THE NEW SILK ROADS AWAITS THE END OF THE WAR

 

Tokyo's Asia Nikkei wrote an article not long ago about the new silk roads that were supposed to link China and Europe on land, one day, and be important vectors of prosperity. After a false start, those links seems to have fizzle away.

First, it must be noted that, if some of those new silk roads used already existing railways, some others implied building new sections, an endeavour that takes time and is expensive. Before you start, you have to define a corridor, a long, thin piece of land that cross many countries and require the approval of many actors. Here and there, bridges and tunnels would have to be constructed. The existence of different gauges must be considered. The planning must also take into account the need for regular servicing and occasional repairing of the new tracts once they are constructed and put to use.

That's probably why the network of maritime new silk roads was the first to be completed. It was simpler that way. China started with that network because, since it only necessitate ships and ports, they were easier to create. As a result, today, the seaboard façade of China is made up by a series of huge port complexes, from which ships carrying all manner of merchandises flow to their destinations.

Second, the political climate has dramatically changed in the last years, with the rise of animosity in the Sino-American relationship, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the imposition of sanctions that ensued the start of that war, the economic disturbances they brought, both in Russia and in the West, the growth of inflation and the rise of lending rates, etc. In that kind of environment, it is no wonder the volume of goods transiting on land between China and Europe dropped significantly.

The land part of the new silk roads is not dead, it is simply delayed. The present war will eventually stop, one way or other, and a diminution of tensions should then take place in Europe. In fact, the focus of the new cold war should move to the Indo-Pacific area.

The return of peace on the European continent may have consequences about the creation of the network of land new silk roads. Transportation of goods between the Far East and Western Europe, say between Chungking and Berlin, is much more direct on land than on sea. It is thus less costly and faster. If Africa is added one day to the network, in a second phase, the same advantage would apply to land transport, with trains, as opposed to sea transport, with ships.

The Ukrainian war will end, in a few months or a few years. China will still be there. The possibility to trade freely between all the corners of Europe, Africa, and Asia, by rail, will still be there also. And it will still make sense to create a network of railway lines, possibly with high-speed merchandise trains, between the main economic centers of the tri-continent.

Those lines would be like the arteries and the veins irrigating the economy of Afro-Eurasia.

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https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Asia-Insight/China-Belt-and-Road-dreams-fade-in-Germany-s-industrial-heartland