As a landmark project of the "One Belt, One Road" initiative, the construction of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway received a series of major news this week, and was even explicitly written into the joint declaration of China and Kyrgyzstan.
This railway connecting China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan has attracted much attention for many years. After completion, it will become the shortest land passage from China to the Middle East and Europe. Compared with the existing China-Europe train route, it will save 7 to 8 days. Some commentators say that the construction of this railway will bring about a revolutionary change in Asia-Europe trade. The President of Kyrgyzstan also vividly said that this railway is as indispensable to them as air and water.
From the conception in 1997 to the official start of construction in 2025, how will this railway change the connectivity between Asia and Europe? Especially as a new road on the "Belt and Road", what new impact will it have?
Written into the Joint Declaration of China and Kyrgyzstan How important is this railway?
The joint declaration between China and Kyrgyzstan proposed to "ensure the smooth and timely implementation of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway project and create good and mutually beneficial conditions to ensure the project's transportation volume and efficiency." Public opinion has also noticed that the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway has also become a high-frequency word in the talks between the leaders of the two sides. The Chinese side calls it a "transportation artery" that carries the development hopes of the people in the region, while the Kyrgyz side expects it to become a "steel Silk Road" in the new era.
Liu Qian, deputy dean of the Belt and Road College of Beijing Normal University: The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway was personally promoted by the heads of state of the three countries and is a major project for the joint construction of the “Belt and Road” cooperation. Focusing on the discussion at such a high-profile occasion as the SCO summit has actually shown that it has risen from a specific project to a common political consensus and strategic arrangement among the three countries.
The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway starts from Kashgar in Xinjiang, my country, passes through Alpa, Makmal and other places in Kyrgyzstan, and ends in Andiyan in Uzbekistan in the west. As the economic center of southern Xinjiang, Kashgar’s foreign trade has long relied mainly on highway ports. Obviously, the completion of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway will provide an efficient external channel for southern Xinjiang.
In Horgos and Alashankou in northern Xinjiang, there are currently mature China-Europe freight trains to the west, which connects to Russia's Siberian Railway through Kazakhstan and leads all the way to Europe. The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway located on the south side will supplement a faster and safer channel. When completed, it will become a transportation artery that runs through Central Asia and radiates the entire Eurasian continent.
In June 2025, approximately 304 kilometers of the line in Kyrgyzstan will be fully constructed, accounting for nearly 60% of the entire line. The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway Co., Ltd., a joint venture established by enterprises authorized by the governments of the three countries, is responsible for investment, financing, construction, and operation. As of August this year, the overall construction progress of this section of railway has reached 17%, and the successful completion of the Koshtebo North Tunnel No. 2 marks important progress in project construction.
Xi Jihong, Chief Engineer of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway Project Department: At present, the overall progress is advancing according to the expected construction organization arrangement. We are confident that it will meet the conditions for opening to traffic in June 2031.
Behind the intensive construction is the urgent need for this railway among the three countries. The Deputy Minister of Transportation of Uzbekistan recently publicly stated that he hopes to advance the opening time to 2028.
Liu Qian: Uzbekistan is a double landlocked country and has long been troubled by the inconvenience of accessing the sea. The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway is the most convenient land passage to China and the Asia-Pacific market. The earlier it opens to traffic, the earlier it will benefit for them.
For Kyrgyzstan, which is also landlocked, the significance of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway is also obvious. In July this year, the President of Kyrgyzstan bluntly stated that the country is "in a traffic dead end" and imports and exports are highly restricted by external channels. After the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway is completed, Kyrgyzstan will become an important gateway connecting China and the world.
From "hard connectivity" to "soft connectivity", track gauge opens up a new pattern
The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway went through a very difficult process from conception to construction, which was first reflected in the engineering difficulty. But in addition to extremely complex geological conditions, there are other problems. In more than two decades of negotiations, a series of consensuses need to be reached, such as which gauge of railway track to use. It can be seen from this railway that the "One Belt, One Road" initiative has gone so far. In addition to the "hard connectivity" of facilities, the greater impact is the "soft connectivity" of rules and standards as well as the respective economic development drivers.
In Kyrgyzstan, which gauge of railway track to use is a focus issue in the lengthy negotiations on the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, and it is also a typical microcosm of the "soft connectivity" of rules and standards.
Li Lifan, Director of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Research Center of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences: Originally, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan used the Soviet Union’s 1520mm track. Changing the track was a very arduous process. Because if the freight volume is large, the standard container is also very heavy, which requires high loading and disassembly cranes.
Eventually, "mixed gauge" was adopted for track construction. The 167.537 kilometers from the Chinese port to Makmal adopt the Chinese standard gauge, and the remaining 138.768 kilometers follow the broad gauge, and a large-scale transshipment station will be built in Makmal. The landmark significance of this plan is that China's 1435 mm standard gauge has substantially entered the hinterland of Central Asia for the first time.
Kyrgyzstan is known as the "country of mountains". The railway line is faced with the "four highs" challenges of plateau, alpine cold, high seismic intensity, and high altitude stress. In railway construction, from construction standards and material specifications to safety management, Chinese technology and Chinese standards play an important role.
In addition to rail connectivity, the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway is also inseparable from interconnection in operations, customs and quarantine. The China-Kyrgyzstan joint declaration proposed to promote the interconnection of the "single window" mechanism and introduce modern customs supervision and automated customs management mechanisms. In fact, such exploration of customs clearance facilitation has already begun at ports such as Turgate.
