The New Silk Road, or how China wants to unite everyone. Why Russia does not fit into the Chinese New Silk Road project

A freight train carrying dozens of carriages arrives at Alashankou Station in China's Xinjiang Uyghur region. Here the locomotive and cars will be removed from the rails and moved to a wider platform. A few hours later, the train with different wheels, but the same cargo, ends up in the village of Dostyk in the Alma-Ata region of Kazakhstan.

From here the train will have to travel west for more than a week: through all of Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus, to eventually reach the European Union. This is what the New Silk Road looks like - a unique trade route that connected the western regions of China with Russia and Europe. The thousand-year trading history has received its technological continuation.

By sea - cheaper, by land - faster

Since the time of Marco Polo, the bulk of goods from China to Europe have been transported by ship. Path through the Yellow Sea, Indian Ocean, the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea have proven their reliability and accessibility: Chinese entrepreneurs are accustomed to loading everything into containers that arrive in Europe a month and a half later.

The 21st century has given the system a real test of strength. Fast Internet, the development of aviation and other signs of the modern world have turned the 50-day delivery period from “quite normal” to “too slow”. People in Asia and Europe began to look for alternative ways to send goods.

The obvious solution was the Great Silk Road - the historical route along which China and Europe exchanged knowledge and goods even before our era. Now the western regions of China, Kazakhstan and Russia are located on the site of the traditional nomadic road. All these countries are desperate to establish cooperation, which is hampered by poor regional connectivity and a lack of transport infrastructure.

In such conditions, the creation of one of the most large-scale projects of the 21st century began - the New Silk Road. These are roads and railways that unite the transport systems of several states into a common network. It turned out that delivery by land from Chinese Lianyungang to German Duisburg or Dutch Rotterdam takes only two weeks - three times shorter sea ​​route.

The idea turned out to be so attractive that at the “One Belt, One Road” international summit, more than 30 heads of state, including Vladimir Putin and Nursultan Nazarbayev, came to visit Chinese leader Xi Jinping. At this forum, politicians agreed to build a global transport corridor that will connect China with Western countries. By 2030, China will invest $3 trillion in this project. It is expected that in a few years almost 100 Eurasian states will join the construction of the New Silk Road.

All roads lead to Kazakhstan

IN Soviet times the key transport artery for the Asian part of the country was Trans-Siberian Railway- perhaps the most famous and longest railway on the planet. Cargo continues to flow along this road, but the isolation of the Trans-Siberian Railway within Russia scares off Chinese partners. The main reason is the long length of the route. The Trans-Siberian Railway neatly skirts all border areas, which makes the journey along this route too long.

Calculations have shown that laying a route through Kazakhstan speeds up the delivery of goods by at least a third. In addition, China is actively developing its western provinces, which need new markets. The Trans-Siberian Railway is connected only to the eastern regions of China, which means that connecting the western regions to existing rails will still require a new road. And it also goes through Kazakhstan.

The strategic location of Kazakhstan between Europe and Asia predetermined the key role of this country in the New Silk Road project. Whatever route was discussed, Kazakhstan always remained in the spotlight - and in the end received two alternative roads on its territory. The distance of the international rally-raid “Silk Road” covers several options: participants in this race annually test different methods of transport communication between Russia and China.

The southern route takes trains to the Caspian Sea, from where cargo is delivered to Baku via Aktau (formerly Aktyubinsk). There, Chinese goods are again loaded onto the wagons, and the train continues its march west through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. This branch of the New Silk Road is good for the countries of Southern Europe. However, dependence on a sea crossing across the Caspian Sea makes the route vulnerable: too many transfers negatively affect the commercial attractiveness of the project.

Russia closes the northern version of the New Silk Road: here cargo goes through Yekaterinburg, Moscow and further to the west. The system has been developed and is functioning successfully - cargo transportation turnover amounts to tens of thousands of tons. The main obstacle is the different train gauges in China and the CIS. The parties did not agree on the creation of identical rails for freight trains, and therefore, every time the border between China and Kazakhstan is crossed, the locomotive has to be moved from a narrow platform to a wide one.

However, there is another option for the overland route - along a regular asphalt road. The Russian part of such a route occupies 3.8 thousand km: especially for the New Silk Road in Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and other regions through which the route passes, a new road surface is being laid that is resistant to regular heavy-duty flights.

Super-fast camels

The existing versions of the New Silk Road are far from the final point in the revival of the historical route. Right now, working groups in China, Kazakhstan and Russia are creating a project for high-speed communication between the three countries. Superfast trains already operate in all three countries, but for now they only operate on domestic passenger routes. For example, in China you can take an ultra-high-speed train from Beijing to Tianjin, and in Russia from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod.

