China is finishing construction of a new canal in the south which will allow expanded trade with the eleven countries of ASEAN. The Pinglu Canal, which will open in September, connects Hengzhou, a city east of Nanning in Guangxi Province, in southwestern China, to the Gulf of Tonkin near Vietnam. It is a “river to sea” canal, allowing trade to move directly south to the Gulf of Tonkin rather than east to the Guangzhou area before shipment to the ASEAN nations or beyond.
The canal runs 134.2 km from the Xijin reservoir at Hengzhou, east of the regional capital Nanning, to the port of Qinzhou on the Beibu Gulf — the Gulf of Tonkin. It links the Xijiang, Guangxi’s largest river, to the Qinjiang, and is navigable by 5,000-tonne vessels. Total investment is over $10 billion, and more than 300 million cubic meters of earth and rock have been excavated.
The canal gives southwestern China its own outlet to the sea. Cargo from the interior has until now run east down the river system to the ports of Guangdong’s Pearl River Delta before turning south. The canal cuts that inland voyage up to 560 km and provides access to the Beibu Gulf, very close to Vietnam and at the doorstep of ASEAN — which since Timor-Leste’s admission in October 2025 includes eleven member states.
Chinese authorities describe it as the first river-to-sea canal built in China since 1949.