China-Europe Express: Opening a new chapter of cross-regional cooperation

In 2024, the 500th anniversary of Da Gama’s death, the Cape of Good Hope route he discovered set off a new wave. This is the 13th year since the birth of the China-Europe Express. On the morning of November 15, the X8083 China-Europe Express (Chongqing-Duisburg) departed from Chongqing Tuanjiecun Station. The whistle sounded, announcing that the cumulative number of China-Europe Express trains has exceeded 100,000.

To use a more shocking data, 100,000 China-Europe trains mean 10 million TEUs and a cargo value of over 420 billion US dollars. Comparing this data horizontally, the total output value of Russia’s foreign trade in 2023 ranks 16th in the world, about 432.91 billion US dollars. This shows the important role that China-Europe trains will play in the world’s economic and trade. In the 13 years that 100,000 China-Europe trains have been running on the railway, running not only the power of internal combustion engines, but also the new cooperation pursuit of the world to cope with the economic downturn; burning not only energy, but also the sparks of friendship and trust between China and Europe in decades of active cooperation.

“Three channels” and “five ports”, from Alashankou, Khorgos to Madrid and Hamburg. The legend of Yanshan cavalry and Attila’s horseback no longer spans the Eurasian continent. The horse hoof prints of the Silk Road are ground into tracks by the gravel sand. The silence of thousands of horses is finally suppressed by the train whistle: the pastoral idyll of Chi Lechuan is still there, and the 95 theses are still on the door of Wittenberg Church. Chinese and European civilizations bid farewell to the fantasy of the Celestial Empire and the sun never sets. In the 21st century, each of them chose to start a new and world-renowned economic and cultural exchange in a way of mutual respect.

When we look back at the growth process of the China-Europe Express, the China-Europe Express is constantly accelerating. This progress is the continuous expansion of the channel network. From the first “Yuxin Line” to 93 railway transportation networks covering the entire Eurasian continent; this is a qualitative leap in operation, from a total of 1,702 trains running in a unified manner to more than 1,600 trains running in a single month; it is also based on the exponential rise in economic significance after scientific and technological progress: the proportion of high-tech and high-value-added goods has increased year by year. This is a new attempt under the China-Europe mutually beneficial and win-win model: people can receive products from various countries in Eurasia at home, which greatly enriches the consumption choices of people in various countries along the route, and is also conducive to cultural and economic exchanges in various places. It is undoubtedly an excellent example of a cooperation model under the new form of the world.

It is reported that the China-Europe Express runs at a speed of over 120 km/h. Compared with the traditional sea freight route across the Cape of Good Hope and the long journey across the Mediterranean Sea, it saves about half of the running time and avoids the relatively complex situation in the Middle East, which is undoubtedly safer. On the other hand, the operating cost of the China-Europe Express is less than one-fifth of that of air transport, which means that the China-Europe Express has the potential to undertake a large part of the transportation functions in the daily transportation between Asia and Europe.

As the cooperation among countries in the railway network continues to deepen, the customs clearance process continues to be simplified, and the customs clearance efficiency is rapidly improved, we can predict that the China-Europe Express will highly promote the economic and trade operations of Asia and Europe, and drive the countries along the route to enjoy the dividends brought by industrial development together with China’s “Belt and Road” plan.

China’s development will bring new opportunities to the world. China’s “persistence in expanding high-level opening up to the outside world” in economic development is destined to develop in a direction of higher quality, better efficiency and greater safety. The China-Europe Express will continue to broaden the happy lives of people from all countries and bring the China-Europe Express to the world, happiness, and the beautiful blueprint of a community with a shared future for mankind.