Such trains do not yet travel across the border - this requires large investments in the construction of new infrastructure. Perhaps this is the main difficulty that still helps sea transportation to maintain its dominance over land delivery methods. Ships from China continue to sail around the Arabian Peninsula and land at European ports. To defeat such a competitor, the New Silk Road will take time. The time it already saves at every stage of cargo transportation.

The route should become fully operational after the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway (Turkey) is put into operation. In mid-October, the head of Azerbaijan Railways CJSC, Javid Gurbanov, called the delivery date November 2016. For now, cargo containers from China delivered to the Kazakh port of Aktau and then on to Baku will proceed from there to the ports of Georgia, and then be transported by container ships to Turkey.

The trial launch of the route took place back in February 2015, Garibashvili spoke at the Tbilisi forum of the “Silk Road Economic Belt” in September. In July, the Nomadexpress test container train traveled along the route Shihezi (China) - Dostyk (Kazakhstan) - Aktau - Alyat (Azerbaijan), covering 3.5 thousand km through Kazakhstan and the Caspian Sea in five days. It delivered flat cars designed to transport 82 containers weighing 20 tons each.

“The Trans-Asian-Caucasian train can reduce travel time by five times compared to sea transportation. If, for example, sea transport from China requires 40-45 days, then along the new railway route cargo will arrive from China to Georgia within nine days,” he indicated in his report “The Role of Transport and Transit Corridors in Ensuring International Cooperation for sustainable development" (*.pdf) in September this year by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. In the document, he referred to data provided, among other things, by the Georgian government.

In November of this year, cooperation went further: in Istanbul, representatives of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, China and Turkey established a joint consortium to transport goods from China to Europe, bypassing Russia. The enterprise included Mishgeng Logistics (China), the Kazakh subsidiary of KTZ Express (the Kazakhstan Temir Zholy railway company), the Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping Company, the Azerbaijani Karvan Logistics and Trans Caucasus Terminals (a subsidiary of the Georgian Railway). Türkiye is represented in the consortium as an associate member. The train that arrived in Tbilisi from China on Sunday was the first test train; the railway operator was a consortium.

As Igbal Huseynov, deputy head of Azerbaijan Railways, suggests, up to 54 million tons of cargo per year can pass along the trans-Caspian route. By 2020, up to 300-400 thousand containers could be delivered to Turkey and Europe this way, he said at the beginning of December at a conference in Odessa. From 2016, the consortium expects to begin transporting goods through Ukraine to Northern and Eastern Europe— the governor of the Odessa region, Mikheil Saakashvili, insists on using the capacity of the Odessa port.

Silk nets

The Trans-Caspian route is not the only promising railway route from China to Europe in development. Since 2011, communication has been established between the Chinese Chongqing and the German Duisburg: total length The route is 11.2 thousand km, and before reaching Germany, the Chinese train passes through the territory of Kazakhstan, Russia and Poland. Since the launch of communication in this direction, China has transported goods worth a total of $2.5 billion along it. A total of 11 Chinese cities, the largest industrial hubs, have freight rail connections with Europe.

The impetus for the development of infrastructure projects was given by the ambitious concept of the “Silk Road Economic Belt”, formulated by Chinese President Xi Jinping in September 2013 during his tour of the countries Central Asia.

This concept involves the development of economic cooperation on the continent through the construction of transport infrastructure. Increasing its efficiency, coupled with the elimination of trade barriers, should lead to an increase in the volume of mutual trade in the region, as well as increase the role of national currencies, primarily the Chinese yuan, in mutual economic transactions. In addition, the implementation of infrastructure projects should give impetus to the development of China's sparsely populated and economically lagging inland provinces, from Inner Mongolia to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

To develop infrastructure projects, at the initiative of China, a $40 billion Silk Road Fund was established, co-founded by the Central Bank of China, other state banks and state corporations.

Beijing is placing its main bet on railway communication - this industry has been chosen as the main export industry. “It is expected that railways will be the locomotive for increasing the export of Chinese high-tech equipment,” wrote (*.pdf) Deputy Director of IMEMO RAS Vasily Mikheev, Sector Head of the same institute Sergei Lukonin and Korean researcher Jae Sung Hong.

Following the Chinese railway workers, equipment manufacturers should come to the regions, software, providers of engineering and other services, as well as banks, insurance and other companies, experts describe the expansion strategy of the PRC.

“The Silk Road strategy is a strategy to stimulate Chinese exports,” Jonathan Holslag, a professor at the Free University of Brussels, explained to RBC. — Most railways and infrastructure projects built with Chinese assistance serve integral part a trade model in which China has a trade surplus and other countries have trade deficits.” Beijing will work on this strategy for the next 10-15 years.

In addition, according to Mikheev and his colleagues, the tasks of the Silk Road also include ensuring China’s energy security - the country is highly dependent on energy supplies. Thus, in 2013, according to estimates of the Ministry of Land and natural resources China, China's dependence on oil supplies was 57%, and by 2020 this figure could rise to 66% with the prospect of further increase.

