The Stilwell Road, a strategic supply route between India and China via Myanmar built during World War II by Chinese and American troops, will soon reopen, connecting the two most populous countries in the world.
Southern Yunnan Province, which benefits greatly from trade with India, has played a vanguard role in rebuilding the road.
An Indian survey team arrived in Tengchong, Yunnan, for a field investigation on the entire length of the road, which will start this month. Yunnan and Assam, a province in northeast India, have agreed to begin a joint exploration on the Stilwell Road at the end of this year, according to a Yunnan official.
Chen Tiejun, a research fellow of the South Asia Research Institute under the Yunnan Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, said the Stilwell Road is a junction point of east, south and southeast Asia. The regions are home to 3 billion people, half of the world's total population. Consequently, the road possesses geographic importance in linking the three regions.
China's foreign trade with India now makes up only 1 percent of its total import and export value, though bilateral trade volume increased from US$200 million in the 1990s to US$13.6 billion in 2004.
"The current trade volume between China and India doesn't match their economic status. A major reason for the small trade volume is lack of a modern land route from China to India, which results in high cost of transport," Chen said. According to the latest field investigation, the section from Ledo in India to Kunming in Yunnan on the Stilwell Road is only 1,300 kilometers. The current trading route to ship most of India's export to China, by contrast, is as long as 6,000km, going around the Malacca Strait and the Indian Ocean before reaching China's eastern coast. If the Stilwell Road is reopened, it will be the most convenient land route between China and India and turn Southeast Asia into a key trading hub.
The Stilwell Road, or the Ledo Road, was built by Chinese troops and Allied Forces of the United States in 1945 to transport logistic supplies to the beleaguered Chinese army when the Yunnan-Myanmar Road, a crucial lifeline in China's war of resistance against Japan, was cut off by Japanese troops in 1942. It was later renamed Stilwell Road after General Joseph Stilwell, the commander of the Allied Forces in Southeast Asia, who commanded the US forces in the China-Myanmar-India theater in World War II.
The road starts in Ledo, a small town in northeast India, and divides into two routes at Myitkyina in Myanmar. The southern route runs through Bhamo and Namkham in Myanmar and reaches Wanding in China, while the northern route passes Myanmar's Kambaiti, China's Houqiao and Tengchong before connecting with the Yunnan-Myanmar Road.
The road was open for just 10 months. During that period, more than 50,000 tons of guns, bullets and food were carried by US trucks to China to fight against Japanese troops. After the war ended 60 years ago, some sections of the road have become jungle footpaths due to lack of maintenance.
Nevertheless, the segment in Yunnan was preserved and gradually became part of a national highway, serving as a vital communication line in southwest China.
Of the 679km between Tengchong and Kunming on the road, 460km are motorable. Chinese workers are upgrading the remaining 219km. The 61km section of the road in India is also operational. About two-thirds of the road on the Indo-Myanmar, stretching 360km, is still open.