Ferrying 32 containers of cargo, it left Yiwu in Chinas eastern Zhejiang province onJanuary 2, snaking its way throughKazakhstan and Turkmenistan before entering Iran. It took the train 14 days to cover the roughly 10,399 km long journey to Tehran.
Part of the overland component of Chinas One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative, the Yiwu-Tehran rail link slashes travel time between Chinas east coast and Iran. Its arrival in less than 14 days is unprecedented, the head of the Iran Railways company Mohsen Pourseyyed Aqai said. Ferrying cargo via the sea from Shanghai, which lies 300 km north of Yiwu, to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas takes 45 days in comparison.
The China-Iran Silk Road train will run once a month. Its frequency will increase as trade picks up. Chinas economic co-operation with Iran, which deepened through the sanctions period bilateral trade grewfrom $4 billion in 2003 to $53 billion in 2013 is expected to soar in the coming years as Beijing and Tehran are eyeingstronger trade ties. In January, during the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Iran, the two sidesagreed to increase trade to $600 billionover the coming decade.
The train from Yiwu used existing rail links to run to Iran. China proposes to build new high-speed rail links through Central Asia. Trains carrying Chinese goods will then not terminate at Tehran but run further on to European markets. Besides facilitating Sino-Iran trade, these rail lines will contribute to Irans emergence as an important Eurasian trade hub. They will generate income for Iran fromtransiting trains and integrateit more firmly into the economies of East and Central Asia as well as Europe.
The Yiwu-Tehran train underscores Chinas plans for regional integration with Central Asia as the main hub, Aryaman Bhatnagar, policy advisor, Peace & Security Programme at Friedrich Ebert StiftungIndia told The Diplomat, drawing attention to Chinas significant investment in both Iran and the Central Asian region for years, especially in the infrastructure sector.
This investment in internal and trans-border road and rail connectivity has resulted in a massive network that connects China with different parts of Asia and Europe. There is, for instance, the roughly 13,000 km-long railway line the worlds longest linkingYiwu with Madrid.
Thus the Yiwu-Tehran railway is just one of the many projects that enhance regional connectivity, bringing together China, Central Asia, the Persian Gulf and West Asia, observes Bhatnagar.
Pointing to its significance, he said it is the most recent example that proves that Chinas OBOR initiative is not just a pipe dream or something that exists only on paper. It confirms that creating the vast network that the OBOR envisages is actually possible with China at the helm.
Additionally, the Yiwu-Tehran railway lays bare the shortcomings of the narrative on Afghanistans possible emergence as trade and transit hub. It shows that regional integration in Central Asia is possible despite instability in Afghanistan and that China does not need Afghanistan to access the Persian Gulf and beyond, Bhatnagar pointed out, adding that Beijing has direct connectivity with Central Asia and can use its existing transport network to fulfill its larger strategic goals.
Analysts have compared Chinas OBOR project through Iran to the one that runs via Pakistan. Unlike theChina Pakistan Economic Corridor(CPEC), which runs through Pakistans insurgency-wracked Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan provinces, the route via Iran facesfewer security threats, argues C Raja Mohan, a noted Indian strategic affairs analyst. What is more, while building a railway over the Karakorams is a major engineering challenge, Chinas Iran corridor only needs to modernize the existing road and rail links between China, Central Asia and Iran. The Iran route thus has more chances of success than the CPEC route to the Arabian Sea, he points out.
Bhatnagar rules out competition between the two routes. The Iran route does not undermine CPEC, he says. The routes are complimentary in nature and all part of the broader OBOR initiative, he argued, adding that the projects will help in creating a broader network of roads, railways and pipelines that would benefit China majorly but the region as a whole as well.
India will be watching Chinas OBOR infrastructure-building in Iran closely. Hitherto, it has responded warily to the OBOR initiative in general, opposing it as a unilateral Chinese initiative that Beijing is pursuing in its own strategic objectives. Indian opponents of the OBOR have described the Maritime Silk Route, for instance, as a benign-sounding new namefor Beijings string of pearls strategy to encircle India.
Rather than reject the OBOR in its entirely or embrace it unquestioningly, some like former Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran suggest a more nuanced approach that involves participation in those components of the OBOR which may, in fact, improveIndias own connectivityto major markets and resource supplies, while having no truck with projects that runagainst Indian interests.
Thus India should not participate in CPEC, which runs through Gilgit-Baltistan, over which India has territorial claims. However, it should work with Iran and China to develop Irans trade and transport infrastructure. Instead of seeing Chabahar [port] as an Indian rival to Chinas Gwadar project in Pakistan, Delhi should offer towork with Tehran and Beijingto develop Irans ports and enhance its road and rail connectivity, Saran argues.
This would be in Indias interest, as it has been eyeing overland access via Iran to Central Asian markets for some time now. With Tehran poised to emerge as an important transit hub in the Asia-Europe trade, India would gain overland access to Europe as well.
This article was written bySudha Ramachandran for The Diplomat on March 30,2016.Dr.SudhaRamachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore, India. She writes on South Asian political and security issues and can be contacted atsudha.
# Tags
