中国正推动亚洲贸易枢纽战略，已采取多项举措以实现这一目标。
向西扩张方面，中国承诺建设跨中亚的铁路线，并支持越南规划三条通往两国边境的铁路线路。此外，中国正试图说服俄罗斯和北朝鲜重新开放日本海上的一个港口。
如能成功实施上述计划，则有望使中国与东北亚、东南亚、中东乃至欧亚经济地带建立更紧密联系，这属于“一带一路”倡议的一部分，始于11年前。此倡议旨在构建一个由中国为中心的全球秩序框架。
每个项目均面临不同挑战。国家领导人习近平需取得边境国家合作，这些国家可能政治动荡，如吉尔吉斯斯坦，或国际孤立，如北朝鲜。与长期对中国存戒心的邻国，如越南等，须建立信任以实现合作。
就中老铁路而言，其虽在东南亚为一些人所欢迎，因引入中国大量采矿投资和旅游业，但也引发了担忧，即中国可能在老挝经济领域主导地位。
新举措的高昂成本不容忽视。目前，中国侧重于在全球范围推广规模较小的“一带一路”项目。
中国地缘政治关系与俄罗斯紧密相连，在乌克兰局势背景下，这有助于但同时也在挑战其构建区域运输联系的努力。
俄罗斯对华依赖增加，使其在争夺地区影响力上力量削弱；两国关系回暖、联合军事演习频发及莫斯科对中国项目的外交支持增强。然而，乌俄战争导致的劳动力短缺迫使从中亚进口劳工，吉尔吉斯斯坦尤其面临技能工人不足的问题，无法满足中国建设穿过其山区通往阿富汗和伊朗铁路的需求。
“一带一路”项目所展现出的集体规模说明习近平利用基础设施强化了中国作为亚洲贸易和地缘政治中心的角色。
6月6日两国协议授予中国51%所有权的计划中的铁路线，吉尔吉斯斯坦和乌兹别克斯坦分担剩余部分。但鉴于建设进度已延误，吉尔吉斯斯坦表示将在8月份启动施工。
该铁路始于中国新疆喀什地区的一个贫困地区，随后穿越几乎未通公路的吉尔吉斯南部山区至乌兹别克斯坦。线路最终抵达乌兹别克的撒马尔罕城市，是苏联时期跨中亚铁路网络的核心枢纽，连接俄罗斯、阿富汗和伊朗，并从伊朗延伸至欧洲。
该计划中的喀什到撒马尔罕线路将为中国提供进入阿富汗及其铜矿铁矿石资源的新途径。同时，它将帮助中国通过铁路向伊朗输出汽车等制造业产品，以换取由海上运输的石油，而这些石油因核武器项目相关的国际制裁而在国际市场打折销售。
在距离吉尔吉斯斯坦计划中的中亚铁路线两千多英里处，中国正计划从东南亚边境深入越南建设三条铁路线。此举有望带来经济利益。
跨国公司和中国企业为绕过对华商品设置的美国及他国贸易壁垒而将许多产品的最终组装转移到越南。然而，这些产品所需的化学、部件和工程服务仍然来源于中国。
这促使中越两国寻求建立更紧密的交通联系。现有公路和航运通道已连通它们之间的往来。目前，中国主要提供规划援助以协助越南建设铁路线路。在越南新领导人黄明后去年访华后的联合声明中，双方表示将合作制定铁路线计划。
最难实现的是打通连接日本海与太平洋航道的问题，即图们江的运输路径。
19世纪中期起，俄罗斯从中国夺得西伯利亚大片土地，包括一条朝南延伸至北朝鲜沿海的海岸线，阻碍了东北地区直接进入海洋。图们江沿中国与北朝鲜边境蜿蜒300多英里，但在中俄边界的最后九英里却处于俄罗斯和北朝鲜之间。
苏联在朝鲜战争期间匆忙修建的一座铁路桥使其成为船只通行的关键点，自那以来，只有小船能通过。中国领导人长期以来的梦想是建造一座更高的桥梁以容纳远洋货轮使用图们江。这一计划旨在连接太平洋与位于该河上游的内陆城市珲春的一个港口。
49岁的房地产投资者赵宏伟等人则期待着图们江开通航运：“如果有港口，就会有贸易往来，我们就能变得富裕。”
对于中国政府而言，开启图们江航道能简化与中国东北、日本北部及朝鲜半岛东部沿海地区之间的贸易。未来气候变化可能导致北极冰层缩小，为开辟新的海运通道提供可能。
“作为直接进入日本海的唯一途径，图们江具有极高的战略价值。”上海社会科学院俄罗斯中亚研究所执行主任李立凡表示。
近期俄方表达了愿意重建此桥的意愿，但关键在于北朝鲜的态度。俄罗斯和北朝鲜官员于6月20日签署协议，在图们江上建设一条公路大桥。
一些分析师对北朝鲜同意移除低桥持怀疑态度。该国长期利用与中国之间的地缘政治矛盾获取利益；面对几乎与整个北部边境接壤的中国，它可能不希望看到与俄罗斯联系的末段受到中国的影响力影响。
“即便中俄达成一致，他们仍需说服北朝鲜。”马来西亚东亚国际关系联盟韩国问题专家胡志平表示。
新闻来源：www.nytimes.com
原文地址：China Is Striking Deals to Cement Its Role as Asia’s Trade Hub
新闻日期：2024-09-24
原文摘要：
China has made several moves in recent months to advance its ambitious aim to become the trade and transportation hub of Asia. To its west, China has agreed to build a rail line across Central Asia. Beijing also said it would help Vietnam plan three rail lines leading to the countries’ shared border. And China is trying to persuade Russia and North Korea to let it reopen a long-closed port on the Sea of Japan. If successful, the plans would give China closer ties to the economies of Northeast and Southeast Asia, the Mideast and even the Arctic, the latest steps in its 11-year-old Belt and Road Initiative to create a more China-centered global order. Each of the efforts, in varying ways, faces obstacles. The nation’s top leader, Xi Jinping, will need close cooperation from border countries, some of which are politically volatile, like Kyrgyzstan, or internationally isolated, like North Korea. Neighboring countries that have long been wary of China, like Vietnam, will need to be reassured. A similar venture, a three-year-old rail line that China has forged into landlocked Laos in Southeast Asia, has been welcomed by some there for bringing an influx of Chinese mining investments and tourism to the country. But others have warned of Chinese domination of the Laotian economy. “They ended up owning a lot of the land, or at least using a lot of the land, and squeezing out some of the locals,” said Ja Ian Chong, a professor at the National University of Singapore. The new initiatives would also be expensive, and China has begun emphasizing smaller Belt and Road projects elsewhere. A central factor in the country’s moves is its geopolitical relationship with Russia, whose invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has both helped and hurt China’s effort to build regional transport links. Russia now depends on China for trucks, drones and other supplies for the war, and has become less of a counterweight to China in struggles for regional influence. As ties have warmed between the two countries, even including many joint military exercises lately in the Sea of Japan and elsewhere, Moscow has been giving more diplomatic support to Chinese projects, notably on the short Russian border with North Korea. Yet the war in Ukraine has produced a severe labor shortage in Russia, drawing workers in from Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan, in particular, has been left with too few skilled workers to construct the rail line that China wants to build across its mountains toward Afghanistan and Iran. “The problem is not just having enough engineers and workers, but enough with the right technical training and background to stay and work in Kyrgyzstan,” said Niva Yau, a specialist on the country at the Atlantic Council, a research group in Washington. But the collective scope of the projects shows how