TheNew Eurasian Land Bridge, also called theSecond orNew Eurasian Continental Bridge, is the southern counterpart to theEurasian Land Bridge and runs throughChina andCentral Asia with possible plans for expansion intoSouth andWest Asia. The Eurasian Land Bridge system is important as an overland rail link betweenChina andEurope, with transit between the two viaCentral Asia andRussia. In the light of theRussian invasion of Ukraine, China halted further investments in the part of the bridge that was planned to go through Russia.[1] After the war began, theTrans-Caspian International Transport Route began to actively develop, which passes through the countries of Central Asia, theCaspian Sea and the countries of theSouth Caucasus, bypassing Russia.
Due to abreak-of-gauge betweenstandard gauge used in China and theRussian gauge used in the formerSoviet Union countries, containers must be physically transferred from Chinese to Kazakh railway cars atDostyk andKhorgos on theChinese–Kazakh border and again at theBelarus–Poland border where the standard gauge used in western Europe begins. This is done with truck-mounted cranes.[2] Chinese media often states that the New Eurasian Land/Continental Bridge extends fromLianyungang toRotterdam, a distance of 11,870 kilometres (7,380 mi). The exact route used to connect the two cities is not always specified in Chinese media reports, but appears to usually refer to the route which passes throughKazakhstan.
All rail freight from China across the Eurasian Land Bridge must pass north of theCaspian Sea throughRussia at some point. A proposed alternative would pass throughTurkey andBulgaria,[3] but any route south of the Caspian Sea must pass through Iran,[2] although China is (as of 2020) working on the details of the construction of a proposed railway bridge across the Caspian Sea betweenAzerbaijan andKazakhstan.[4] A Finnish company has started a route from China via Kazakhstan that crosses the Caspian Sea by ship to Azerbaijan then by rail to Georgia and across the Black Sea to Romania and the rest of Europe. The new route bypasses Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.[5] This route across the Caspian Sea is calledTrans-Caspian International Transport Route.
Kazakhstan's PresidentNursultan Nazarbayev urged Eurasian and Chinese leaders at the 18th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to construct the Eurasian high-speed railway (EHSRW) following a Beijing-Astana-Moscow-Berlin route.[6]
On 7 November 2019 the first Chinese freight train through theMarmaray tunnel to Europe ran, fromXi'an using a Chinese locomotive. This demonstrated a China-to-Turkey transportation time reduced from a month to 12 days, and is part of theIron Silk Road.[7]
In 2024, the route through Belarus into Poland carried about 90% of all China–EU rail freight. The rail bridge carried about 3.7% of all EU-China trade, with a goods value of about€25 billion (US$27 billion).[8]
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