Lukashenko Has Had Enough

The Chinese launched a route bypassing the Belarusian-Polish border.

"First of all, China lost on transit," said the head of the State Customs Committee Vladimir Orlovsky on Belarusian television last Sunday. In his haste to count the money in the pocket of our strategic ally. And the latter, it seems, has already counted them long ago. And at the end of last week launched a new railroad route to the European Union. The train does not go through Poland. But it doesn't go through Belarus either. And now it's time for Orlovsky's colleague to calculate how much Belarus will lose on the lost transit, writes planbmedia.io.

Mimo Poland and Belarus

The launch of a new route bypassing Belarus and Poland, which recently paralyzed Chinese rail transit to the European Union for nearly two weeks, was reported by Xinhua news agency.

The train, loaded with auto parts, digital devices and FMCG goods, left Xi'an on September 26. It will travel through Kazakhstan and Russia and arrive in St. Petersburg, the state agency informed. And it became one of the big news of the day. In St. Petersburg, the containers are to be transshipped to sea vessels, which will deliver them via the Baltic Sea to Hamburg. And from the German port they will go to other parts of Europe - Duisburg, Budapest, etc.

According to the Xinhua report, "In the future, Xi'an Branch of China State Railway Corporation will increase the frequency of departures, develop new routes and new products in line with market demand, so as to provide sufficient capacity guarantee to build a new development architectonics in Eurasia."

Xian Redistribution

What else should the Belarusian authorities (Polish ones, too) be triggering in the Xinhua report? According to the Eurasian Rail Alliance, which analyzed container traffic in the Eurasian direction (through Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus), in 2024, this direction accounted for 88.6% of the transit container flow between China and the European Union. The value of cargo (leading electrical devices, mechanical equipment, automotive equipment and knitwear) transported along this route grew by 84.9% to reach $29.4 billion. This is 3.7% of China's total trade turnover with Europe.

According to Eurasian Rail Alliance experts, in 2024, 372.6 thousand TEU (twenty-foot equivalent) will be transported in the western direction (China - EU), and 56.9 thousand TEU will be transported in the opposite direction.

So 25% of these cargoes are transported on the Xi'an - Malashevichi route. Xi'an is the main point of Chinese cargo shipment to Europe. It is also the linchpin for receiving European goods in China. Last year, most of all cargoes in the opposite direction traveled in the direction Duisburg - Xi'an (8,730 TEU).

The decision to launch a new route, of course, was not taken as a response to the closure of the border. But it turned out to be appropriate. Of course, the Chinese authorities allowed such an option, especially since almost 85% of their railroad cargoes to Europe pass through Malaszewicze. It is too large a percentage to depend on what is happening there between two neighbors that do not like each other very much.

It is not known how the new route, which has a maritime link, will be justified from the economic point of view, although without the threat of the Houthis, but with an increased cost of services for transportation. But if its effectiveness is proven by Xi'an railroads and logisticians, the example could become contagious for the rest of China's hubs (Chongqing, Chengdu, Zhengzhou, etc.). They also need predictability in the area of the Belarusian-Polish border.

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