Thai Canal

Thai King Narai asked the French engineer de Lamar to survey the possibility of building a waterway to connect Songkhla with Marid (now Myanmar), but the idea was discarded as impractical with the technology of that time.

Maha Sura Singhanat, the younger brother of King Chakri (Rama I), suggested it would make it easier to protect the west coast with military ships.

In 1882, the constructor of the Suez canal, Ferdinand de Lesseps, visited the area, but the Thai king did not allow him to investigate in detail.

In 1897, Thailand and the British empire agreed not to build a canal so that the regional dominance of the harbour of Singapore would be maintained.

Out of the many concessions made in the treaty, one of the articles forbid the Thais from digging a canal across the Kra isthmus without British government permission.

The Suez Canal is 192 km (119 mi) long but passes entirely through a flat area (which was historically flooded by seas).

The seemingly preferred version of the Kra Canal project—Route 9A—would dig through Krabi, Trang, Phattalung, Nakhon Si Thammarat and Songkhla, a distance of 128 kilometres.

[10] The idea of a Kra Canal has been proposed in modern times since the 1930s, but has never materialized due to high cost and environmental repercussions.

[14] In early 2015, calls for yet another feasibility study of the canal were put forward, a leading proponent being the Thai-Chinese Culture and Economic Association of Thailand (TCCEAT).

[15] On 15 May 2015, a memorandum of understanding was signed by the China-Thailand Kra Infrastructure Investment and Development company (中泰克拉基础设施投资开发有限公司) in Guangzhou to advance the project.

In 2005, an internal report prepared for U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was leaked to The Washington Times, spelling out China's strategy of underwriting construction of the canal across the Kra Isthmus, with Chinese port facilities and refineries, as part of its "string of pearls" strategy of forward bases and energy security.

[18] The Chinese plan called for construction over ten years employing roughly 30,000 workers at a cost of between US$20–25 billion.

The analysts fear that a Thai Canal, in combination with the String of Pearls, will encircle India militarily in the ongoing China-India conflict.