At the end of 2013, according to official data, China imported 280 million tons of oil. Of these, 10.17 million tons (86 million barrels) were in Kazakhstan. The raw materials were supplied through a pipeline connecting Central Kazakhstan and North-West China, its length is 745 km. In 2013, Turkmenistan provided 52% of China's gas needs. In 2014, China bought up to 100 billion cubic meters. m of gas from the Central Asian states. In the spring of 2014, it became known that the Chinese oil and gas company CNPC intends to invest $4 billion in an industrial zone in the south of Turkmenistan.

The Russian government this week approved an intergovernmental agreement with China on the purchase of a 9.9% stake in Yamal LNG from NOVATEK, said the head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service Igor Artemyev. The buyer was the Silk Road Fund.

Together with Gazprom

In addition, China cooperates with the Russian Gazprom. In May, the head of Gazprom, Alexey Miller, and the vice-president of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), Wang Dongjin, signed an agreement on the basic conditions for gas supplies from Russia to China via the western route.

The framework agreement on supplies via the western route was signed in November 2014 and provides for the annual supply of 30 billion cubic meters to China. m of gas from fields Western Siberia via the Altai gas pipeline.

Place of Russia

The “Silk Road” and the concept of Eurasian integration promoted by Russia on the basis of the Eurasian economic union, despite all the mutual assurances from Beijing and Moscow, can hardly be considered complementary. The Chinese leadership constantly emphasizes that the project implies exclusively economic cooperation and does not aim at any political integration.

Economically, the interests of the two projects are already colliding. Thus, in Beijing, the CIS created on the initiative of Moscow is causing concern. Customs Union(TS, in addition to Russia, it includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan). The formation of uniform tariffs for the import of Chinese products into these countries may negatively affect the prospects for growth in the volume of mutual trade between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan with China. As experts from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development calculated back in 2012, an increase in tariffs by 2% could lead to a reduction in Chinese imports to the CU countries by 2-3%.

As IMEMO notes, the CU is gradually tightening its trade regime with China. In recent years, the Eurasian Economic Commission has repeatedly launched investigations against Chinese manufacturers, imposing anti-dumping duties on them. In 2015 alone, the EEC introduced anti-dumping duties on, among other things, Chinese seamless steel pipes (used for drilling and operating oil and gas wells), truck tires, flat cold-rolled stainless steel products, crawler bulldozers and citric acid.

At the same time, Russia has been losing economic competition to China in Central Asia for several years now. The volume of bilateral trade between China and the countries of Central Asia in 2013 amounted to $50.3 billion, in 2014 against the backdrop of an economic slowdown - $46 billion. At the same time, last year Beijing approved the allocation of an investment package of $30 billion to Astana, Tashkent received a $15 billion deal , the total amount of economic assistance to Kyrgyzstan amounted to $3 billion.

The volume of Russian investments in the region in 2013-2014 amounted to only $15 billion, and the volume of trade turnover, according to Rosstat and the Federal Customs Service, was $30.5 billion in 2013 and $27.8 billion in 2014.

IMEMO experts believe that one of the challenges of the Chinese project is the final transformation of Russia into “player No. 2” in this region. “For the first time, Russia finds itself in the role of a follower player, that is, China will more firmly defend its economic interests,” they argue.

Even the very development of the region’s railway network in the forms in which Beijing sees it can significantly affect the prospects for the inclusion of the Far Eastern regions of Russia in economic cooperation with Europe. “In the event of the likely passage of the main railway line of the Silk Road through Russian territory through Orenburg or Chelyabinsk, the rest of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the BAM will remain unused. Kazakhstan will receive the majority of transit payments,” IMEMO experts say.

One-man theater

But it is too early to talk about transport and infrastructure breakthroughs in China. In 2014, China's bilateral trade volume with the European Union, according to the European Commission, amounted to €466 billion ($619 billion at the average annual rate). Of this, rail transportation ordered by cargo owners, according to Chinese customs authorities, accounted for only $4.9 billion, The South China Morning Post indicated in November.

Due to many factors, rail communication along this route is unprofitable and inferior to sea transportation, says RBC Stapran. As The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) notes, railroads will never replace shipping. A train can carry at most several hundred containers, while container ships can carry a load of 18 thousand containers.

The maximum cargo weight of a typical 40-foot container is 9.6 tons. The cost of transporting such a container by rail is $8 thousand. Transporting the same container by sea would cost about $3 thousand, and delivering an equivalent cargo by air would cost $37 thousand, calculated specialized publication JOC.com.

“The tradeoff between price and speed makes rail shipments viable for high-value goods China exports to Europe, such as laptops, or imports from there, such as car components,” the WSJ noted. In the case of the Chongqing-Duisburg route, China, for example, supplies components for Hewlett Packard products.

