''Once stalled plans to build a high-speed railroad connecting China’s southern city of Kunming and Myanmar’s Kyaukphyu port on the Bay of Bengal are firmly back on track. If completed, the 1,400-kilometer railroad will be a crucial link in a strategic economic corridor through which China’s imports and exports would bypass the congested Malacca Strait and contested South China Sea, both potential chokepoints in any conflict scenario. There are already gas and oil pipelines in place running from Myanmar’s western coast and China’s southern Yunnan province which strategically bypass maritime bottlenecks and potential trouble spots...''