A major railway project connecting China and Central Asia is set to begin construction in July, after over two decades of negotiation.
Spanning more than 400 kilometers, the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway project, or CKU, is planned to start in Kashgar City in China’s northwestern Xinjiang autonomous region, pass through the Torugart Pass into Kyrgyzstan, continue west through the Kyrgyz border city of Jalalabad, and end in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan, according to Chinese state media.
Construction of the railway was stalled for more than 20 years by financing and technical issues and attempts by Russia and Kazakhstan to dissuade Beijing from funding the project, some regional observers told VOA.
However, analysts say regime changes in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan since 2016 and Russia’s Ukraine war have paved the way for the three countries to agree on starting the construction.
While Uzbekistan had been concerned with some of the issues that had come up with the project, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev's government “is opening up to the project since it has been something that Uzbekistan has been planning for decades,” said Temur Umarov, a Central Asia specialist at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, in Berlin.
He said Kyrgyzstan was “skeptical” about the CKU under the previous administration because some political elites benefited from Kyrgyzstan’s geographic advantage of being between China and other Central Asian countries that do not border China. These people would “sell some products from China to those Central Asian countries,” he told VOA by phone.
“But the current Kyrgyz president, Sadyr Japarov, has talked about the project since his early days in office and it is one of the most important political projects to his presidency,” Umarov added.
In addition to the Uzbek and Kyrgyz governments’ changing attitudes, other experts say the Ukraine war has prompted China and Central Asian countries to seek new transit routes to Europe.
Landlocked Central Asia’s trade mainly goes through Russia and most of China’s trade with Europe under its Belt and Road Initiative also goes through Russia, Edward Lemon, a China-Central Asia relations specialist at Texas A&M University, said.
“All three countries are seeking alternatives, including greater trade among themselves and other routes via Iran and the Middle Corridor across the Caspian Sea. The railway forms part of those routes,” he told VOA in a written response.
The Middle Corridor refers to the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route that starts in Turkey and passes through the Caucasus region, the Caspian Sea, Central Asia and Western China. It is the shortest route between western China and Europe.
The railway project is one of several railway projects under China’s Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, a global infrastructure project including more than 150 countries and 32 international organizations. In Southeast Asia, China is trying to build the Kunming–Singapore Railway, also known as the Pan-Asia Railway, which would include three routes linking Kunming to Singapore via Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia through connections with previously existing rail lines in those countries.
Under the current plan for CKU, China will build the Chinese section of the railway, and Uzbekistan will focus on upgrading its section. A joint venture authorized by the three countries, CKU Railway Co., will help finance and build the Kyrgyz section of the railway.
Leaders from China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan praised the project prospects last month.
During a Dec. 27 commencement ceremony in the Kyrgyz city of Jalalabad, Chinese President Xi Jinping said in his congratulatory letter that the CKU should be made into a “new demonstration project for Belt and Road cooperation” that would “contribute to the economic and social development and the improvement of people's well-being in the region.”
Kyrgyzstan’s president, Sadyr Japarov, who attended the ceremony, described the project as “a strategic bridge” that will “strengthen inter-regional ties” and enhance Central Asia’s competitiveness as an international transport and transit hub.
In his remarks, read by Deputy Prime Minister for Trade and Investment Jamshid Khodjaev, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said CKU would “further expand multifaceted cooperation and strengthen the strategic partnership among our countries.”
Umarov said Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan could both benefit from the CKU.
“Uzbekistan used to rely on Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan as the middlemen in trade with China but now with the railway, it would be much easier for them to export products to the Chinese market,” he told VOA.
“Kyrgyzstan could use the project to resolve its domestic connectivity issues and this will lead to growing economic opportunities in the cities that the railway would go through,” he added.
As for China, Umarov thinks the railway project could allow Beijing to "be more present in Central Asia from the trade and economic perspective, which is part of Beijing’s strategy to deepen relations with countries in the region.”
Some Chinese analysts say CKU could also play a crucial role in connecting Asia and Europe. Zhang Hong, a research fellow at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told China’s state-run tabloid Global Times that CKU “represents a significant opportunity for enhancing cooperation between Asia and Europe, as it will probably offer the shortest route for transporting goods from China to Europe and the Middle East via the China-Europe freight train.”
In addition to increasing presence in Central Asia, experts say China will try to use CKU to promote and advance the BRI, which has struggled to attract more countries.
“The current BRI projects in place are not doing well and some have been facing a lot of delays,” said Niva Yau, an expert on China-Central Asia relations at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub.
“At such a time, signing on this project helps remind people what the BRI is about,” she told VOA by phone, adding that the initiation of CKU also helps maintain China’s image as a provider to Central Asia.
Despite these benefits, Yau and Umarov both said there are still some problems facing construction of CKU. “They are building a railway across mountains that requires drilling of tunnels and sophisticated technologies that only China has domestically,” Yau said.
“We're talking about a pathway in Kyrgyzstan, which does not even have [electricity] or waterways or any of those things. Various basic things have not even met the conditions yet,” she added.
In addition to technical problems, Umarov said the project could make Kyrgyzstan overindebted to China.
Kyrgyzstan’s debt to China is about one-third of its gross domestic product “and relying more on Chinese investment on this big project will definitely be a big challenge for its economy,” he told VOA.
Lemon said while China could boost its image in Central Asia through CKU, Russia may feel further excluded from the region once the project is completed.
“Central Asia’s dependence on Russia as a transit country for trade has been key to its leverage over the region. But in the end, as it is distracted with the war in Ukraine and in desperate need of allies in the region, there isn’t much [Russia] can really do about it,” he told VOA.