Moreover, Stapran argues, if we take the Silk Wind project, then at present this direction is not equipped with the appropriate infrastructure, for example, unloading terminals. “A long road is only a hundredth part of what is needed for efficient and profitable transportation of goods. For now, this can only be considered as a pilot project,” the expert tells RBC.

SCMP concludes that the Silk Road has had a "slow start" so far. Logistics companies have faced difficulties in European cities filling empty containers with goods exported from EU countries. According to China Railways, in the first half of 2015, 200 trains were sent from China to Europe, and only 50 arrived back with cargo.

“Only a few containers are returned within a month, we can’t even fill the train,” the publication quotes Gong Qinghua, sales director of one of the freight carriers operating on the Yiwu (Zheqiang Province) - Madrid route. Eight full trains a month depart from this industrial city specializing in the production of souvenirs towards Spain. There is simply no demand for European products in Yiwu, says Gong.

Another factor is the structure of European imports to China: while it is easy to deliver consumer goods by rail to the EU, deliveries of European heavy engineering products by rail cannot be carried out in the opposite direction. According to the European Commission (*.pdf), in the structure of Chinese exports to the EU in 2014, 12.3% were textile goods (second position after engineering products - 46.6%), and another 9.2% were “various finished products " The European Union exported primarily machinery and equipment (31.8%), and secondarily transport equipment (26.3%). The wariness of Europeans towards Chinese logistics companies also plays a role, SCMP cites the opinion of the head of the consulting company Silk Route Rail, Darryl Hadaway.

According to Li Gang, a fellow at the Institute of European Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, rail travel between China and Europe will not be commercially profitable for at least the next three to four years. Until now, this mega-project has been a “one-man show” for Beijing, but the Silk Road is a long-term strategy for China, says Li Gang. According to him, the potential of China's railway connection with Europe is enormous, since relations between China and the EU are "entering a golden era."

With the participation of Alexander Ratnikov

In September, maintenance of the new railway will begin from Baku (Alyat port) through Tbilisi to the Turkish city of Kars. The length of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) highway was 826 km. Construction of this line began back in 2008. And they wanted to finish it in three years, but they are only finishing it now. In July of this year, the start of a test drive of the railway was finally officially announced, reports the Turkish publication Daily Sabah.

BTK is expected to begin full operation at the end of 2017 or early 2018. And it should become an integral part of the “New Silk Road” - the Chinese mega-project “One Belt - One Road”, designed to connect China with a high-speed and safe trade corridor with Europe.

In the first years of operation, the highway is expected to transport 1 million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo; at the second stage, the volume of cargo transportation can reach 17-20 million tons and up to 2 million passengers per year.

Georgia: they don’t skimp on ambitions

The idea of ​​building the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway was discussed back in the 90s of the last century, after the collapse of the USSR. Implementation began only in November 2007 from the territory of Georgia. The project was launched at a ceremony with the participation of the presidents of the three participating countries.

The then President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, immediately characterized the project as a “great geopolitical revolution” and linked it with China.

Saakashvili said that “all Chinese cargo that arrives today in Europe through Russian territory will go along this road.” On initial stage It was planned to transport no more than 4-5 million tons along this road. This called into question the profitability of the entire project. But Saakashvili assured his partners that he would help Kazakhstan out. Allegedly, Astana decided to redirect 10 million tons of cargo going to Europe through Russia and Belarus to this section.

The Georgian part of the highway is the road from Tiflis to Kars, which was built by order of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II. For the new construction of a railway here, Georgia took a loan from Azerbaijan. The volume of the credit line is $775 million. The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan issued the first tranche in the amount of $200 million for 20 years to Georgians at a symbolic 1% per annum.

The second tranche in 2011 of $575 million already cost 5%, and the repayment period was extended over 25 years. In pre-crisis times, less expensive projects were discussed in Georgia, three times cheaper, but Saakashvili decided not to skimp on his ambitions.

Azerbaijan dreams of becoming Dubai

The most interesting thing is that even after the loan is repaid, Georgia will not have the right to establish a tariff policy on its part of the BTK route. Azerbaijan intends to set exclusive tariffs for the transportation of goods via the BTK, with the unconditional support of Turkey.

Like neighboring Georgia, Azerbaijan is trying to use its geographical position to extract transit rent. But Baku also had to spend money to make the BTK transport corridor effective and attract the attention of the global beneficiary - China. In Azerbaijan, in the same 2007, they decided to expand the bottleneck of the future trade route - sea ​​port in the Caspian Sea.

The existing port in the center of Baku was not suitable for such a role and was moved 65 km from the capital, to the village of Alyat. Now here on an area of ​​20 square meters. km, a port and a terminal for road and rail transport are being built for container transportation. Alyat also became a free trade zone. The new Baku port will be the largest logistics center connecting China with Europe, East with West.

