President Joe Biden and his allies have outlined plans to create a rail and shipping corridor linking India with the Middle East and ultimately Europe.
President Joe Biden and his allies on Saturday announced plans to build a rail and shipping corridor linking India with the Middle East and Europe, an ambitious project aimed at fostering economic growth and political cooperation.
“This is a big deal,” said Biden. “This is a really big deal.”
The corridor, outlined at the annual Group of 20 summit of the world’s top economies, would help boost trade, deliver energy resources and improve digital connectivity. It would include India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Israel and the European Union, said Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser.
Don’t you know that the American rail system is the best in the world. Because America. Not to mention the union strikes and other actions taken against workers.
China does not have one road anymore. Once Russia invaded Ukraine the entire project collapsed. It is not possible to run the rail from China to Poland (there already was a functioning hub for China-EU railway transport in central Poland before the war) without crossing Ukraine or Russia and Belarus. And all three of these countries are kinda off-limit for who-know-how long. Meanwhile the West kinda soured on the Chinese products and offshoring so once the war is over there will be no more incentive to resume large-scale operations of the belt and road.
It's not like India isn't already shipping huge amounts of goods to Europe. They just do it on heavily polluting ships. Rail is the greenest shipping solution.
What's the alternative? It's easy to comment on it like the universe was created today. But we are all born into the world as it exists. That means understanding the history and geopolitics of the regions in question. One can't just jump in and say that they don't like Xi Jin Ping on the global stage, because the west was happily content leaning on the cheap labour of China for the past 50 years. Nevermind the fact that U.S saudi relationship has existed for well over 50 years now or more.