Work to Begin on Renewed ‘Ledo Road’
Kachin State Chief Minister La John Ngan Hsai has reportedly said that work will begin this month on a new Chinese-backed version of the “Ledo Road” that played a major role in World War Two in Burma.
The road connected the border town of Ledo, in northeast India’s Assam, with the Kachin State capital of Myitkyina, and was intended to allow goods to be transported from British India to nationalist China, avoiding the areas of Burma then under Japanese control. It was also known as the Stilwell Road, after the American general who oversaw its construction in the early 1940s.
Chinese state-owned newswire Xinhua reported last week comments by the state minister saying that Chinese regional authorities were cooperating on a new highway along the route.
“As part of Kachin’s development efforts, the project will be constructed in two phases under a build-operate-transfer system with Baoshan regional authorities and local companies,” La John Ngan Hsa was quoted saying.
“For the first three years, the project will cover construction of the road section between [Myitkyina] and [Tanai], while for the second three-year phase will be the section between [Tanai] and [Pansaung], he disclosed.
“Coordination is also being made with Dehong regional authorities [in China’s Yunnan Province] for the building of another section between Lwejie and Momauk, he added.”
While the original road was constructed in wartime, the Xinhua report did not mention the ongoing conflict in Kachin State, where clashes continue to erupt between the Burmese government and the Kachin Independence Army.