Mr. Xi is wielding infrastructure to cement China’s role as the trade and geopolitical center of Asia. China agreed on June 6 to a pact that gave it 51 percent ownership of the planned rail line, with Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan splitting the rest. But while Kyrgyzstan said construction would start in August, it has already been delayed. The rail line would start in Kashgar, in an impoverished corner of China’s far western Xinjiang region. It would then traverse the nearly roadless mountains of southern Kyrgyzstan to Uzbekistan. The line’s terminus in Uzbekistan, Samarkand, is the hub of a Soviet-era rail network that crosses Central Asia to link Russia to Afghanistan and Iran, and beyond Iran to Europe. The planned line from Kashgar to Samarkand would give China easier access to Afghanistan and its copper and iron ore reserves. The line would also help China sell cars and other manufactured goods to Iran by rail in exchange for oil, which is shipped to China by sea. China now consistently buys 90 percent or more of Iran’s oil exports each month, said Andon Pavlov, senior refining and oil products analyst at Kpler, a firm in Vienna that specializes in tracking Iran’s oil shipments. Most other nations refuse to buy Iranian oil because of international sanctions related to the country’s nuclear weapons program, with the result that Iranian oil sells at a considerable discount to world prices. More than 2,000 miles away from the planned Central Asian rail line in Kyrgyzstan, three more rail lines are planned to extend from China’s southeastern border deep into Vietnam. They could also produce economic gains. Multinational corporations and Chinese companies have shifted the final assembly of many products, including solar panels and smartphones, to Vietnam to bypass trade barriers against Chinese goods erected by the United States and other countries. But the chemicals, components and engineering for many of these products still come from China. That has created demand for closer transportation links between China and Vietnam, beyond the highways and shipping lanes that already connect them. For now, China’s involvement in helping Vietnam construct its train lines is expected to be limited. In a joint statement after Vietnam’s new leader, To Lam, visited Beijing last month, the countries said China would assist in planning for the lines. The toughest project for China, but one with a potentially big payoff, lies in trying to secure access to the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean via the Tumen River. In the mid-19th century, Russia seized from China a large area of Siberia, including a coastal strip of land that runs south to North Korea and obstructs northeastern China’s access to the ocean. The Tumen River flows along more than 300 miles of China’s border with North Korea, but the last nine miles of it lie between Russia and North Korea. A low railroad bridge across the river, which the Soviet Union hurriedly built during the Korean War to haul supplies, has blocked all but fairly small boats ever since. Replacing that bridge with a taller one that would allow oceangoing ships to use the river has long been the dream of Chinese leaders. The goal is to link the Pacific Ocean with a port in Hunchun, an otherwise landlocked Chinese city a few miles up the river. Some residents of Hunchun, like Zhao Hongwei, a real estate investor, share that dream. “If there is a port, there can be trade, and we can become prosperous,” Mr. Zhao, 49, said. For Beijing, opening Tumen River traffic would ease trade to Russia, northern Japan and the northeast coast of the Korean Peninsula and even create new shipping lanes to Europe as climate change shrinks the Arctic ice cap. “The Tumen River, as the only direct passage into the Sea of Japan, has extremely high strategic value,” said Li Lifan, executive director of Russian and Central Asian studies at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. With Russia expressing a new willingness in recent months to replace the bridge, the big question now is North Korea’s stance. Russian and North Korean officials signed their own agreement on June 20 to build a highway bridge over the Tumen River. Some analysts are skeptical that North Korea will agree to removing the low bridge. The country has long tried to pit China against Russia when it has suited its geopolitical needs. North Korea, which already faces China along almost its entire northern border, may not want to see Chinese influence on the last segment with Russia. “Even if China and Russia reach agreement, they still have to persuade North Korea,” said Hoo Chiew Ping, a Korea specialist at the East Asian International Relations Caucus in Malaysia.
