China-Europe Sea-Land Express Passages and the Balkans as the Pivot of the Belt-and-Road Transportation Network

In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in Sino-European trade. Transportation is thus an issue of concern, and is a major drive behind the China Belt-and-Road cross-border transportation cooperation initiative. In this sense, the Balkans in Southeast Europe, with its very important geopolitical position, has great potential for connecting up the Eurasian markets and further promoting Sino-European trade. On December 17, 2014, the prime ministers of China, Serbia, Hungary and Macedonia reached an agreement to develop a new trans-continental transportation passage, namely, the China-Europe sea-land express passage, using the Hungary-Serbian railway as the basis. Given the benefit to the general public, transportation infrastructure is usually economically inclusive and politically well accepted, and therefore should be studied from both geopolitical and geo-economic respects. Prudent study of the status and insufficiency of current freight transportation passages is meaningful in both theory and practice. So too is an objective assessment of both the risks and prospects of building of a new passage.

Cross-border freight transportation serves as a linchpin for China's Belt-and-Road strategy.This paper advocates for the building of a China-Europe sea-land express passage.It discusses in detail related issues including the background to the situation,the infrastructure,railway technological standards,the current status,and so on.The author tries to leverage increasing attention for the role of the Balkans in the suggested multimodal transportation.The immediate task is to complete in a timely manner the Hungary-Serbia railway and its extensions,as these would be an acid test in terms of risk assessment and avoidance capability for relevant Chinese companies.