page_title: The Chinese Road
section_title: South toward Thailand
hierarchical_section_title: The Chinese Road / Activities / South toward Thailand
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of Xaignabouri Province, Laos.
context_page_description: The Chinese Road were a series of highways built as a foreign aid project by the People's Republic of China in northern Laos, beginning in 1962. The first new road was built from Mengla, Yunnan Province, PRC to Phongsali, Laos; it was completed on 25 May 1963. 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. As 25,000 Chinese troops and 400 antiaircraft guns came to be posted to defend Route 46, and Thai support of American war efforts in both the Laotian Civil War and the Vietnam War became widely known, there was uneasiness among both Thai and American intelligence communities concerning Communist China's intents in constructing the all-weather highway. American interest in the new road extended up to the White House.
  Central Intelligence Agency trained guerrillas spied on Route 46, and there was an attempt to block it with the abortive Operation Snake Eyes. However, Chinese antiaircraft fire upon overflying aircraft and steady increases in Chinese troops guaranteed its security from attack.
context_section_description: 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. Improvement of this road threatened the security 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. In December they fired upon the unarmed Douglas C-47 of General Ouane Rattikone proving that the Chinese would ward off intrusions. The Royal Lao Government began to worry also, and King Sisavang Vatthana urged Souvanna Phouma to take military action against the construction. In mid-December, U.S. Ambassador G. McMurtrie Godley cabled for approval to take military action in the next dry season. Approval was promptly refused. However, despite Washington's refusal, Royalist guerrillas were already spying on 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.
  As 1970 began, Communist forces began to drive the Royalist guerrillas from the Pak Beng Valley all the way south to the Mekong. A couple of checkpoint posts on the Thai-Lao border were seized. 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. As he awaited an answer, two Royal Lao Air Force (RLAF) T-28s struck the road in early January 1970. Two Thai mercenary pilots, instigated by their government, flew out of Vientiane and struck a Chinese convoy, destroying 15 trucks. At about this time, recruitment of Commando Raiders for operations against the Chinese construction began in Luang Prabang.
  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. With only an inactive skeleton crew stationed along Route 46 for the wet season, the actual launch date for the operation was postponed to six months thence. 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 six month setback proved to be unfortunate timing for operations against the Chinese Road. As the postponement ended, the Cambodian incursion by the U.S. raised such international furor that Operation Snake Eyes was again ordered on hold to avoid calling attention to the U.S. covert operations in Laos.
  By April 1971, Route 46 had been asphalted to Moung Houn, making it an all-weather road. During the first four months of 1971, the North Vietnamese moved in 400 antiaircraft guns along Route 46, along with 30 fire direction radars. 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. Thai reaction to this extension was a clearing sweep along the border called Operation Phalat. 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. The Chinese bulldozers were cutting the last segment of Route 46 that led into Pakbeng. The town now contained a Pathet Lao base camp. 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.
  The prohibition of USAF flights over Route 46 did not prevent defensive fire on civilian airplanes by Chinese antiaircraft gunners. A Royal Air Lao DC-3 and an Air America C-123 were shot down during December 1971. In January 1972, an Air America pilot lost a leg to Chinese antiaircraft fire. Beginning in March 1972, Chinese troo
caption: The terminus of Route 46 (since renumbered as Route 2) is shown in the top middle of this map.
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