China-Europe rail & India’s long road to Eurasia

In an era of growing vulnerability at maritime chokepoints, major economies are increasingly exploring alternative maritime and multimodal transport corridors. In recent years, India has focused on two major connectivity initiatives: the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). Despite the political will among participating countries to advance these projects, the wars in Ukraine and West Asia, along with economic sanctions on Russia and Iran, have constrained their progress and somewhat tempered India’s ambitions to establish alternative and reliable connectivity with Europe through these corridors.

Meanwhile, another major transformation in Eurasian connectivity is underway, driven by the rapid expansion of China-Europe freight transport. This transformation is important for understanding the changing dynamics of Eurasian connectivity. Since its first Chongqing–Duisburg train in 2011, the China- Railway Express has completed over 130,000 journeys in both directions, carrying goods worth more than $520 billion. In 2025 alone, more than 20,000 trains transported goods worth nearly $70 billion between China and Europe. By 10 June 2026, more than 10,000 train journeys had already transported over one million standard containers of goods in both directions. The China-Europe freight network now connects more than 120 Chinese cities with 235 cities across 26 European countries, making it an increasingly important component of the broader Eurasian connectivity architecture.

The China-Europe freight train network operates through four principal corridors, each following a distinct geographical route across Eurasia. The Western Corridor, traditionally, the busiest and fastest northern route, connecting major inland hubs such as Xi’an and Chongqing with Europe via Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus, before entering the European rail network through Poland.

The Central Corridor runs from industrial centres such as Wuhan northwards through Mongolia, linking with Russia’s Trans-Siberian Railway and continuing west towards northern Europe. The Eastern Corridor primarily serves China’s coastal manufacturing centres and enters Russia through Manzhouli, from where freight is transported westward along the Trans-Siberian Railway, bypassing Central Asia.

The Trans-Caspian multimodal Middle Corridor has gained importance since the Ukraine war, as many European transport and insurance companies have started avoiding connections through Russia. This corridor provides an alternative route that avoids Russian territory. It connects China with Kazakhstan, crosses the Caspian Sea by ferry to Azerbaijan, and then continues by rail through Georgia and Turkiye towards Southern Europe. Together, these corridors provide China with multiple routes to European markets and have become an important element of Eurasian connectivity.

Whenever maritime routes have been disrupted, first during the COVID-19 pandemic and more recently because of wars, China-Europe freight transport has benefited from the shift in demand. It provides a middle option between sea and air transport, cutting transit times by roughly half compared with maritime shipping while costing only about one-fifth as much as air freight. While shipments through the Suez Canal typically take 25–35 days and air freight takes around 5–7 days, China-Europe rail services generally take 12–18 days, depending on the route.

More than a decade of operational experience, fixed timetables, faster customs clearance and increasingly digitalised port and logistics systems have further improved the efficiency of the service. On some major routes, such as Xi’an–Duisburg, transit times have been reduced to around 11 days. During the recent heatwave in Europe, Chinese air-conditioning manufacturers were able to use rail freight to deliver their products to European markets more quickly.

With the fourth-largest railway network in the world, India could potentially benefit from this major transformation in Eurasian freight connectivity. China also operates the world's largest high-speed rail network, surpassing 50,000 kms. of operating lines.

Originally, under the INSTC framework, India envisaged linking Chabahar Port with Iran’s rail-road network and, through the Caspian Sea, with the wider Eurasian rail system, or, once the missing rail links in Iran were completed, connecting directly with the wider Eurasian rail network. Since then, however, the Iranian scenario has become considerably more complicated.

As India’s economic ties with Central Asia and the Caucasus remain limited, its connectivity ambitions are largely oriented towards longer corridors linking India with Europe. India can continue to pursue multiple options under the INSTC and IMEC while also exploring how to benefit from the expanding China-Europe railway network. The future trajectory of India-China relations could become an important factor in shaping India’s Eurasian connectivity choices. A more stable regional environment and a new phase in bilateral relations could open connectivity possibilities that are currently constrained more by geopolitics than by geography. Such a shift would significantly broaden India’s options for integrating with the emerging Eurasian connectivity architecture.

(Gulshan Sachdeva is Professor and Jean Monnet Chair at Centre for European Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University)