Asia | Big plans for the ‘stans

Two new railway lines could transform Central Asia

China, not Russia, stands to benefit

Khorgos, Kazakhstan - October 2017. A freight train arriving from China just left the Khorgos dry port to cross all Kazakhstan to reach Europe. Kazakhstan is a crucial country for the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, and the Khorgos dry port is quickly becoming the China west gate for land import and export.
|Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Central asia’s first railway was a military venture. Russia began laying track in 1880, primarily to shuttle troops around the Karakum desert, the better to crush resistance to its rule in what is now Turkmenistan. Within eight years trains ran 1,400km from the Caspian Sea to Samarkand. George Curzon, who rode the railway in 1888 as a young British lawmaker (and future Viceroy of India), wrote that it helped Russia dominate local trade, and doubled its capacity to launch attacks on India. Britain’s strategy, he warned, was not “suited to a position where the Cossacks are at your gates”.

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “The middle rail”

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