The Alyat Free Port is being created following the model of the Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZA) in Dubai. There it is not just a transport hub, but a whole conglomeration with industrial enterprises, banks, residential sector. The first part of the Alyat project is designed to transport 10 million tons of cargo and 50 thousand TEU (20-foot equivalent container capacity). The second part of the project, starting in 2017, will increase the port’s capacity to 17 million tons of cargo and 150 thousand TEU.

The master plan for the Alyat port was developed by the Dutch Royal HaskoningDHV, taking into account the experience of the largest European ports - Rotterdam and Hamburg. The project consultant is DP World, which participated in the development of a special economic zone Khorgos in Kazakhstan. Khorgos is also considered part of the New Silk Road project.

Transit rent beckons

The completion of the highway to Turkish Kars means that the route from China to Europe has now become more convenient, because there is no need to transship goods across the Black Sea. A railway connection has already been established from Kars to the border with Europe (via Greece and Bulgaria).

Almost every country whose geographic location allows it dreams of making money on the transit of goods from China to Europe. Not only Azerbaijan or Turkey, not only Russia or Kazakhstan, Mongolia, but also Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine would like to take over the “Silk Road”. Last year, Ukrainian Railways announced the launch of trains to China, bypassing Russia.

Ukrainian railway workers promised to deliver cargo to the border with the EU in 11 days. But in the end it took 15 and a half days for delivery.

China will try to be friends with all countries that may be geographically related to the New Silk Road project, promising to fill the routes with goods, notes InfraNews CEO Alexey Bezborodov.

So far, Russia has outperformed Azerbaijan and Turkey due to the relative cheapness of transportation.

In addition, their cost is off the charts. It's not profitable. “Today, transporting one container only by sea, on one section - through the Caspian Sea - costs $1,200. For this money you can transport a container from Vladivostok to Moscow,” says Bezborodov.

This is not the UN Security Council

Nevertheless, experts do not rule out that Russia may drop out of the New Silk Road project in the next few years. China is trying to test different ways of transporting goods to Europe and diversify them. Each of them has advantages and disadvantages. Most of the cargo to the EU goes by sea. Overland transport of goods from China accounts for only 5-6% of its cargo. The bulk of them goes along the Russian Trans-Siberian Railway (1.5 million tons) at a cost of $6-7 thousand per container.

“But the problem rests on the Transsib’s congestion with domestic Russian cargo and the low throughput highways. It is difficult to withstand large-scale additional transit from China,” says Mark Goikhman, leading analyst at TeleTrade Group.

The second significant problem for increasing transit through Russia and Kazakhstan to Europe is the speed of movement of freight trains. The average speed on the Trans-Siberian Railway is approximately 12 km/h; there are many “narrow sections” where traffic is slowed down, recalls Goikhman. According to Bezborodov, the speed of container deliveries within China and for export is 40 km/h.

China understands this, but is in no hurry to invest in Russia’s transport infrastructure, experts say.

The Chinese like to say that China and the United States have cool political relations, but hot economic ties. All the largest US trading companies and banks have long been registered in China. With Russia it's the other way around. Ideologically, the two countries are close to each other, which is repeatedly proven, for example, by the results of voting on the UN Security Council agenda. But economic integration is developing with difficulty.

This is not a camel road

“One of the main problems that has happened to Russia in recent years is that it has become a difficult to predict country, with an unpredictable foreign policy,” says Alexei Makarkin, first vice-president of the Center for Political Technologies.

It is not surprising that many of Russia’s partners, even seemingly politically loyal ones, try to keep an eye on them just in case. alternative options, the expert adds. China has now used at least six options for delivering goods to the EU.

The Chinese themselves, when asked what the problem is, why the currently revived “Silk Road” from China to Europe cannot run through neighboring Russian territory, answer philosophically and evasively. “The Silk Road is not a line on a map, not the delivery of goods from point A to point B. “The Silk Road” is not a road with camels,” said the Plenipotentiary Minister of the Chinese Embassy in Russia, a participant, in an interview with Gazeta.Ru Eastern Economic Forum Zhang Di. This is the path to growth and excellence. Anyone has the right to join this path. And Russia is involved in it, the Chinese official reassured.

BEIJING, May 13 - RIA Novosti, Zhanna Manukyan. More than three years have passed since Chinese President Xi Jinping, speaking at Nazarbayev University in Astana, first mentioned the idea of ​​​​creating the Silk Road Economic Belt. During this time, the concept, which is now called “one belt - one road”, became known and talked about in many countries. Moreover, in the coming two days, leaders of about 30 countries, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as more than a thousand experts and representatives of international organizations, will gather in Beijing for a special international forum to discuss ways to implement this idea.

