China's head-of-state diplomacy: Kazakhstan connects to sea through BRI

On Sept. 7, 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a speech at Kazakhstan's Nazarbayev University. He proposed the initiative to jointly build the Silk Road Economic Belt. This marked the start of Belt and Road cooperation, making Kazakhstan the country where the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was first proposed.

On that day, Lianyungang city in east China’s Jiangsu Province and the national railway company of Kazakhstan signed an agreement to jointly build a transit cargo transport channel and a transit distribution base. The China-Kazakhstan (Lianyungang) logistics cooperation base project was launched. Kazakhstan, the world's largest land-locked country, became connected to the Pacific Ocean through the BRI.

The China-Kazakhstan (Lianyungang) logistics cooperation base. (Photo courtesy of Lianyungang China-Kazakhstan International Logistics Co., Ltd.)

The China-Kazakhstan (Lianyungang) logistics cooperation base is the first key cooperation project jointly carried out by China and Kazakhstan under the BRI. Over the past 10 years, the base has grown to a land-sea intermodal transport hub from a small facility that didn't connect any special rail routes.

Chen Jun, manager of the production and operations department of Lianyungang China-Kazakhstan International Logistics Co., Ltd., said the company operated one freight train in two to three days at the beginning, and now operates two to three trains a day.

Running more than 11,000 kilometers in 14 days, China-European freight trains bring coffee from China's Yunnan Province and Vietnam to dinner tables in Europe through Kazakhstan. In the IndoChinese Peninsula, freight transportation through the China-Laos Railway has covered countries and regions like Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia and Cambodia. The number of freight trains running along the China-Laos Railway on a daily basis has increased to 12 from just two.

"On the road to the wellbeing of all mankind, no country or nation should be left behind." The BRI has attracted the participation of over three-fourths of countries in the world and 32 international organizations.