Amid the green fields of Wanding, a small town in Southwest China's Yunnan Province, there's a line of concrete railway piers for a rail bridge.

In about six years, they will be part of a long-awaited track running down to the province's Ruili, which borders Myanmar.

Beginning from Yunnan's Dali, the 108.4 kilometer high speed track, a key section of the China-Myanmar international railway, was supposed to open years ago. But construction just started about seven months ago. It is expected to be in service by the end of 2022.

The delay followed the suspension of the $20 billion China-Myanmar railway project by Myanmar in 2014, citing public objections.

The project, which was to have run alongside the already finished Chinese-built Shwe natural gas pipeline, was proposed in 2009 by both countries' leaders at that time. A memorandum of understanding was signed in 2011 that guaranteed the Chinese side, which is the investor as well as the builder, 50 years' operation rights.

In the eyes of engineers from China Railway 17 Bureau Group Co, a contractor of the Dali-Ruili railroad, the extension of the Chinese rail system into Myanmar's territory is just a matter of time, as the political situation in Myanmar is becoming increasingly stable.

They said that they have already crossed the border into Myanmar to evaluate the construction situation in the Southeast Asian nation and they're "ready any time."

According to their estimates, construction of the section between Ruili and Kyaukpyu, a town in western Myanmar, will take only two to three years.

Along with the Dali-Ruili railway, work on a rail link between Dali and Lincang, a town on the border of Yunnan and Myanmar, also started last year. That will be an alternative way to enter Myanmar.

Dali-Ruili railway project manager Liu Chaohui said the goal is not only to expand the domestic rail network and fast-track the economic development of border crossings in Southwest China.

The Chinese government also aims to connect the Chinese market with South and Southeast Asian nations.

Liu noted that the China-Myanmar railway will be a part of the Pan-Asia Railway Network, which will play a key role in helping China's push into the Indian Ocean across the back of Asia for economic cooperation and trade with the Middle East and Africa. The US is still perceived as the major controller of the routes on the ocean.

As for the Myanmar side, Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, which took the reins of the long-closed Myanmar in 2015, is expected to be more practical than the previous military junta.

Yin Zhongde, director of the Ruili Key Development and Opening-up Experimental Zone, said that the new Myanmar government really wants to boost its economy and has shown strong interest in domestic infrastructure construction and the China-proposed "One Belt, One Road" initiative.

Suu Kyi began a five-day official visit to China on Wednesday, her first trip outside the ASEAN region since taking office. Kyaw Zeya, director general of the Political Department in Myanmar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was quoted by the online journal The Irrawaddy, as saying on Friday that Suu Kyi will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss issues including the controversial Myitsone Dam project.

Without doubt, as Myanmar opens up to the world and the West woos the nation, its ties with China won't be as close as in the past.

Myanmar may consider the interests of all parties, but China, a neighboring giant, is still critical for the Southeast Asian nation, said officials from Ruili.

It will take time for Myanmar's new government to grasp the importance of China-backed infrastructure projects, including dam and rail projects for the country's internal development, and people there also need time to have confidence in those projects.

Chinese rail engineers believe that the completion of the Dali-Ruili railway will be vivid proof of Chinese companies' ability to build a high-speed railway in an efficient, environmentally sound way.