And Then There Was One: The Eurasian Unity Project Runs Out of Trade Route Options as Washington Successfully Spreads Chaos

It’s much easier to sabotage rather than build something. Last month the defense ministers from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) met in Kyrgyzstan where China again called for fulfillment of SCO goals to deepen ​defense and security cooperation toward ​Eurasian unity. The aim remains a return to a calmer form of elite win-win neoliberalism (as opposed to US-Zionist dominance) that stretches from southeast Asia to the western shores of Europe. At the moment that looks like a pipe dream as it’s a struggle to keep even the “heartland” secured.

Despite China’s growing industrial and supply chain dominance, this SCO goal remains elusive, and patience might not be a virtue. The US might not be building much of anything beyond more repressive looting mechanisms for its ruling class, but it continues to successfully thwart the idea of a Eurasia united by commerce. Let’s first look at Europe and whether it’s even wise to continue seeking to reason with Brussels before turning to the equally elusive trade corridors to unite Eurasia.

Battleground Europe 

The European Union while it still holds together is not only pathetically dependent on the US, but it is destroying the member states economically. Real wages, living standards, and disposable income decline—largely in the name of defeating the very Eurasian integration that would benefit the bloc.

Yet China has for years now been patiently waits for Europe to come to its senses.

Zhou Bo, a retired PLA colonel and current senior fellow of the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, revealed the view from China:

The competition between the two giants won’t be in the Global South, where the US has already lost out to China, while in the Indo-Pacific, few nations want to take sides. Rather, it will be in Europe, where the US has most of its allies and China is the largest trading partner.

And Beijing tried to appeal to common sense among the European ruling class, repeatedly issuing statements like the following from The Global Times:

China treasures its relationship with the EU, always considering Europe as an indispensable trade and economic partner, and more importantly, a benign force to maintain global diversity and plurality in an increasingly volatile world. China’s 1.4 billion people hope that Europe could maintain its soberness and impartiality – not to toe the political line set by the US government. The EU should judge China independently.

The US government has coerced European countries to play with bans, export controls and other restrictive measures to limit Chinese access to advanced tools and technologies, a blatant assault on China’s future development prospects.

By all metrics, acting as each other’s heavyweight trade partners, the EU and China have benefited a lot from their close economic relationship. The two giant economies should build up the favorable partnership, create a fair and nondiscriminatory business environment for each other’s enterprises, and always stick to the win-win mentality.

Both of those comments were from more than two years ago. What has happened since? Italy bailed on the Belt and Road Initiative. The China- and Russia-friendly government in Hungary, an important beachhead in Eastern Europe, finally fell with a less friendly one taking its place. Europe has never been more dependent on the US for energy needs, and that’s a particularly expensive dependence. Meanwhile the bloc continues to shovel money into the Ukrainian bottomless pit of death and corruption in a bid to weaken Russia and pursue tougher economic restrictions against Beijing. Eurasian unity it is not.

The Chinese leadership remains patient. Here’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun earlier this year:

“China is committed to advancing mutually beneficial relations with European countries under the principle of mutual respect and win-win cooperation. We also hope that European countries will work with China in the same direction.”

But at this point, which is more likely: that rationality will return to Europe or it will destroy itself by continuing to double down on the failed war against Russia? Most concerning to Beijing has to be that so much effort put into trade routes and EU market access could slowly be undermined by the economic deterioration of the bloc—and it could come much faster if the Russophobic elite factions continue to have their way and get that war they so crave.

While China’s trade with ASEAN nations is expected to come in at over $1 trillion in 2025, much of that likely has to do with transshipments, and Europe remains critical to China’s export model:

While Asia remains the primary anchor of China’s export demand, Europe has served as a stabilising pillar over the past decade. China’s exports to Europe have grown steadily (5.4% CAGR 2014-2024), supported by the region’s scale and, critically, by diversified demand across multiple markets rather than reliance on any single economy. This breadth has helped smooth volatility and balance sharper swings seen in other major destinations.

Source: ANDAMAN Partners

Trade Route Dead Ends

Other successes in the US efforts at controlled chaos across the Heartland can be seen in the increasing dead ends for Eurasian trade routes.

The breakdown of maritime trade caused by US actions means more interest in these land routes, but they too are facing increasing difficulties. The Northern Corridor made the most sense as it passes primarily through one country (Russia) between China and Europe, but it has been killed by sanctions and Europe’s Russophobia.

So more effort shifted to the Middle Corridor. That too has fallen apart with the US/NATO takeover in Armenia, Azerbaijani friction with Russia and Iran, and a cooperative-on-the surface-suspicious-under-the-hood spread of Turkish influence across the Caspian into Central Asia.

Russia is taking the optimistic view that the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) through southern Armenia, for which the US has exclusive rights to develop, is unlikely to go online anytime soon—if ever. We’ve argued the same here, but that’s really besides the point. It helps inject chaos into the Caucasus region, much the same way Project Ukraine did across Europe, and the way Washington is trying to do in Central Asia as well.  Preventing Eurasian integration —or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization goal of stability of prosperity—is largely seen as a “win” in Washington.

The reality of TRIPP is that it is impossible for it to extend across the Caspian into Central Asia without the acquiescence of Russia and Iran ( and it still wouldn’t make a lot of economic sense). With the Northern Corridor and Caspian route stifled, China has all but abandoned its plans to build a deep water Black Sea port in Georgia.

