China Railway, the state-owned rail-building behemoth, has proposed a high-speed rail link that will carry both passengers and cargo between China and Iran, according to the state-controlled China Daily.
The proposed route, put forward last week at a meeting of the China Civil Engineering Society, would take advantage of the easing of global sanctions against Iran, while also bring Iran closer in to China’s widening economic orbit.
China’s economic influence has been expanding along with president Xi Jinping’s efforts to install a large-scale infrastructure network that connects economies as far apart as Southeast Asia and Western Europe. This is essentially aimed at increasing cross-border trade but, handily, the network puts China at the center of the newly imagined trade map.
The most recently proposed route would begin in Urumqi, the capital of China’s western Xinjiang province, and end in Tehran, the Iranian capital some 3,200 km (2,000 miles) away. Along the way it would stop in Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan:
Central Asia already has rail infrastructure that can move goods between China and the region, but a major problem is that Central Asian countries use a different width of track than China and most of the rest of the world. That means goods can be transported across borders, but that trains must wait for days on certain crossings to change their gauges.
China’s plan is to build a single rail line that relies on a uniform gauge along the whole route. That would cut down the time needed to transport goods and increase the route’s competitiveness against ocean freight alternatives. The trains themselves would run at up to 300 km per hour (185 miles per hour) for passenger trains and 120 km/h for freight trains.
China is not the only country making grand plans for Iran’s soon-to-be liberated economy. Aerospace giant Boeing has discussed its intention to open an office in Tehran once sanctions are lifted, and one unnamed German company has already agreed to build solar power powers in Iran, according to Bloomberg. Oil majors have long been talking with Iran’s oil ministry; it’s conceivable that China’s proposed rail link could also be put to use exporting Iranian oil.