The Stilwell Road
A road named after an American general who oversaw its construction at the height of World War II has the potential to bring India and China closer together. Running from India’s northeast through Myanmar to southwestern China’s Yunnan province, the 1,736-kilometer Stilwell Road, if reopened, would boost overland trade and travel between India and China and also pull the regions it connects out of poverty.
India, Myanmar and China are working to give this historic road a new lease on life. Repair of the road – some stretches of which are not motorable or simply don’t exist – is in progress. It is hoped that the three countries will soon decide to reopen it for trade and travel.
A reopened Stilwell Road would provide a land link between two of the fastest-growing economies in the world – those of India and China. It would link two landlocked regions, India’s northeast and China’s Yunnan province.
Goods from India’s northeast headed for China or Southeast Asian countries are currently shipped via Kolkata, the nearest port, through the Strait of Malacca and on to China. It takes at least a couple of weeks for goods to reach China. “If they go via the Stilwell Road our goods would reach Yunnan in two days,” Pradyut Bordoloi, Assam’s commerce and industries minister and an ardent advocate of reopening the road, told Asia Times Online. It would reduce transport costs by more than 30%.
The Stilwell Road will link northeastern India not just with Yunnan but with other parts of China and Southeast Asia as well. The Chinese have constructed a network of roads connecting Yunnan with other provinces. “And there are roads branching out from the Stilwell Road that provide connectivity to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and so on,” said Abhijit Barooah, chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry.
India’s northeastern region connects with Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and China by a 4,500km international border but connects with India only through the Siliguri Corridor, a mere 22km wide. Ninety-eight percent of the northeast’s borders are with other countries, and only 2% with India. Yet this region’s trade with other countries is minuscule, limited to informal trade. While cross-border trade is almost non-existent, the northeast’s trade with the rest of India, which is done through the narrow Siliguri Corridor, has failed to take off.
“If the border is opened up for overland trade with neighboring countries, the northeastern region would benefit. It could be pulled out of its current economic backwardness,” said Bordoloi.
Barooah said, “Even if 10% of India’s shipment to China and Southeast Asia were to be routed through the Stilwell Road, its impact on the northeast would be dramatic.”
Reopening the Stilwell Road would be beneficial to Myanmar, China and Southeast Asia as well. China has been eyeing India’s northeast as a potential market for its goods.
The Stilwell Road begins in Ledo, a small town in the Indian state of Assam. It weaves through thick jungles, then crosses Jairampur and Nampong in Arunachal Pradesh to reach the Pangsau Pass, after which it crosses into Myanmar. It then plunges through the jungles of upper Myanmar to touch Myitkyina before heading eastward to China, where it culminates at Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province. About 61km of the Stilwell Road runs through India, 1,035km through Myanmar and 640km into China.
Named after General Joseph Stilwell (1883-1946), who commanded the Allied forces in the India-Burma-China theater during World War II, the Stilwell Road was constructed by Indian soldiers, Chinese laborers and American engineers. It was a vital lifeline for the Allies during the war, as it was through this road that supplies were sent to the Chinese battling Japanese occupation.
But within a few months of its opening, the Japanese surrendered and the war ended. After the war, the road fell into disuse.
But the road has a history that goes back several centuries before Stilwell and others arrived on the scene, as it was originally the route that migrants from Southeast Asia used to travel to India’s northeast.
Sixty-five years ago, those constructing the Stilwell Road battled against a treacherous terrain. They had to contend with thick forests, steep gradients and hairpin curves, and they had few data regarding topography, soil, etc ahead of construction. Such data were acquired as construction of the road proceeded.
While constructing the road was physically daunting and complex, its builders did not have to contend with the kind of political complexities and inflexible bureaucracies that the reopening of the road is now up against.
Relations between India and China, which have been hostile for decades, have only in recent years begun to warm slowly. India’s relations with Myanmar have also not been warm. While the business sectors in China, Myanmar and India have been enthusiastic about the opening up of the Stilwell Road, bureaucracies in all three countries have stood in the way.
Of the three, it is China that has pursued the idea of reopening the Stilwell Road with diligence. It has gone about repairing and reconstructing its stretch of the road energetically and has in fact already transformed this into a modern six-lane expressway. Chinese officials have also been persistent in their lobbying of officials in Indian and Myanmar officials to get them to repair the road and open it up for trade.
India’s verbal enthusiasm over the Stilwell Road project has not been matched with action on the ground. Delhi has dragged its feet. An opinion widely articulated across the northeast is that New Delhi is the biggest obstacle in the way of reopening the Stilwell Road.
Officials in New Delhi say India has security concerns. The northeast is an insurgency-racked region and there are “valid fears” that the road would facilitate movement of insurgents, arms and drugs. Then there is the concern that reopening the road would result in the Chinese swamping the northeast with cheap goods, undermining the local economy.
These concerns are roundly rejected by northeasterners as “unfounded”.
“The Stilwell Road is not a one-way street where only Chinese goods can come here,” said an Assamese businessman, pointing out that India too can flood the Chinese market with its goods. Besides, “Why should the northeast be denied access to cheaper Chinese goods?” he asked.
As for the security concerns, Barooah said that as in other parts of India where roads are used by all kinds of people, including criminals and insurgents, this will happen in the northeast as well, “but we cannot stop building roads fearing antisocial elements or insurgents will use them”. He said improving road connectivity near the borders would in fact enhance India’s security, not undermine it, as these roads would facilitate movement of security forces as well.
Those in Delhi who doubt the Stilwell Road’s potential for transforming trade point out that another road linking India with China that was reopened last year for trade has not met expectations. The road via the Nathu La Pass, which connects Sikkim with the Tibet Autonomous Region, has been a bit of a disappointment, with only 13 Indian traders and 29 business people from Tibet participating in trade.
But business people in the northeast say the road through Nathu La cannot be compared to the Stilwell Road as the former runs through largely uninhabited regions.
Of the three countries through which the Stilwell Road runs, it is Myanmar that is the linchpin of the project. Without its consent, the plan to link Ledo with Kunming by road is a non-starter. Unfortunately, it is Myanmar that has resisted the reopening of the Stilwell Road the most. This is partly because of the military junta’s traditional wariness of opening the country to outsiders. Besides, the road runs through territory controlled by Kachin rebels.
What is somewhat heartening is that the three countries are repairing the parts of the road that run across their territory. China’s segment has been upgraded, India’s small stretch is being fixed and China is said to be pitching in to renovate the long stretches in Myanmar. Once the road is repaired, its supporters hope the issue of reopening it will be dealt with. Reopening of the road has the full support of influential people including academics, retired civil and military officials, and public figures.
Although mindsets at the official level remain an obstacle, the Stilwell Road could well become the road to riches for all three countries’ impoverished regions.
by Sudha Ramachandran in Asia Times
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