The Ledo Road

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THE LEDO ROAD - BACK DOOR TO CHINA

The Ledo Road and the upgraded portion of the Burma Road from Mongyu to Kunming were later named Stilwell Road in honor of American General Joseph W. Stilwell, Commander of the China-Burma-India Theater and Chief of Staff to Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. The Stilwell Road covered 1,079 miles from Ledo, India to Kunming, China.

THREE NAMES - TWO ROADS - ONE PURPOSE

Burma Road - Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1931 resulted in the Second Sino-Japanese War which continued with sporadic fighting throughout the 1930s. In 1937 full scale war broke out and Japan occupied most of coastal China. This forced the Chinese to seek another method of bringing in supplies and war materials. A route from Kunming, China to a railhead at Lashio, Burma was completed in 1938. Supplies were landed at Rangoon, Burma and brought by rail to Lashio. Built by Chinese laborers stone by stone, this route was known as The Burma Road.

Ledo Road - During World War II, Japan invaded and occupied Burma in early 1942, blocking the Burma Road supply line. War planners decided to build a new road from Ledo, Assam, India, to bypass the cut off Burma Road. Supplies landed at Karachi and Calcutta, India could be brought by rail to Ledo and trucked over the road to China. It proved to be an extremely difficult task but the Japanese were driven back and a new route forged through the mountains and jungles of northern Burma. The Ledo Road was completed by U.S. Army Engineers in early 1945. It ran 465 miles from Ledo to a junction with the Burma Road at Mongyu, Burma, near Wanting, China.

Stilwell Road - In addition to building the Ledo Road, Army Engineers and local workers also upgraded over 600 miles of the Burma Road. The Ledo Road and the upgraded portion of the Burma Road from Mongyu to Kunming were later named Stilwell Road in honor of American General Joseph W. Stilwell, Commander of the China-Burma-India Theater and Chief of Staff to Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. The Stilwell Road covered 1,079 miles from Ledo, India to Kunming, China.


The Ledo Road (Hindi: लेडो रोड, Burmese: လီဒိုလမ်းမကြီး, Chinese: 中印公路) (from Ledo, Assam, India to Kunming, Yunnan, China) was built during World War II so that the Western Allies could supply the Chinese as an alternative to the Burma Road which had been cut by the Japanese in 1942. It was renamed the Stilwell Road (named after General Joseph Stilwell of the U.S. Army) in early 1945 at the suggestion of Chiang Kai-shek. It passes through the Burmese towns of Shingbwiyang, Myitkyina and Bhamo in Kachin state.

In the 19th century British railway builders had surveyed the Pangsau Pass, which is 3,727 feet (1,136 m) high on the India-Burma border, on thePatkai crest, above Nampong, Arunachal Pradesh (then part of Assam). They concluded that a track could be pushed through to Burma and down the Hukawng Valley. Although the proposal was dropped, the British prospected the Patkai Range for a road from Assam into northern Burma. British engineers had surveyed the route for a road for the first eighty miles. After the British had been pushed back out of most of Burma by the Japanese, building this road became a priority for the United States. After Rangoon was captured by the Japanese and before the Ledo Road was finished, the majority of supplies to the Chinese were delivered via airlift over the eastern end of the Himalayan Mountains known as the Hump.

Burma Road and Ledo Road in 1944

 

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India and China can bond along the Stilwell Road
Subir BhaumikOct 17, 2013, 03.51AM IST
During Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's India visit in May, India agreed to "explore the possibilities of the proposed Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) economic corridor" with China. But New Delhi is going slow on this. When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits China this month, the Chinese will push for the BCIM plan. China has already been in discussion with Myanmar and Bangladesh to take this forward. During Singh's Beijing visit, China will also offer to declare Kunming and Kolkata as sister cities to carry forward the process.

It is New Delhi and not states in the east or north-east that fear Chinese trade and investments along the corridor. This trade can only boost their economies. The opening of the Stilwell Road, built during World War II, is a case in point. Assam's industry minister Pradyut Bordoloi and Arunachal Pradesh's former governor J J Singh have been enthusiastic about opening the road to China-India trade. Unlike the Nathu La pass in Sikkim, the Stilwell Road is capable of handling 20-25 per cent of Sino-Indian bilateral trade. But a powerful defence-commerce ministry lobby has blocked it all these years.

China has modernised its part of the road and its companies are doing that in Myanmar now. Only 66 km of the road falls in India — so, if the Chinese army uses it to amass troops on the Indian border for a surprise offensive or dump their products in a trade war, they can do it even if India does not formally open the road. Also, trade with India via Arunachal Pradesh will immediately stop all claims of that region as "southern Tibet".

Note how quickly China shed its reservations on Sikkim, after trade resumed through the Nathu La pass. JJ Singh, a former army chief, advocated an Indian presence on the road for pragmatic reasons, but that did not help with the mandarins in Delhi. So, an alternate route was chosen for the BCIM car rally in February-March: it started at Kolkata, passed through Bangladesh and India's north-eastern states of Assam and Manipur, and ended in Kunming, Yunnan via west and north Myanmar.

Now, China wants the car rally route to be converted into the BCIM Friendship highway and turned into an economic corridor with industries, trading entrepots and tourism infrastructure developed around it. This is an excellent idea. Large parts of China, contiguous with south Asia, are landlocked. The Strait of Malacca is a choke point that China wants to bypass through overland trade through Myanmar, Bangladesh and the north-east. Beijing wants to transform BCIM into a live regional grouping to integrate the two most populous nations of the world and use the Bangladesh-Myanmar corridor to help Chindia draw south-east Asia into the world's strongest future economic bloc. Beijing hopes that India sheds its fear of encirclement by China and creates a win-win situation for both countries in Asia, from south-east to west.

India, especially its eastern and north-eastern states, would stand to gain much more economically by higher trade and connectivity with China and the rest of Asia. On the other hand, there is no material gain if India acts as a pivot for American interests in south Asia.

A formal push for the BCIM during Manmohan Singh's China visit may boost investments and help chief ministers or industry ministers in the east and north-east to showcase their states to Chinese investors. If the home ministry can waive its objections and agree to allow Chinese telecom majors like Huawei to invest in the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor or the Indian embassy in Beijing can rope in huge Chinese investments for Andhra Pradesh, the east and north-east should not be deprived because the region has a long border with China.