Most attention on China’s Belt and Road Initiative has so far centered on northern rail routes through Russia and Central Asia and investments in Mediterranean and Indian Ocean seaports.
Of all the potential Belt and Road corridors between the European Union and China with a land component, Piraeus to Khorgos involves the smallest land element, passing through only three intermediate countries — Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. This is the smallest number for any proposed land bridge between the EU and China that also avoids Russia. But the route depends on cross-Caspian Sea ferry logistics and better rail links across the Caucuses.
Four competing land routes appear in the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission’s “China-Europe Corridor Construction and Development Plan,” published in 2016: Manchuria-Russia-Belarus; Mongolia-Russia-Belarus; Kazakhstan-Russia-Belarus; and Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan-Iran-Turkey.
The Russia-Belarus route crosses the fewest jurisdictions, but includes Russia and requires by far the longest distance by railway — two factors that conflict with a Chinese policy designed to subvert Russian and U.S. trade institutions.
The Mongolia-Russia-Belarus route is also long, and also involves Russia. The same is true of the Kazakhstan-Russia-Belarus route. The Kyrgyz route passes through five jurisdictions and requires two rail gauge changes: one from China to Kyrgyzstan, and another from Turkmenistan to Iran.
By contrast, the Piraeus to Khorgos route connects the Greek port of Athens, where China’s COSCO Shipping operates a container terminal, to the Georgian terminals of Batumi and Anaklia across the Black Sea, which is protected by international maritime law. For China, shifting containers across Georgia and Azerbaijan to the Caspian Sea may be worth the higher cost than a pure sea route, and would be much cheaper and quicker than the Belarus-Russia or Belarus-Russia-Mongolia routes.
