hand the irrelevance of the European Union (at least at the present time), and on the other hand the decline – inevitable? – of France.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/cina-russia-laos-mali/ on Wed, 01 Dec 2021 07:20:15 +0000.