Silk Road 3.0: China’s growing global transportation network

From sea to land, China’s assertive push in transportation boosts their connections to the world with so much efficiency that experts call it the new Silk Road.

According to Quartz media, China is investing $3 trillion on roads, ports, and other important aspects of infrastructure to connect it to 60 countries in three continents in its “One Belt, One Road,” project.

A growing global network of trains, highways, ships and planes continue to solidify China as the new economic superpower. Miles long thoroughfares making it easier to move throughout the East Asian country’s massive territory, to entering into the leisure market, China’s steady economic domination quickens as it dominates transportation initiatives.

Highways and Railways

Last month, China completed the longest sea bridge in the world. A 55-kilometre-long bridge linking Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macao, it took eight years to build and six years of preparation. The bridge reduces travel from Hong Kong to Zhuhi from three hours to 30 minutes, while linking cities long the Pearl River Delta.

Last April, China Railway Corporation, a state-run company, launched the first ever direct train from London to China. The locomotive, named “East Wind,” derives from former Chinese leader Chairman Mao Zedong’s saying, “The East Wind shall prevail over the West.”

A 15-to-17-day journey traveling through seven countries, the freight train transports goods in efforts to strengthen trading relations between China and the UK. London makes number 15, in terms of European cities linked in the freight train network.

In Russia, a Beijing and Moscow train is scheduled to be built with already a Harbin-Hamburg route, the longest freight trek, is in place.

In Africa, China built a railway from Djibouti to Addis Ababa. Now, developers work on a line for Kenya with ambitions to travel as far south as the Democratic Republic of Congo. Already, in Angola, billions of dollars have gone to building highways and other infrastructure.

Sea to Shining Sea

If the land was not enough, China moved to the sea. When Carnival Cruise announced that it would focus on the Asian market in 2018, Chinese shipbuilders expressed interest in the booming cruise liner market. According to China Daily, Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Co Ltd, will deliver the first domestically built cruise liner in 2023.

The transportation boom pushes infrastructure development and bolsters more global partnerships, two underwhelming achievements for the United States.