InIsolatedHillsofAsia,NewRoadstoSpeedTrade.docVIP

March 31, 2008 In Isolated Hills of Asia, New Roads to Speed Trade By THOMAS FULLER LUANG NAMTHA, Laos — The newly refurbished Route 3 that cuts through this remote town is an ordinary strip of pavement, the type of two-lane road you might find winding through the backwoods of Vermont or sunflower fields in the French provinces. But On Leusa, 70, who lives near the road, calls it “deluxe.” As a young woman she traded opium and tiger bones along the road, then nothing more than a horse trail. On Monday, the prime ministers of Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam will officially inaugurate the former opium smuggling route as the final link of what they call the “north-south economic corridor,” a 1,150-mile network of roads linking the southern Chinese city of Kunming to Bangkok. The network, several sections of which were still unpaved as late as December, is a major milestone for China and its southern neighbors. The low-lying mountains here, the foothills of the Himalayas, served for centuries as a natural defensive boundary between Southeast Asian civilizations and the giant empire to the north. The road rarely follows a straight line as it meanders through terraced rice fields and tea plantations. Today, those same Southeast Asian civilizations alternately crave closer integration with that empire and fear its sway as an emerging economic giant. China, in turn, covets the land, markets and natural resources of one of Asia’s least developed and most pristine regions. With trade across these borders increasing by double digits every year, China has helped construct a series of roads inside the territory of its southern neighbors. The Chinese government is paying half the cost of a bridge over the Mekong River between Laos and Thailand, due for completion in 2011. It financed parts of Route 3 in Laos and refurbished roads in northern Myanmar, including the storied Burma Road used by the Allies in World War II to supply troops fighting the Japan