This week, the land of Guangxi marks a historic milestone. On September 16, the Pinglu Canal, constructed over four years, officially opened to navigation. This 134.2-kilometer artificial waterway connects the Xijiang shipping trunk in the north to the Beibu Gulf in the south, standing as the first canal built under national coordination since the founding of New China to link rivers directly to the sea. It also serves as a flagship project of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor and a hallmark initiative in accelerating the development of a strong transportation nation.
For centuries, the resource-rich southwestern hinterland was hampered by watershed geographical barriers, with inland waterways largely flowing eastward into the Pearl River Delta. Regional cargo heading for the sea was forced to take long detours, trapping the area in a cycle of development constraints. With the opening of the Pinglu Canal, 5,000-ton vessels can now sail directly along the canal to Beibu Gulf Port, turning the grand vision of a southwestern outlet to the sea, as outlined by Dr. Sun Yat-sen in his "International Development of China," into reality.
According to estimates, cargo from the southwest moving through the Pinglu Canal to the sea will shorten the route by more than 560 kilometers compared to the previous detour via Guangzhou Port, with overall logistics costs projected to drop by 18% to 30%. This is expected to save society over 5 billion yuan in transportation expenses annually. The high-capacity, low-cost waterway reduces transit times, lowers corporate inventory and capital occupancy, and opens a fresh logistics corridor for minerals, building materials, specialty agricultural goods, and foreign trade containers.
The opening of one river highlights the density of a broader network. In April, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee meeting, followed by a State Council executive meeting in May, both outlined plans for the "Six Networks" initiative, with the modern logistics network playing a key role in ensuring the smooth circulation of the national economy. In August, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Transport issued the "Logistics Network Construction Implementation Plan," which specifically calls for strengthening connectivity in inland waterway systems, steadily removing navigation bottlenecks on key inter-provincial routes, and improving multimodal transport and collection-distribution systems. The completion and opening of the Pinglu Canal is a landmark practice of this logistics network strategy in the western region. It bridges a critical gap in river-sea intermodal transport, drives the adoption of road-rail-river-sea multimodal shipping, and turns the modern logistics model of "using rivers where suitable, seas where appropriate, and connections where beneficial" from concept into action.
The ripple effects of multimodal coordination driven by the Pinglu Canal are already visible. The first "Sichuan-Pinglu Canal-Vietnam" rail-river-sea intermodal train departed from Chengdu, with cargo moving south by rail to the Liujing operation area at Nanning Port, where it is transferred to river-sea vessels for direct passage to Can Tho Port in Vietnam. Meanwhile, the "Liuzhou-Nanning Port-Pinglu Canal-Hainan Yangpu Port" rail-river-sea intermodal train also saw its maiden voyage, unlocking a corridor for material assembly in the southwestern hinterland and southbound passage to the sea. A low-cost, high-capacity river-sea logistics backbone network is taking shape, substantially boosting the comprehensive carrying capacity of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor.
The Pinglu Canal's contribution to the logistics network connects on one side the building of a unified national market and on the other the broader landscape of opening up to the world. Domestically, this river-to-sea waterway drives industries such as port-side manufacturing, bulk commodity distribution, and warehousing logistics to cluster along the canal route, fostering the free flow and efficient allocation of production factors in the southwestern hinterland. It boosts coordinated urban-rural development and rural revitalization, while supporting the creation of an efficient, smooth, unified national market. Internationally, this maritime "artery" aligns deeply with the Belt and Road Initiative, linking the New Western Land-Sea Corridor with China-ASEAN economic and trade flows. It serves both as a vital outlet for domestic goods heading south to the sea and a convenient entry point for distinctive ASEAN products entering China's market, making it a key channel for two-way material exchange between China and ASEAN.
Just one day after the canal's opening, the 23rd China-ASEAN Expo and the China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit kicked off in Nanning, Guangxi. This year marks the fifth anniversary of the establishment of the China-ASEAN Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. China has maintained its position as ASEAN's largest trading partner for 17 consecutive years, with bilateral trade in the first eight months of this year reaching 5.95 trillion yuan, a growth of 20.6%. The opening of the Pinglu Canal adds a "golden passage" to the thriving China-ASEAN economic exchanges, shortening not just physical logistics distances but also the collaborative distance in industrial synergy, market integration, and open, mutually beneficial cooperation.
Looking ahead, the canal's opening is merely a starting point. The full potential of a single waterway can only be unleashed when integrated into the systemic effectiveness of the entire modern logistics network. Building such a network requires both the solid support of major projects and the continuous refinement of institutional frameworks. In an era of accelerating global transformation, the Pinglu Canal's inauguration will not only invigorate the internal growth momentum of China's western regions but also steadily and substantively contribute to regional economic stability and prosperity, as well as to the building of a closer China-ASEAN community with a shared future.