A ROAD, A RAILWAY AND A WAR
By GEOFFREY WILSON
THE Japanese occupation of the Eastern seaboard of China not only forced the Chinese to retreat into their vast and hitherto almost unknown interior, but also cut off most of their contacts with the outside world. Of those contacts, the rail- way from French Indo-China to Kunming, in Yunnan, China's south-western province, is the only one that remains outside Japanese control, and its interruption by bombing in the early months of this year shows that it cannot be wholly relied on. Since the war started, therefore, the Chinese have been forced to devise other means of communication. Two of these are by air—the daily services linking Chungking, Kunming, Hong Kong and Hanoi, and the weekly service from Chungking to Rangoon via Kunming. A third is the road running from Lanchow through Kansu and Sinkiang to the Russian railhead at Alma Ata, but the distances along this road are so immense that motor transport is virtually impossible.
The most significant of these new routes is the Yunnan- Burma Highway, running from Lashio in Burma to Kunming in Yunnan province and there connecting with the road to Chungking. The distance from Lashio to Kunming is in the region of 700 miles, of which about 600 are in Chinese terri- tory. This road is a miracle of engineering. It runs across the lie of the land and the Salween, Mekong and Yang rivers, and other smaller streams have to be crossed. Between the rivers are huge mountain ranges, and to build a road through such country would tax to the utmost the equipment and re- sources of the best modern engineering science. Yet these 600 miles of double track were built within twelve months without the assistance of a single mechanical contrivance, not even a steam roller. The labour was impressed, and the men, women and children who did the work had to provide their own food. The rock had to be cut away by hand, and hun- dreds of thousands of tons of earth removed in baskets carried on the end of bamboo poles. Such things can be done by a people which is capable of carrying even a locomotive along a road on bamboo poles, but I doubt if any other nation in the world would be equal to the feat.
The road suffered badly in the first wet season. The culverts were inadequate and landslides could not be prevented. But the traffic never stopped moving, and China's vital supplies continued to reach the interior through towns and villages which, by reason of the complete absence of communications, were identical with what they had been i,000 years before. The endless stream of trucks seemed strange to people who hitherto had known no transport more complicated than a bullock-cart or chair. But they knew that their country was resisting the aggression of the Japanese and that these supplies were essential. So they kept the stream moving.
The organisation has improved since that time. A first-rate manager has been put in charge, a man who is the embodi- ment of all that is best in modern China. The bridges have been strengthened and many of the worst corners removed. The surface of the road is under constant repair. Early this year 72,000 people were put to work to build 3,000 new culverts, and the labour was no longer impressed, but re- cruited and paid in the ordinary way. And so another life-line for China came into existence, made possible by the co-operation of the Burmese Government, which put into good order the 1 20 miles of road between the frontier and the railhead at Lashio, to which point the goods are brought by rail from Rangoon. But now the Chinese have a more ambitious scheme afoot—the linking of Rangoon with the interior of China by rail—and here again success depends on the co-operation of the British and Burmese Governments. For a short stretch of the proposed railway—some So miles— lies in Burma, and the Chinese are pinning their faith on the Burmese Government to build that piece of line.
South-western China has hitherto been an unknown quantity, even to the Chinese. " Civilisation " stopped at Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province and the terminus of the rail- way from Indo-China. The links between the Central Govern- ment and Yunnan were somewhat tenuous; it was sparsely populated, quite undeveloped, a long way away, and sturdily independent. Means of communication, except by pony or chair, were non-existent, and in their absenc' development was impossible. Nor was it necessary when such vast areas were available for development elsewhere. But the war has changed all that. The centre of gravity in China has shifted from the sea-board to the interior, and Yunnan has felt the change. The necessities of war have forced development willy- nilly on Yunnan. Industries and—almost more important in China—universities have made their headquarters in Kunming and the road has revolutionised the life of the province. Though it owes its immediate origin to the war, the development of Yunnan will continue when the war is over, and development demands communications. The timber, tea, silver, coal and salt of Yunnan must find an outlet to the sea, and Rangoon is the natural port of south-western China. Therefore the railway must be built.
And the Chinese are building it. The earthworks for the eastern section of some 300 miles are practically complete, and those for the remaining 300 miles are well under way. We saw a good deal of this construction—a swarm of blue ants on the red ant-hill of China's soil. For here again the men, women and children of China are triumphing over nature and the devastating shortage of mechanical equipment, and the cuttings and embankments—they have avoided tunnels alto- gether on the eastern section on the ground of expense—are being made by human labour alone. Many of the hopes of China are centred on this railway. Wherever nne goes, one is told that the greatest single contribution Great Britain can make to China is to build the railway on the Burmese side of the frontier. It is a contribution that will cost less than £2,000,000, and China is prepared to guarantee the interest!
The Chinese do not minimise the difficulties ; but the road was built, and the railway will be built as well. Quite apart from the formidable nature of the country, rails must be obtained. The rails which the Chinese tore up in anticipation of Japanese advances have been used elsewhere. The only other source is through Haiphong, where accumu- lated supplies already amount to as much as the railway can carry for the next eight months, and rails for 600 miles of track would tax its capacity beyond endurance. So the new rail- way is now being built from the Burma end in order that the rails may come up from Rangoon, and thence—is it too much to hope?—by rail from Lashio to the Burmese frontier station at Kunlong. If they cannot come by rail they will come by road. But they will come, for the railway must be built.
The primary incentive for the railway lies in the necessities of war. True, it will take twelve or eighteen months to Com- plete, but China is prepared to continue her resistance for a hundred years or more if necessary. If the railway is completed before the war ends, it can ensure that China's contact with the outside world is maintained. In any event it will provide a direct means of access from a central point of the British Empire to the interior of China, and will open up for commerce an immense area whose natural resources have never yet been tapped.
Within eighteen months, provided they can get the rails, the Chinese will have completed the line from Kunming to the Burmese frontier. From there it is 8o miles to the Burmese railhead at Lashio. With an agreed volume of traffic guaranted over the Burmese section of the line, the Britisl authorities will not stand to lose anything by its construction, But the failure to construct it will be one of the most crushing disappointments that the Chinese have suffered since their war began.
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