Where the Silk Roads meet the mighty Mekong

Welcome to the China-Indochina Peninsula Economic Corridor, one of the key planks of the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). 

The apparition on the Mekong is an under-construction bridge, part of the 420 km-long, US$6 billion worth high-speed railway connecting Kunming, in Yunnan province, to the Lao capital Vientiane and then, further on down the road, bound to unite mainland Southeast Asia all the way to Singapore. 

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Pepe Escobar