Still, China seeks reliable transport routes that bypass the Caspian Sea. Enter Iran.

Iran-China Railway

In June of last year, the first delivery via this new rail corridor arrived in Iran. Forty trains in total would make the journey by year’s end, up from seven over the previous seven years. The primary route connects Western Chinese cities like Xi’an and Urumqi to dry ports near Tehran after passing more than 10,000 kilometers through Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. It is shorter by rail (~two weeks) than by sea (~30-plus days), but faces the usual challenges that slow its implementation, such as different gauges in the Central Asia states, cost, administrative burdens, and electrification differences. Still, it holds major importance for both Tehran and Beijing—and causes concern in Washington.

Just before the US-Iran ceasefire on April 8, Israel reportedly struck railway infrastructure across Iran, including on the China-Iran route:

Today, Israel carried out airstrikes against the “China-Iran Railway”—marking the first direct attack on the core interests of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

This railway, which opened on June 3, 2025, was constructed with 40 billion RMB funding by China. It was designed to… pic.twitter.com/gwbhvfkTbW

— Bin Xie (@bxieus) April 8, 2026

It must not have not done too much damage because it was back up and running in no time, and now the US “blockade” is motivating Beijing and Tehran to increase traffic on the route. According to Bloomberg:

The number of cargo trains going from Xi’an in central China to the Iranian capital Tehran has risen from around one per week before the conflict to one every three or four days since the start of blockade on April 13, according to people with knowledge of the shipments.

…For now the trade is mostly one-way, with containers headed for Iran with industrial and consumer goods, including automotive parts, generators and electronics, the people said. Iranian officials have said they are considering using rail routes to export products like petrochemicals and fuel at some stage.

…Plans are underway to add further capacity in June, Dursun added. Each train from Xi’an carries around 50 standard 40-foot containers, he said, while a long-haul container ship can hold thousands.

 

And China, seeing how Washington is so fond of disrupting energy supply flows these days and with talk in the air about a toll booth for the Strait of Malacca, is doubling down on its land connections to Central Asia:

Reminder that Central Asia really matters to China & even Tajikistan is import in China’s rail network across Asia to Europe.

See below for the multiple path thru Tajikistan & Kyrgyzstan that reaches Iran, Afghanistan & Pakistan.

China has intensive diplomacy to keep peace in… https://t.co/iFtjR4tz9S pic.twitter.com/CwY23eeL0M

— tphuang (@tphuang) May 13, 2026

Türkiye to link up to China-Iran Railway?

While Ankara is the chief beneficiary of TRIPP, which will bring a direct connection to its ally Azerbaijan, if Türkiye is looking for a realistic connection to the Middle Corridor, it is through Iran. And Ankara is doing that too, albeit with less fanfare.

In November, Ankara and Tehran agreed to construct a new railway line that will link up with the China-Iran railway. The $1.6 billion Marand-Cheshmeh Soraya railway will extend approximately 200 kilometers to Türkiye’s Aralik border region and is estimated to be complete by 2029.

Türkiye is championing its geography spanning two continents as it tries to sell itself as the most indispensable on a long list of indispensable countries for Eurasian trade along the Middle Corridor. Yet, fitting for Turkiye’s geography, it also always appears to be playing both sides with the ultimate aim of recapturing some of that old Ottoman glory.

On the one hand, it can offer China direct access to European markets through its existing customs union. On the other hand, Türkiye is more integrated than ever in the Western Zionist fold, and Western capital has its meathooks firmly into the country.

To summarize:

The Russian route dead. The Middle Corridor through the Caucasus is effectively blocked. The southern maritime routes face upheaval presently and uncertain futures. There was also a lot of promotion of the North-South International Transport Corridor between Russia and India that would run through Iran and the Caucasus. That too is on life support due to India’s slide into a US-Zionist “blood bag” and the Caucasus chaos.

We can also throw the Arctic route, made increasingly feasible thanks to the cooking of the planet, into this grouping. As Andrew Korybko noted on Monday:

There’s recently been a flurry of news about the increasingly interconnected Arctic and Baltic fronts of the New Cold War. The UK announced a new multinational naval initiative to contain Russia in these seas, which followed the Russian Ambassadors to Finland and Norway warning about threats from them. Prior to all of this, some Russian sources accused the Baltic States of allowing Ukrainian drones to transit across their airspace en route to attacking St. Petersburg, which amounts to a major provocation if true.

And so the dreams of Eurasian corridors now rest on Iran, which is currently at war, the notoriously unreliable President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and a Europe which is intent on sabotaging itself.

Nonetheless, China and the Central Asian states continue to pour time and resources into development of these lines. Just to name a few developments:

• China is working on a major railway terminal on the Turkmenistan–Iran border, which is supposed to speed up transport along the China–Iran–Türkiye–EU route. 
• Iran and Turkmenistan are laying down new standardized tracks to expedite freight movement and expand border-crossings.
• Two China-Iran-Türkiye-EU routes are in development; one that travels through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan; and another just through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

That’s all well and good, but one issue is that the more countries involved, the larger the ambition, and the easier it is for the US to throw a spanner in the works—just like it did for the other routes mentioned above.