Emil Avdaliani：The State of the Middle Corridor: Trade and Transport Dynamics

【明報文章】As the war in Ukraine continues, the prospects for the implementation of the Middle Corridor seem more promising. The route which runs from the Black Sea to Central Asia and western China is now more attractive as greater powers as well smaller ones along the route now have mostly similar views regarding the need to build an alternative to the more traditional corridor which before 2022 ran through Russia.

Before the war in Ukraine Beijing was hesitant to commit to the idea of the Middle Corridor. True Chinese scholars often mentioned the idea of West Asia transit route, i.e. Central Asia-South Caucasus corridor, but overall China was comfortable with the operation of the transit through Russia. The latter has been a close partner to China in the pursuit of a new world order. Moreover, Russian route had offered another advantage – it mostly consisted of Russian territory and overall adequate railway infrastructure. This meant fewer customs control and though the route would take weeks for Chinese merchandize to reach the EU, the stability of the corridor was the key. Moreover, another critical advantage was that the Russian route is not multimodal in nature and consists of land infrastructure.

Moreover, there were no viable alternatives to the northern route. The Middle Corridor running from the Black Sea to the Caspian and Central Asia was seen at best as complementary with little investment put into the route’s infrastructure and most of all lack of interest from greater powers. Both China and the EU were comfortable with the Russian route, while Turkey and smaller countries along the Middle Corridor lacked resources to re-invigorate the route.

This dramatically changed when the Russian invasion of Ukraine started in February 2022. If for decades, the northern route carried the majority (between 80 and 90 percent) of the economic traffic between China and the EU, by various estimates the amount of traffic decreased by almost 50% as a result of the Western sanctions imposed on Russia. As the prospects of Russia’s quick victory faded and the possibility of protracted conflict became clear, this wider geopolitical context pushed China to seek alternatives for the Russian route. Central Asia and the South Caucasus offer the shortest geographic route from Xinjiang to the EU and it is no surprise that China and the EU now shifted their attention to the Middle Corridor raising its potential for expansion.

China’s New Perspective and Wider Geopolitical Context

China’s renewed interest in the Middle Corridor needs to be explained from a wider geopolitical context: the war in Ukraine and Russia’s competition with the West; this resulted in Russia’s distraction from the South Caucasus and Central Asia creating an opening for other powers and China is one of such actors. It has increased its economic and security engagement with Central Asia and as argued above, made inroads into the South Caucasus.

China’s seeming embrace of the Middle Corridor also needs to be seen from the perspective of the US-China competition. As tensions between the two countries grow around Taiwan and in South China Sea, Beijing’s perception of US attempts to contain China are growing. This is pushing Beijing to seek routes other than the maritime one and the heart of Eurasia is the place where the US enjoys less influence. Central Asia and South Caucasus are two such regions which, amid Russia’s distraction in Ukraine, gives Beijing significant leeway in advancing its interests.

The need to develop the Middle Corridor also seems to become to a long-term ambition because the route through Russia will remain fundamentally unstable and prone ro geopolitical reverbarations. The war in Ukraine will likely continue and the sanctions against Russia will remain in place even if active military operations end. Faced with this reality the need to shift trade to the Middle Corridor will increase.

Challenges, however, will remain among which the still inadequate railway and road infrastructure will continue to hamper quick expansion of the route. And even if the epxansion takes place to the fullest of its potential, the maximum capacity of the route would still be unable to serve as the only route between China and the EU. At best, the corridor can serve as an important but still largely complementary corridor to other major routes.

Emil Avdaliani is a professor of international relations at European University in Tbilisi, Georgia.

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[Emil Avdaliani]