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Comment by fspeech | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately the author's analogy with the ancient silk road rings as false as the Chinese government's. For example in discussing the rail link, the author failed to note that beyond Xinjiang there lie Shaanxi and Sichuan, two of China's most populous inland provinces. And Xi'an was the ancient Chinese capital for over a millennium. The Chongqing-Europe railroad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe_Rail... creates real economic value, not just propaganda.

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There is a lot of space to cover if we are talking about the populated parts of Sichuan and shaanxi, which are mainly east. The most western city outside of Xinjiang would be like Lanzhou, kunming, xining, etc...

The railroads to Europe are still heavily subsidized, and are coming back to china mostly empty. They'll make more sense when trade becomes more balanced, but that isn't today.

You are right that they need to find more goods to ship on the return trip. The current route actually runs on existing tracks so didn't require a lot of investment.

For cities like Lanzhou, Xining, Urumqi etc it makes sense to develop a land route. The economics are even better than Chongqing since Chongqing actually has access to the Yangtze river.

The tracks aren't as important as the trains in this case; e.g. Crews and fuel as well as not using those on more productive routes. Chongqing as a gateway to the western china is a bit weird since it actually isn't that west :) Chinese geography is a bit wonky like that.

Chongqing has access to large ships: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_Chongqing The advantage of rail for Chongqing is mainly shipping time, which is important for higher value electronics.

Xinjiang is west of Shaanxi and Sichuan. Please get your facts right before playing the know-it-all.

"Beyond Xinjiang" was meant to be looking into China from outside. Xinjiang is the border province.

The only reasonable way to look at it is from the perspective of the transfer of goods along the silk road from China to central asia. That is the way the article was written.

You were fundamentally wrong, and remain wrong.

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