EVERY day hundreds of trucks rumble across the border between China and Laos, carrying wood, textiles and agricultural goods to China, and home appliances, small machinery and building materials back. The Laotian frontier town of Boten is largely empty, apart from a few dusty shops selling snacks or machine parts, a row of rusting cars, vacant buildings and some geese; an advertisement for a Thai ladyboys’ performance hall is a rare sign of passing trade.
Over the Chinese border the roads are smoother: palm trees line the main street of Mohan, which is flanked by logistics firms, translation companies, express-delivery services, mechanics and stores selling Thai bags, cosmetics and coffee; few buildings are more than ten years old (a spiffy-looking customs post, pictured above, is among the newest). Many residents are newcomers, too. Yet the Chinese town is no metropolis. Chickens walk the streets. Firms shut for several hours after lunch. Money-changers sit at the base of a banana tree accosting visitors.
Both frontier towns aspire to something better. A deserted marketing suite just inside Laos features plans for a cross-border golf course. In Mohan work has already started on “Fortune Plaza”, a 22,000-square-metre (237,000-square foot) site with bars, shops, hotels and offices. Regional and national leaders have even grander visions for the south-western province of Yunnan, of which Mohan is part, because it shares 4,000km (2,500 miles) of borders with Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. They want it to be the hub of an economic take-off in South-East Asia. The challenge is great: an underdeveloped part of China will need to lift some of Asia’s poorest and most unstable countries with it.
Yunnan has a prosperous past.
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