The Chinese Road
The next major road built was Route 46, begun in the 1966 dry season and stretching from the southern tip of Yunnan Province southward toward the border of the Kingdom of Thailand.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) trained guerrillas spied on Route 46, and there was an attempt to block it with the abortive Operation Snake Eyes.
While there were several theories about China's intent in building Route 46, the only firm conclusion was one by an anonymous American military intelligence analyst: "Northern Laos has a new border."
This would eventually result in an attempt to settle the Laotian Civil War, the International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos signed on 23 July 1962.
[2] Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma curried favor with the People's Republic of China by striking a road construction deal with them in January 1962.
[3][4][6] At the time, the CIA was running a covert paramilitary operation from Nam Yu, Laos, somewhat southwest of this original road and near Luang Namtha.
CIA sponsored Royalist guerrillas had cut the Route 32 Pathet Lao supply line between Moung Sing and Luang Namtha.
During the dry season of the first few months of 1966, Chinese crews began constructing three more roads within Yunnan Province, but pointed towards the Laotian border.
[7] The resident CIA case officer now sent road watch teams from Nam Yu into China to spy on the construction as the work continued into 1968.
[10] The old French Route 46 alignment south down the Pak Beng Valley to Pakbeng on the Mekong River ended just a short distance from the border with the Kingdom of Thailand.
As the Thai Deputy Prime Minister stated, with only some exaggeration, "Chinese and North Vietnamese Communists...only three hours by motor vehicle drive from the border."
If the news that Route 46 had reached Moung Houn by early November 1969 was not sufficiently perturbing, the movement of antiaircraft guns that far south garnered attention.
The Royal Lao Government began to worry also, and King Sisavang Vatthana urged Souvanna Phouma to take military action against the construction.
For added expertise, a few Nationalist Chinese were lured away from the opium trade in nearby Burma to augment the road watch teams.
[10] Ambassador Godley cabled Washington proposing that Operation Snake Eyes become a road watch team passively gathering military intelligence before the Royalists could mount an attack.
[12] One week later, Operation Snake Eyes was authorized on the proviso that Souvanna Phouma, who was a Neutralist, come out as opposed to the Chinese road construction through the Kingdom.
However, three platoons of guerrillas from Nam Yu were infiltrated 50 kilometers south of Luang Namtha to spy on Route 46; they were dubbed Teams 37A, 37B, and 37C.
The 400 antiaircraft guns, along with 25,000 troops, made the Chinese Road foreign aid project one of the most heavily defended spots in Southeast Asia.
[10] In early August, U.S. President Richard M. Nixon closed down Nam Yu's cross-border incursions and placed an 11 kilometer no-fly zone around Route 46; this was a prelude for his later trip to China.
As apprehension mounted about penetration to the Thai border, on 11 September the American embassy requested a U.S. Air Force strike on the Pathet Lao base camp.
[9] Postwar Zhou Enlai indeed insinuated to Henry Kissinger that the Chinese Road was a ploy to deny North Vietnamese any influence along the Mekong.
[14] An anonymous CIA intelligence analyst drew the sole conclusion from the situation in a pithy observation: "Northern Laos has a new border.
After the war's end, the Lao People's Democratic Republic invited a Chinese extension of their road construction to the former royal capital.
