LAOS, ONE OF THE POOREST countries in Asia, is developing after China built a major railway and other infrastructure, a United Nations official said this week.
And the difference between what is actually happening and what the BBC and Reuters predicted would happen is breathtaking, users noted. The BBC predicted the railway would bring financial disaster and Reuters forecast that it would engender a new deadly pandemic
First, the actual data.
“The Lao economy grew by 4.1% in 2024, driven by strong performance in services, electricity, mining, agriculture, and manufacturing,” said a recent World Bank study.
“Foreign tourist arrivals rose by 21% while domestic travel increased. Improved connectivity has supported exports and tourism.”
United Nations resident co-ordinator in Laos was also upbeat. “The China-Laos Railway has significantly enhanced Laos’ transportation infrastructure, strengthened connectivity between provinces and communities, and enhanced accessibility for both residents and tourists,” said Bakhodir Burkhanov.
CULTURAL BOOST, TOO
The China-built railway line is also being used for cultural exchanges as well as boosting trade. “I accompanied 33 Laotian teachers and students on a cultural tour across China, during which the cultures met and friendships blossomed,” said Cao Guanghui, a Chinese railway employee who learned to speak fluent Lao so he could act as interpreter.
Representatives from 10 UN agencies in Laos, including the United Nations Development Program and the International Labor Organization, last weekend took a train at Vientiane Station of the China-Laos Railway, to see the train in action.
But it is unlikely that any of this will be reported in the international press, which took a stunningly negative view.
CHINA ‘DEBT TRAP’
The BBC in 2023 painted Chinese efforts to build railway infrastructure in Laos negatively, predicting economic disaster and quoting an economist saying that it was “the definition of a debt trap”.
Top news agency Reuters was even more harsh.
“China, the birthplace of the COVID pandemic, is laying tracks for another global health crisis,” the agency said in a May 2023 report on the new railway. “The link is supposed to bring prosperity. Some scientists fear it could also bring out something else: a new pandemic.” (See image below.)
Both western news outlets have been wrong. (Laos’ GDP growth rate of 3 to 4 per cent is well above the UK’s one per cent.)
As for Reuters’ news angle that the railway will create a new pandemic, wise readers may realize that it tells us more about that news agency than about the China-Laos Railway.
Image at the top is a montage of a CCRC vidcap and a Reuters news article.