The attitude towards the Chinese concept of building the Silk Road Economic Belt, which still remains quite vague, is ambiguous in the world. China is positioning it as a chance to advance global economic cooperation that will benefit all countries involved. Skeptics see hegemonic plans and a desire to increase their influence in the Chinese initiative, comparing it with the Marshall Plan.

The beginning of the way

In September 2013, when Xi Jinping in his speech, recalling the history of the ancient Silk Road, also spoke about the need to improve cross-border transport infrastructure, about China's readiness to participate in the creation of transport networks connecting East, West and South Asia, which would create favorable conditions For economic development region. The President of the People's Republic of China also spoke about the advisability of simplifying trade and investment rules to eliminate trade barriers and increase the speed and quality of economic transactions in the region.

In general, the idea of ​​the “one belt and road” is to create infrastructure and establish relationships between the countries of Eurasia. It includes two key areas of development: the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road. We are talking about creating a trade corridor for direct supplies of goods from east to west to preferential terms. This economic corridor should connect the Asia-Pacific region in the east with developed European countries in the west. The countries involved have a population of over 3 billion and a total GDP of approximately $21 trillion.

The initiative involves the creation of six component economic corridors: Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar, China-Mongolia-Russia, China-Central Asia-West Asia, China-Indochina Peninsula, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and Eurasian Land Bridge. This goal is expected to be achieved through the construction of roads, ports, bridges and other infrastructure facilities, as well as the conclusion of agreements on free trade zones.

In 2014, China announced that it would allocate $40 billion to create the Silk Road Fund, which would finance Belt and Road projects. In addition, in January 2016, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, initiated by China, began operating in Beijing.

According to Chinese media reports and estimates, since 2013, more than 100 countries and international organizations have responded positively to the initiative. Within its framework, about 50 intergovernmental cooperation agreements were signed. Chinese companies have invested about 50 billion and built 56 trade and economic cooperation zones in 20 Belt and Road countries, creating a total of 180 thousand jobs for residents of these countries.

Deputy Head state committee On the eve of the forum, Ning Jizhe said that China's total overseas investment in the next five years will be about $600-800 billion. At the same time, the bulk of the investment will go to countries along the Belt and Road.

"Pros and cons"

Despite China's seemingly noble goals, some experts call China's Belt and Road Initiative a "modern version of America's Marshall Plan" aimed at spreading its influence and establishing hegemony.

The main publication of the Chinese Communist Party, the People's Daily, in a published commentary in response to this stated that "Western commentators are prejudiced cold war look at the initiative.

“Focused on responsibility, win-win cooperation and sincere pursuit of common development, the Belt and Road Initiative has provided the world with China's answer to today's challenges—a balanced, fair and comprehensive development model...Openness, inclusiveness and mutual benefit are the features of the Belt and Road Initiative “Thanks to which she won the support of the international community,” the publication writes.

Many European countries have openly expressed support for the Belt and Road Initiative, including European diplomacy chief Federica Mogherini and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The UK became the first developed Western economy to express a desire to join the AIIB.

Leaders of several EU countries have confirmed their participation in the upcoming forum. However, as the South China Morning Post writes, citing European diplomats in Beijing, they have little idea what China’s idea means, and agreed to take part in order not to spoil relations and to get more information about the project. "It's been three years since Xi Jinping announced the initiative, but we are still trying to understand what it means and what should we do about it?" — the publication quotes a European diplomat who wished to remain anonymous.

European diplomats, as the publication writes, argue that the leaders of their countries do not have high expectations regarding the outcome of the upcoming summit. They just want to know more about this initiative.

The United States and its main ally in Asia, Japan, remain aloof from the Chinese project. Neither the US nor Japan have joined the AIIB and the leaders of these countries will also not attend the upcoming forum. Only on Friday it became known that the United States had finally decided to send a representative and that he would be a member of the Council national security, responsible for Asia, Matthew Pottinger.

Expert of the international discussion club "Valdai", director of the Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography of Peoples Far East FEB RAS Viktor Larin believes that the “one belt, one road” project still has more geopolitics than economics.

“I believe that the One Belt, One Road project is, first of all, geopolitical, and only then economic. Secondly, as an economic project, it is aimed primarily at the development of the western regions of China. Thirdly, it is too early to wait for specific results, because very little time has passed. The fourth thesis: the project itself, if we take into account Chinese foreign policy concepts, is a continuation of the same policy: Deng Xiaoping’s policy of openness, Jiang Zemin’s policy of “going outward.” As China grows, he we need more and more markets, more and more raw materials. This is the same idea, which today has received a new, quite successful form - “one belt - one road,” Larin told RIA Novosti.

