China to invest $58 billion to expand rail network from Pakistan to western China
ISLAMABAD: China is going to make a huge investment of $58 billion to expand the railway network from Pakistan to the western China.
The investment will be made under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of China that aims to connect the region, the South China Morning Post said.
The state-owned China Railway First Survey and Design Institute Group has examined the plan and declared it worth the investment.
The 1,860-mile rail system will connect Pakistan’s port of Gwadar to China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. It will not only reshape trade but geopolitics in the region.
The Chinese team of analysts said, “The government and financial institutions should provide strong support, increase coordination and collaboration among relevant domestic departments, strive for the injection of support funds and provide strong policy support and guarantees for the construction of this project.”
The project would be China’s biggest transport project though China Railway First Survey and Design Institute Group Co had supported Asia’s first high-speed rail system _ the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway line in Indonesia.
The project connecting Pakistan to China is expected to encourage additional train systems that could connect China to Turkey and Iran. It will open up direct access to these regions.
This trade initiative is part of Beijing’s broader Belt and Road Initiative, which seeks to establish China as a world superpower and promote global domination in the trade sector.
The initiative aims to shift the focus away from historical trade routes dominated by Western nations to better improve China’s economic goals and encourage a “multipolar world” to diminish Western power.
This is a move that top autocratic nations like Russia and Iran have also been eager to encourage as geopolitical tensions with the West continue to escalate.
