For China, speaking through the voice of its ambassador in Greece, the COSCO Piraeus project is a “dragon head,” meaning something of paramount importance in the region, and the perfect embodiment of the “five pillars of the Belt and Road Initiative, namely policy coordination, facilities connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and people-to-people bonds.” The ambassador also mentioned the Belgrade-Budapest railway, whose blueprint involves plans to continue through Skopje (Macedonia) toward Piraeus (Greece). In the best case scenario, the railway is supposed to become a nexus between the Mediterranean Sea and the North and Baltic Seas, known as the China-Europe Land-Sea Express Route – a behemoth project which entails cooperation between a large number of European countries and which has a European doppelganger, the Orient/East Med Corridor.
In a nutshell, the Orient/East Med Corridor is an EU-led project that “comprises rail, road, airports, ports, rail-road terminals” and connects the North Sea with the Mediterranean Sea in an attempt to create a European backbone transport area. It passes through nine EU countries, starting from the German ports of Bremen, Hamburg, and Rostock, heading to the Czech Republic, passing through Austria and Slovakia, and then continuing via Hungary and the western side of Romania and Bulgaria, with a link to port of Burgas (Bulgaria) and Turkey, and further south to Greece, where its final stop is in the ports of Thessaloniki and Piraeus. The corridor will be connected to a “Motorway of the Sea” that links the European mainland with Cyprus. More feasible than its Chinese counterpart, because it goes through EU countries and doesn’t pass through national or ethnic conflict areas like those between Greece and Macedonia or Serbia and Kosovo, the Orient/East Med Corridor design enjoys a more realistic future.
Coming back to the Chinese-proposed railway, although its implementation will be difficult, there are rumors that after the Piraeus Port acquisition, COSCO will set its sights on TrainOSE, the Hellenic railway operator which may give the Chinese company the perfect leverage to propel its business into a European transshipment hub.
China also has designs on other ports in Europe, such as the Turkish port of Ambarli, where COSCO set up a joint venture with China Merchants Holdings (International) and CIC Capital Corp (also two state-owned Chinese companies) to buy a 65 percent stake in the Kumport terminal. The Kumport terminal, together with the Port of Piraeus, could be integrated in a larger regional business strategy. Thanks to its capacity to receive ships of 18,000 TEU (Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units), COSCO can create a Chinese shipment hub in the Mediterranean Sea. All this, combined with the stakes that COSCO owns in the Suez Canal Container Terminal and the Port of Antwerp (Belgium), will create a network of shipment routes that will wrap around Europe’s shores.
But China’s economic charm goes beyond direct investment. The port of Venice is aiming to transform itself into a Venice Offshore Onshore Port System (VOOPS), preparing for docking megaships of 18,000 TEU and beyond. Italy hopes that this project will attract the attention of Chinese companies. It’s apparently working; in 2015 a large Chinese delegation visited Italy and took part at a gala dedicated to the rebuilding of the New Silk Road, having Venice as a terminus point.
While it is unclear how the acquisition of the port of Piraeus will redesign China-Europe relations in concert with the Belt and Road initiative. The mixture of European-Chinese dreams will probably gain momentum in an attempt, from both sides, to maintain economic growth. One can hope that these projects will take shape and until then, an optimistic stimulus is provided by the possible establishment of the China-EU joint investment fund.
This article has been first published on The Diplomat website.