According to the expert, “there is more geopolitics in the Chinese project than economics, because main idea of China's geopolitical doctrines is a peaceful environment, and a peaceful environment can be created first of all economic methods“China is 100% sure of this.” According to Larin, Russia is also interested in this. This is a point of contact. When specific interests appear, they sometimes do not coincide and diverge greatly. However, they are agreed upon during the negotiation process.

Alexander Gabuev, head of the Russia in the Asia-Pacific program at the Carnegie Moscow Center, in turn notes that China is not imposing its project on neighboring countries. “It is based on the fact that China has great economic power, huge capital reserves, vast experience in infrastructure construction, large markets, etc. And it is ready to provide this to the outside world in order to develop together,” he said in the conversation from RIA Novosti Gabuev.

Answering the question whether fears that only China would benefit from the Silk Road project were justified, he expressed the opinion that this would “depend on the skill of the negotiators and on how they know how to defend their economic interests.”

Russia on the Silk Road

In May 2015, the leaders of Russia and China adopted a joint statement on the combination of two concepts - the concept of building the Silk Road economic belt and the concept of developing the Eurasian Economic Union.

Gabuev notes that the Russian side’s expectations from the implementation of the Chinese Silk Road project have not yet been met. “Russia hasn’t seen much in the Belt and Road so far, since all expectations that a lot of cheap money or politically motivated money will come have not come true,” the RIA Novosti expert said.

According to Gabuev, “the only place where large investments came into Russia was the investment in Yamal LNG and Sibur through the Silk Road Fund, but rather China used the fund as a financial wallet, not connected with the global financial system and immune from American sanctions.” . He noted that negotiations are also underway to conclude an agreement to reduce non-tariff barriers between the Eurasian Union and China, but “they (negotiations) will take several years.”

As Larin, in turn, notes, Russia and China have a common idea - cooperation within a single large Eurasia, but specific projects are “difficult.” “It’s harder with specific projects. There are regular, incessant attempts to find one, second, fifth, twentieth points of contact and through specific projects to move towards a greater goal,” he added.

Executive Secretary of the Business Council of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Sergei Kanavsky believes that the project to build a new Silk Road opens up great potential for Russia in the future.

“The potential is huge, the potential is great, interesting. It’s all a question of initiative, of elaboration, of protecting one’s own interests, of finding common ground for synergy and not for disunity,” he said in a conversation with RIA Novosti. At the same time, he recalled that the project is in the development stage, the main development paths are being determined.

In general, Kanavsky noted that the SCO Business Council considers the initiative to create the Silk Road Economic Belt as part of the general trends in Euro-Asian economic cooperation.

The Russian president can take part in the Silk Road summit, which will take place on May 14-15 this year in Beijing. As reported to the press Russian ambassador in China, Andrei Denisov, Vladimir Putin has already received an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Vladimir Putin will presumably take part in the forum while on a working visit to Beijing. The summit will be an integral part of the “One Belt, One Road” strategy, proclaimed by Xi Jinping in 2013 and including the creation of the “Silk Road Economic Belt” and the “Maritime Silk Road of the 21st century.” The main goal of the project is to create a transport and logistics system connecting China with the countries of the Eurasian continent. As experts note, the Russian leader will be the main guest of the May summit in Beijing.

Today, most of the cargo is delivered from China by sea: it is relatively inexpensive, but it takes a long time, at least until the launch of the Northern Sea Route. For example, a sea container ship takes approximately 30-40 days to reach the ports of St. Petersburg.

For recent years Beijing was negotiating with a number of states - potential participants in the project, groping for the most promising routes for land transport. trade route. So far, land transport accounts for only 6% of cargo coming from China, with most of it transported along the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Despite the fact that Russia and China are strategic partners, Beijing is actively testing alternative trade and transport routes that bypass the Russian Federation. This tactic is explained by the desire to diversify transportation routes.

China also expects to stimulate the development of its western regions, which will receive direct access to the markets of transit countries.

Path diagrams

The first and most risky route was to go through Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Turkey. However, these plans of the Chinese leadership were upset by the expansion of the Islamic State*, which spread beyond Syria in 2014. It is possible that Beijing will return in the future to creating a Middle Eastern branch of the Silk Road, but to do this, terrorist activity in the region must first be suppressed.

Another thread of the trade route - the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITM, another name - Silk Wind) - was supposed to stretch through Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey.

The main disadvantage of the route is the presence of two sea crossings - through the Caspian and Black Sea. To optimize travel, the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is being built, the launch of which will eliminate the ferry crossing across the Black Sea. But even one crossing across the Caspian Sea can greatly complicate the passage of goods. According to the most encouraging estimates, the journey along the Silk Wind route may take about two weeks, but any storm in the Caspian Sea can extend this period.

The third route also bypasses Russia - through Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine.

