Context: Recently, China opened a new rail line providing access to the Indian Ocean via Myanmar on the Chinese side of the border.
Key Link

• The transport corridor involves a sea-road-rail link. 
• It connects the logistics lines of Singapore, Myanmar, China.
• It is currently the most convenient land and sea channel linking the Indian Ocean with southwest China.

Key route

• Goods from Singapore reached Yangon Port, arriving by ship through the Andaman Sea of the northeastern Indian Ocean, and were then transported by road to Lincang on the Chinese side of the Myanmar-China border in Yunnan province. 
• The new railway line that runs from the border town of Lincang to Chengdu, a key trade hub in western China, completes the corridor.
• The rail line stretches from Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, to Lincang, a prefecture-level city in China’s Yunnan Province opposite Chin Shwe Haw, a border trade town in Myanmar’s northeastern Shan State.

Strategic Importance

• The rail line will enable China to trans-ship cargo from Singapore Port via Myanmar.
• The route is the first to link western China with the Indian Ocean and it will significantly reduce the time needed to import cargo to landlocked Yunnan Province.
• The route is expected to become the lifeblood of international trade for China and Myanmar, while providing a source of income for Myanmar’s military regime.
• China has also been working to develop a deep seaport in Kyaukphyu Township in Rakhine, including a proposed railway line from Yunnan directly to the port, but the progress there has been stalled by unrest in Myanmar.

Chinese planners have also looked at the Gwadar port in Pakistan as another key outlet to the Indian Ocean that will bypass the Malacca Straits. 

• Gwadar is being developed as part of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to the far western Xinjiang region, but has been slow to take off amid concerns over security. 

The costs and logistics through CPEC are also less favourable than the Myanmar route with the opening of the rail transport channel from the Myanmar border right to western China’s biggest commercial hub.