A parallel address to the Indonesian Parliament was given by Xi Jinping the following month, announcing the Maritime Silk Road component of the BRI.
Bhavna Dave, “Silk Road Economic Belt: Effects of China’s Soft Power Diplomacy in Kazakhstan,” in China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Its Impact in Central Asia, ed. Marlene Laruelle (Washington, DC: George Washington University Central Asia Program, 2018), 97.
Nargis Kassenova, “China’s Silk Road and Kazakhstan’s Bright Path: Linking Dreams of Prosperity,” Asia Policy 24 (July 2017): 110–11.
Wade Shepard, “Khorgos: Why Kazakhstan is Building a ‘New Dubai’ on the Chinese Border,” Forbes, February 28, 2016, ➝.
Satellite view of SEZ Khorgos-Eastern Gates, Google Earth, September 2017, ➝.
As the number of cars per cargo train varies, this quantity is commonly described in terms of number of shipping containers. Shipping containers conform to two primary standardized lengths: twenty-foot and forty-foot, the latter of which is currently the most prevalent type. The twenty-foot equivalent unit, or TEU, commonly used to quantify rail shipments, derives from the smaller of the two standard shipping container lengths.
Prior to the construction of the SEZ, freight passing from China through Kazakhstan was transferred at the Dostyk Railway Station, initially constructed in the 1950s, approximately 290 km northeast of Khorgos. In addition to its larger and more contemporary facilities, the geographic position of Khorgos provides a more efficient transit route than that of the rail line passing through Dostyk.
The annual throughput of dry ports is small in comparison to that of maritime ports. By comparison, in 2017, China’s maritime port at Lianyungang handled a throughput of approximately 4.7 million TEUs.
Zhaniya Urankayeva, “Khorgos Dry Port to Process more than 500,000 Containers by 2020,” Astana Times, November 5, 2016, ➝.
This second break of gauge occurs at Brest, on the Belarus-Poland border.
Occurring under the auspices of the Nurly Zhol development program, it is part of a larger governmental push to diversify Kazakhstan’s national economy away from its reliance on extractive industries.
Actual city planning, in this sense, amounted to a notation indicating that the area between the northern extent of the ICBC and Khorgos-Eastern Gate would be developed into microdistricts at some future phase of construction. AECOM, “Summary Technical and Economic Report for Khorgos” and author’s email correspondence with member of the master planning team.
The Horgos City Master Plan for the period of 2010 to 2020 projected that that population figure would increase to 160,000 by the end of the planning period. “Horgos City Land Use Master Plan (2010-2020): Adjustment and Improvement Text,” Horgos Municipal Government, June 22, 2016, ➝.
Only one city, the former capital Almaty, has a population of over one million residents, with the majority of the nation’s other large metropolitan centers coming in between 100,000 and 300,000 residents.
Sebastien Peyrouse, “Chinese Economic Presence in Kazakhstan: China’s Resolve and Central Asia’s Apprehension,” China Perspectives 3 (July 2008): 37.
InformBuro, “‘Hesuny’ na Khorgose” (“Carriers in Khorgos”), YouTube video, April 15, 2018, ➝.
The subsidy reduction was dicussed in a panel alongside the 2019 European Silk Road Summit: Erik Groot Wassink, Rob Brekelmans, and Marjorie van Leijen, “RailFreight Webinar New Silk Road—Bubble or Here to Stay,” European Silk Road Summit, YouTube video, October 18, 2019, ➝.
Known by a series of names, including Aqmola, Tselinograd, and Astana, the capital was renamed Nur-Sultan following the resignation of President Nursultan Nazarbayev in March 2019.