THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT HORGOS AND CHINA’S NEW SILK ROADS

JEREMY PAGE 

9 NOV 2014

China aims to redraw the geopolitical map of Asia with plans to bind other countries closer to it through a network of new ports, pipelines, roads and railways. One plan is to build a “Silk Road Economic Belt” through Central Asia. China’s biggest land port on that route is the newly established city of Horgos on the border with Kazakhstan.

Horgos became a transit point on the ancient Silk Road in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.), according to local authorities. They say Horgos means either “place of much camel dung” or “place of good pasture” in the language of the Junggar people who dominated the area in the 17th and 18th centuries. The border was closed after the Russian revolution in 1917, and several times thereafter during periods of tension between Moscow and Beijing. Although the border reopened in 1983, trade was negligible until recently because of continuing tensions and poor transport links.

 

China upgraded Horgos to a city in September. The Chinese side of the free-trade zone features five multistory wholesale markets where Kazakh traders buy Chinese tires, furs, electronics and other consumer goods. A gas pipeline from Turkmenistan enters China in Horgos. China has built an expressway to the border here and a railway connecting China’s network to Kazakhstan’s. Official maps and statements now describe Horgos as China’s main land port on the Silk Road Economic Belt. 

A Chinese customs checkpoint inspects trucks in Horgos. 

TIM FRANCO FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 

4THE KAZAKH SIDE OF THE BORDER LAGS BEHIND

The Kazakh side of the free-trade zone has lagged behind, with only a small cluster of cargo containers and yurts—traditional tents—selling Russian chocolates, homemade honey and other comestibles. Kazakh traders complain that Almaty, the nearest Kazakh city, is a bumpy five-hour drive away. Kazakh officials say they will start building malls and hotels and finish upgrading the road to Almaty next year. That is one of the last sections of a transcontinental highway from China’s east-coast port of Lianyungang to Russia’s St. Petersburg, to be opened by 2016. 

A Chinese businessman on the Kazakh side of the border. 

TIM FRANCO FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 

5HORGOS IS PART OF A BIGGER PLAN

Horgos is a small element of a broader program including a “21st-Century Maritime Silk Road” that was also unveiled last year. That plan envisions constructing or expanding ports and industrial zones across Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. The two Silk Road plans will be funded by Chinese aid, investment from state and private firms, a new $50 billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and a Silk Road Fund announced in November.