Laos in 2004. Towards Subregional Integration: 10 Years on

Summary

Introduction

The year 2004 marked the tenth anniversary of the opening of the first Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge that permits travel by road between Vientiane and Nongkhai. The completion of the bridge seemed to signal the beginning of a new era. Wars in the region had frozen the project for almost three decades. As recently as 1987–88, Thailand and Laos were involved in a border dispute that escalated into a military conflict. The bridge therefore appeared to highlight a significant shift in the relationship between the two countries, with cooperation being privileged over confrontation. Yet, Martin Stuart-Fox sounded a note of caution when he wrote in 1995 that “the Friendship Bridge [serves] as a symbol of threat or hope, depending on perspective”. His article in this annual was among the rare analyses of Laos' post-Cold War challenges regarding regional integration. The historian furthermore observed: “whether the bridge exists or not, Laos will still find it impossible to isolate itself from the changes now occurring in mainland Southeast Asia”. His comment was accurate, albeit somewhat premature. The 1997 Asian financial crisis brutally hit all the Southeast Asian countries' economies and Laos began to have second thoughts over the direction of her own economic development; her rapprochement with China thus reached a new level during that period. Nevertheless, despite the general slowdown of regional projects in the aftermath of the Asian crisis, Laos' economic subregional integration was always to be an irreversible movement, favoured by all sides, i.e., the country itself, its neighbours (first and foremost, Thailand and Vietnam) and international lending organizations, as well as China. As Stuart-Fox explained in 1995: “Transport routes and other communications between the principal member states — Thailand, China, Vietnam — cannot help but pass through Laos if long and costly detours are to be avoided.” The road to development for Laos has to some extent become embodied in one expression, namely “land-linked”, in the hope that the realization of this goal will conjure away the nation–state's fate as the only country in Southeast Asia with no direct access to the sea, thereby overcoming its remoteness from world markets.