The logo of China Railway Express, a unit of China's state-run China Railway Corporation, is pictured on the side of shipping containers at DB Cargo's London Eurohub rail freight depot in Barking, East London, on Jan. 18, 2017. Niklas Halle'n/AFP via Getty Images
A critical part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the China-Europe Railway Express has expanded by more than 20 percent a year in recent years.
However, over the past year, the railway’s growth has slowed dramatically. Its business has declined with most European countries—with the exception of Russia, which now dominates Europe’s trade with China.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the focus of the China-Europe Railway Express shifted from the EU to Russia. In the second half of 2022, the Russian business carried by the rail line rose to 80 percent from 50 percent in 2021.
This year, the share of Russian business has surged to 90 percent. Other European countries now make up only 10 percent of the rail line’s business, according to a report from Chinese financial media Caixin on May 19.
Designed as a cargo train from China to Europe, the 12,000-kilometer (about 7,500 -mile) China-Europe Railway Express first debuted in March 2011. The network has 73 routes, connecting China with Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, France, and Spain.
The routes fall along three main corridors: the western line departs from Horgos Port in Alashankou, Xinjiang, and the central and eastern lines start from Inner Mongolia’s Erlianhot and Manzhouli, respectively.
Most of the routes run through Russia, Belarus, and Poland, with a small number passing through Ukraine.
China-EU Shipments Drop Sharply
A train engine pulls carriages that started their journey in China into a rail freight terminal in Barking, England, on Jan. 18, 2017. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
The war between Ukraine and Russia is the primary reason for the significant drop in cargo shipments between China and the EU.
A March article by the Economic and Commercial Office of the Chinese Embassy in Italy indicated that in 2022, Italy’s transportation volume plunged by more than 90 percent year-on-year; the Czech Republic’s dropped by nearly 80 percent; and the transportation volume of the Netherlands, France, and Sweden all fell by 60 percent or more.
Meanwhile, Germany’s standard shipment volume dropped by almost 40 percent; and Poland—the major destination of China-Europe trains—saw its transportation volume slide by more than 20 percent year-on-year.
China Acknowledges War’s Impact
Jiang Mingxin is a researcher at the Institute of West African Studies, under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Late in 2022, in a report published in the Journal of Academic Exploration, Jiang discussed the significant drop in China-EU rail traffic.
After the Russia–Ukraine invasion, Russian railways were targeted by EU sanctions. Freight trains could still run through Russia, but were not allowed to stop there, according to an EU briefing (pdf).
Jiang acknowledged that the “military conflict and the escalating sanctions have brought considerable negative impacts on the China-Europe express.”
Refusal to use Russian infrastructure and equipment, coupled with sanctions on Russian parts and technology, has “caused considerable difficulties for Russia in the maintenance and upgrading of railway facilities and equipment,” according to Jiang.
As a result, “the traffic flow of China-Europe trains to and from Europe has significantly decreased,” Jiang said, ascribing the impact to the “so-called ‘political correctness’ and ’values’ orientation of the United States and the West.”
Western Sources Are More Blunt
An April 18, 2022, article by the Asia Sentinel painted the situation in more stark terms, describing rail traffic from China to Europe as dropping to “a trickle” after the Ukraine invasion.
The California-based publication cited factors such as fears about risks from wider war, pushback from customers, payment difficulties due to sanctions, and the difficulty of insuring cargo for trans-Eurasia rail freight as reasons for the drop in rail freight.
“Symbolically, the Ukraine war has caused a great disruption,” Francesca Ghiretti, a specialist on Europe-China relations at Germany’s Mercator Institute for China Studies, told The Asia Sentinel. “The China-Europe Railway is an important symbol of Xi’s BRI. The core of the original BRI concept was after all to connect Eurasia.”
“The Ukraine war has completely totaled the China-Europe rail express phenomenon for now,” Jacob Marvel, an analyst for the Mercator Institute for China Studies, told Politico.
Some clients have switched to the railway’s central corridor, which sidesteps Russia and transports goods across the Caspian Sea, and then through Azerbaijan and Georgia.
Shipping by the central corridor is less than ideal, however: the route has a limited capacity, takes longer, and costs more.
China–Russia Trade
China's President Xi Jinping (R) and Russia's President Vladimir Putin smile during the welcoming ceremony on the final day of the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, on April 27, 2019. Valery Sharifulin/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images
Data from China’s customs administration showed that in the first four months of this year, the total import and export trade between China and Russia amounted to $73.1 billion, a surge of more than 40 percent year-on-year; among them, exports to Russia increased by 67 percent.
In 2022, China’s total import and export trade with Russia reached $190.2 billion, a nearly 30 percent increase compared to 2021, of which export trade with Russia climbed by almost 13 percent.
Nonetheless, Russian business with China, although still elevated, has slowed in recent months as Russia’s economy and spending power have been affected by the escalation and spillover effects of Western sanctions.
Sidelining BRI Goals
The China-Europe Railway Express is a key part of BRI, previously known as One Belt One Road (OBOR), an infrastructure project of the CCP that targets expansion outside China.
The initial goal of BRI, the editorial explained, “is to export China’s excess capacity by building up basic infrastructure such as railways and highways in other countries. These countries are rich in resources and energy. By building infrastructure in these countries, the CCP accomplishes two secondary goals. One is to open routes to ship domestic products to Europe at low cost; the other is to secure the strategic resources of countries participating in [BRI].”
China’s goal is not to support the manufacturing industry in Belt and Road countries. Instead, BRI’s real goal is to “use economic strength as a vanguard to establish control over the financial and political lifelines of other countries, transforming them into colonies of the Chinese regime and pawns on the global stage.”
However, the Ukraine conflict and resulting rail disruption have sidelined China’s BRI goals involving the China-Europe Railway Express.
Anne Zhang is a writer for The Epoch Times with a focus on China-related topics. She began writing for the Chinese-language edition in 2014.
