Hands that collectively built hope: Lessons from China’s spectacle of Burma Road

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OPINION

By George Musiime

Throughout history, a combination of adversity and necessity have always been the scene for radical shifts in human perspectives; a fundamental for real transformation. This is regardless of whether one is looking at the role of the black death on medicine in Europe or America’s seclusion vis-à-vis its rapid industrialisation- what Edmund Burke once described as “… the self-reliance demanded by three thousand miles of ocean…” 

Marking eighty years since the end of the second world war, very little is said about the Chinese people’s war of resistance in the pacific theater of the most devastating conflict in recorded history.

The incorporation of Zhōngguórén or Chinese people in the nomenclature is purposefully intended to highlight the substantial cost of this war to the Chinese citizens. Hitherto a prospering civilisation, China had already been the subject of several foreign invasions and suffered even more losses to its sovereignty in just under one hundred years, leading to 1937.

However, the stance made in 1937 against the advancing Japanese imperial army would thus become the epitome of the collective resolve of the Chinese people that, until today, defines the country’s achievements, including its rapid modernisation.

Scholars, observers, and analysts alike have all used words such as impressive results to talk about the country’s industrial boom and the liberation of eight hundred million people from poverty in four decades, while ambitious became a popular prefix when referring to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Nonetheless, all of these can be traced back to the spirit exhibited during this war.

During the Chinese people’s war of resistance, a spectacle of what is possible when a country rallies behind an objective came to life. In just nine months, China’s non-fighting population, mostly women and the young, armed with no more than hand tools, delivered the feat of a 959-kilometre-long Burma Road, linking Kunming-Yunnan to Lashio-Burma, present-day Myanmar. The new road would serve as a supply line, easing the blockade imposed by the advancing Japanese invasion.       

Whereas the project took the concerted efforts of both Chinese and Burmese nationals underpinned by the sheer necessity of a way to circumvent the Japanese blockade, this collaborative effort also highlights the ability to transcend any inherent parochial tendencies. That aside, the Burma road is a clear demonstration of the spirit poured by the Chinese people into the war of resistance, which begs the question of what its relevance is today, 80 years after this war ended?

While the adversity and necessity of the kind and nature China faced during this period is highly unlikely to say the least, novel kinds of adversity have emerged, on the list of which is poverty. Since independence, Africa has existed as 54 balkanized states, and efforts to band together into regional blocs have been stifled by mistrust, weak institutions, infrastructural deficiencies, etc.

As a corollary, despite having 18% of the global population, substantial mineral deposits, and a young and enterprising population, none of these has translated into the expected levels of influence, as the continent’s relationship between capability and influence, let alone that of individual states, remains marginal. This marginalisation is typically evidenced by the continent’s contribution of a paltry 3% to total global GDP.

Whereas intra-African trade has witnessed substantial growth over the years, much still remains to be done. African Development Bank (ADB) estimates, for instance, put intra-Africa trade at less than 20 percent of total continental trade, highlighting Africa’s untapped growth potential.

However, this potential is greatly held back by fragmented markets, characterised by trade barriers, smaller markets, and duplicated efforts, which would be greatly minimised with a more integrated African market. Indeed, various authorities, including the ADB, IMF and individual experts, have argued for integration as a necessary step towards catalysing Africa's progress.

Conversely, the current structure of the continent has bred a kind of competition for resources, under which countries have had to compete for external sources of funding that oftentimes went to uncoordinated infrastructure projects at the expense of collaborative regional infrastructure, exacerbating this fragmentation.

The recent surge in intra-African trade noted earlier has been attributed to a confluence of efforts backed by African polities and partners, including China; among these list of which are the African continental free trade area (AfCFTA), the AfriExim Bank-backed intra-Africa Trade Fair, and the African payment Settlement System, among others.

In the same light, this growth has benefited from growing Chinese involvement through the BRI cooperation’s support for the African Union’s Program for Infrastructure Development, Africa-backed Trans-African highway network, and regional projects like the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway, Mombasa-Nairobi railway, and the Kampala-Entebbe express way among others.  

Such efforts, besides extending Africa’s reach, also increase the continent’s significance in the global economy. Nevertheless, as pointed out earlier, trade among and within Africa still rests somewhere under 20% of total continental trade volume. These figures exemplify how much more could be done, and as was the case with the spectacle of the Burma Road, without the concerted effort of the Chinese population and the expulsion of a parochial mentality, hundreds of thousands of people from either side of the border could never have come together to accomplish this project. This collective effort made a substantial difference in the outcome of the entire war of resistance.

Likewise, Africa’s war of resistance against poverty and marginalisation in the global economy stands to gain enormously from the banishment of balkanization and a parochial mentality, two of the worst remaining artefacts of western colonisation. Our partners can do so much, but without the political will, the will to view the current structure as a human creation that is alterable, other than a naturally occurring phenomenon, any potential gains in this effort will certainly come up against these superficial obstacles.

The writer is a research fellow at the Development Watch Centre