In jointly building the “Belt and Road”, connectivity is the key. Some experts pointed out that deepening the "soft connectivity" of systems, standards and rules has increasingly become a priority goal for high-quality joint construction of the "Belt and Road".
What impact will the opening of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway have on the countries along the route?
This week, in addition to the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, another equally iconic China-Egypt economic cooperation has also become the focus of media attention. Kyrgyzstan and Egypt, one in the hinterland of Central Asia, one on the coast of North Africa, one in the north and one in the south, have all mentioned the connection between the "Belt and Road Initiative" and their national development strategies in their joint declarations or statements with China. In fact, under the "Belt and Road" initiative, from the results of China-Egypt economic cooperation that was carried out earlier, we can also clearly see from another angle the impact that the opening of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway will have on the future of the countries along the route.
"Both sides support the construction of the China-Egypt Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone." On Wednesday, China and Egypt issued a joint statement, bringing the cooperation zone launched in 2008 to attention again. Today, more than 200 companies have settled here. Before the arrival of a Chinese cast pipe company, Egypt's annual cast pipe production capacity was only 50,000 tons and relied heavily on imports. The two production lines it invested in have an annual production capacity of 250,000 tons, which not only meets the needs of Egypt's water supply pipeline network construction, but also exports products to the Middle East, Africa and Europe.
Ma Ye, Chairman of Xinxing Cast Pipe (Egypt) Co., Ltd.: China is relatively leading in the global cast pipe industry. The production line we brought to Egypt this time can produce cast pipes with a maximum diameter of 2.2 meters, filling the industry gap in Egypt.
In the Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone, there are many Chinese companies like this. The entry of a fiberglass company from Zhejiang has transformed Egypt from a blank sheet of paper to the fourth largest fiberglass producer in the world. In this cooperation zone, eight major industries including new building materials, high and low voltage electrical appliances, machinery manufacturing, and new energy have formed a complete industrial cluster.
Liu Qian: From the construction of projects to the construction of industrial chains, the sustainability of the "Belt and Road" cooperation is actually further deepening and more resilient. A single project is easily affected by the external environment, and once an industrial chain is formed, it will have a self-reinforcing effect, allowing the host country's industrialization to be deeply integrated with China's advantages. The results of this cooperation can also be embedded in the local economic structure and improve local risk resistance.
The Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone is a benchmark project that strategically connects the “One Belt, One Road” initiative and Egypt’s “Suez Canal Corridor Economic Belt”. The joint statement between the two countries once again made it clear that they must further deepen the integration of the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" initiative and Egypt's "Vision 2030".
Wang Xiaoyu, associate researcher at the Middle East Studies Center of Fudan University: This is called the deepening of strategic needs, which benefits both sides.
Liu Qian: Strategic docking is to put the development plans of the two countries on the same drawing for overall planning. Therefore, strategic alignment means that cooperation moves from point-to-point to full-scale, and from short-term to long-term. Such cooperation is more stable in the long run and has more endogenous motivation.
In addition to traditional infrastructure and production capacity cooperation, the joint statement between the two countries also proposed to encourage Chinese companies to take advantage of Egypt's competitive advantages, actively explore industrial localization cooperation in electric vehicles, solar energy and other fields, and expand cooperation in high-tech fields such as semiconductors and aerospace applications.
Wang Xiaoyu: Take the Egypt-2 satellite project for example. In this project, China no longer directly delivers the finished satellite to Egypt. Instead, both parties have established a professional joint R&D team. Egyptian personnel are truly deeply involved in the satellite's R&D and integration, including the entire testing phase.
This week, from the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway to the in-depth cooperation between China and Egypt, two typical examples, one in the north and one in the south, also revealed the changes that are taking place in the cooperation in building the "Belt and Road".
Wang Yiwei, a professor at the School of International Relations at Renmin University of China: If the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway can be connected and further connected to the cross-Caspian three-dimensional transportation network, extending to Europe and further to the Middle East, this will be a big chess game that rewrites the Eurasian territory.
Liu Qian: We can see that the layout of the “One Belt, One Road” is moving from point-like to network-like coverage. The direction of Central Asia is to open up the hinterland of the Eurasian continent through railways, and the direction of the Middle East and Africa is to build industrial fulcrums through economic and trade cooperation. The two echo each other, and there is a trend of north-south linkage. This layout reflects that the “Belt and Road Initiative” is building a three-dimensional interconnection network covering the three continents of Asia, Africa, and Europe. From single channel construction to multi-channel, multi-node, multi-level overall system layout.
When talking about the “One Belt, One Road” initiative, people used to pay more attention to railways, bridges, and waterways, which are transportation fortresses. Transportation connects industries, energy and supply chains. The more geopolitical instability and protectionism rise, the more important corridors and nodes become.
But building roads is just the beginning. The Belt and Road Initiative hopes to connect the driving force of economic development in each country, and more importantly, the hearts and minds of the people. Road connections, goods connections, and finally, hearts and minds. Only when the minds are connected can the cooperation last longer.
From Central Asia to the Middle East and North Africa, and then to the wider world, the “Belt and Road” is not only the interconnection of roads on the map, but more importantly, the interconnection of the hearts and minds of people in various countries.