In January last year, a trial train was sent from the port of Chernomorsk (Odessa region) to China. Deputy Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Vladimir Omelyan estimated the duration of the route at 10-12 days (the official even allowed the transit period to be reduced to 9 days in the future), but the train went to China for 15 days, crossing the Caspian and Black Seas on ferries. And this despite the fact that the trial train left Chernomorsk without cargo for faster completion of border procedures.

Another Ukrainian train, sent by the Ukrainian authorities to China at the beginning of 2016, was simply lost on the territory of Kazakhstan. According to media reports, the train was detained in the Karaganda region due to non-payment of transit duties.

As a result, the “Russian” route became the most successful: Kazakhstan - Russia - Belarus - Poland.

Composition loaded Chinese goods, drove through European territory and arrived in London on January 18, 2017, covering 12 thousand kilometers in 18 days without any problems. The success of this direction was quite predictable. There are no sea crossings or mountain ranges on the route; it is also optimal from the point of view of military-political risks - the states through which it runs are not subject to political cataclysms. Another advantage is the membership of Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus in the EAEU: uniform customs rules facilitate the transit of goods across borders.

“Alternative routes turned out to be not very profitable; in this case, the big question remains what goods will travel on trains back to China. This is necessary for the economic loading of transport routes. In this sense, the possibilities of the Russian direction may seem more attractive, for example, we can talk about the supply of raw materials to China,” Vladimir Petrovsky, chief researcher at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, noted in an interview with RT.

Problem points

However, there are problems in trade and economic cooperation between the Russian Federation and China. Even taking into account all the advantages of this cooperation, many issues still require resolution - and not least from the Russian side. In particular, experts note shortcomings in the Russian transport infrastructure. Built under Nicholas II, the Trans-Siberian Railway still remains the main transport hub connecting the eastern and western parts of Russia. The highway is fully loaded with domestic traffic and in its current state it simply cannot withstand the increase in transit flow from China.

“Russia must do very serious work” homework“In particular, it is necessary to modernize both the BAM and the Trans-Siberian Railway; now there are problems with the safety and speed of cargo movement,” says Petrovsky. - Another important aspect— the readiness of the Russian side to participate in the legislative interface project. As an example: the Eurasian Transport Highway project, which should pass through the Orenburg region and the Urals to the West. China has already built its part of the track, but there is no traffic on the Russian side due to imperfections legal norms on public-private partnership for a period of more than 10 years. This is already a matter of strategic planning; there is still a lot to be done.”

The director of the Coordination Center shares a similar point of view International Congress industrialists and entrepreneurs “Economic Belt of the Silk Road” Vladimir Remyga.

“The average speed of trains along the Trans-Siberian Railway is 11.7 km/h, which is the speed of a cyclist. The highway is overloaded, there are many sections where traffic is slowed down,” the expert noted in an interview with RT.

The Trans-Siberian Railway needs investment and modernization, but Beijing can rely on a different route: a high-speed railway has already been built to the border with Kazakhstan, and this year its second part, running through Kazakhstani territory, will be put into operation.

However, despite all the difficulties, both Russia and China are interested in cooperation - we are talking not only about the transit route, but about the comprehensive combination of the Silk Road and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) projects.

For Beijing, cooperation with the EAEU means the Silk Road has reached a fundamentally new level. And Moscow, for its part, is interested in investing in its infrastructure.

“Russia is counting on investments in the development of Russian infrastructure, including transport systems, this is the basis of the economic component of the Silk Road. But these investments will have to be received on a competitive basis; intense joint work will be needed,” noted Vladimir Petrovsky. “Connecting to the Silk Road is a chance for Russia to qualitatively improve its infrastructure, including transport.”

Unified philosophy

In addition, Moscow expects to involve China in its integration projects, the scale of which is not inferior to the Chinese “One Belt, One Road” plan.

• Reuters

In May 2015, the President of Russia and the President of the People's Republic of China signed a joint statement on cooperation within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union and the trans-Eurasian trade and infrastructure project of the Silk Road economic belt. As explained by Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation Yuri Ushakov, the goal of linking integration projects is “to build a common economic space on the entire Eurasian continent.”

As Vladimir Putin explained in the fall of 2016 in an interview with RIA Novosti, in the future, the process of cooperation between the EAEU and the Silk Road could become the basis for the formation of a Greater Eurasian Partnership with the participation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

“This initiative (to combine the EAEU and the Silk Road. — RT.) suggests new approaches to the formation of the world economic order, this is its strength and philosophy. It is noticeably different from American projects, such as the Trans-Pacific and Transatlantic Partnership, where there is one leader - the United States. And the projects of Moscow and Beijing are based on the principles of equality, basic principle- mutual benefit for all participants. We can say that the EAEU and the Silk Road have the same philosophy, and they can complement each other,” emphasized Vladimir Remyga.

* "Islamic State"— terrorist group banned on Russian territory.