The Economist (28 July - 3 August, 2018) cover story Planet China - What to make of the Belt and Road Initiative and a more detailed Briefing China's Belt and Road Initiative - Gateway to the Globe offer a balanced account of China's overarching grand design to connect continents to China through ports, high-speed rail as well as related trade and investments.
On the one hand, this massive initiative provides much-needed capacity-building infrastructure to cash-strapped developing countries. On the other, it raises concerns about opacity, enslaving indebtedness, lack of corporate governance, and risks of creating a China-centric regional order blind to perceived "predatory trade practices".
As pointed out by these reports, absent joint development of rules of engagement with a wider range of stakeholders, not least international institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, and advanced countries such as those of the European Union, the Belt and Road Initiative will struggle to inspire global confidence and to fulfill its ambition of realizing a "global community of common destiny".
Nevertheless, in terms of freight between China and transcontinental destinations, perhaps nothing illustrates the logistical advantages of the Belt and Road Initiative better than the 10,000 km long Zhengzhou-Europe Railway – also known as the China-Europe Railway Express (Zhengzhou) or CR Express Zhengzhou.
The line passes through Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany (Hamburg and Munich). It takes about 15 days from Zhengzhou to Germany via the Zhengzhou-Europe line - about three to four weeks less than travelling by the sea route. The cost of railway transport is anywhere between 20% and 80% that of air transport, and the heavier the cargoes the bigger the saving.
According to HKTDC Research, the Railway represents a unique “one main line, three branch lines” multimodal network, "connecting the Zhengzhou-Europe line with the eastern coastal ports, including Qingdao, Lianyungang and Tianjin. Zhengzhou is also making use of multimodal transport to connect with Busan and Incheon in South Korea, and with Tokyo and Osaka in Japan; and taking advantage of China’s high-speed railway network by connecting the Zhengzhou-Europe line with the Beijing-Guangzhou Railway and Lanzhou-Lianyungang Railway, in a bid to improve its domestic distribution network."
