In the last two years, China has opened new freight train lines, while cross-border railways have become a feature in high-level meetings with regional leaders.
Those freight lines are in addition to China's relatively older rail network through central Asia —While it's difficult to verify how operational all the rail lines are, official reports offer a glimpse at how China's Belt and Road ambitions are panning out.
"Splitting Europe from the U.S., at least to the extent possible, is an important foreign policy objective for China and deeper economic integration fostered by stronger rail linkages would help," said Stephen Olson, senior research fellow at the Hinrich Foundation. Olson said that while rail could be "game changing" for a landlocked economy such as Laos, the onus is also on the destination country to develop logistics and other infrastructure to fully utilize the new rail lines for trade.Beijing says trade with Belt and Road countries accounts for about one-third of China's overall imports and exports. In the first quarter, that trade grew by 16.8% from a year ago — slower than the 19.
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