China Breaks Ground Tunnel on Rail Route Bypassing Russia

Engineers drilled through the first tunnel on the long-stalled China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, a Belt and Road corridor that avoids Russian transit entirely.

Project officials announced that a 210-metre (690-foot) tunnel has been drilled through in the Kyrgyz section of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan (CKU) railway — the first breakthrough since full-scale work began in June 2025, according to China's state broadcaster CCTV. Overall progress on the Kyrgyz section has reached 17 per cent. The announcement came just days after President Xi Jinping's state visit to Kyrgyzstan, during which the two countries issued a joint statement pledging to guarantee the railway's smooth construction. The announcement marks the first major milestone for a project conceived in 1997 and stalled for decades.

The 500km-plus railway runs from Kashgar in Xinjiang through Kyrgyzstan's mountains to Andijan in Uzbekistan, with about 305km of it inside Kyrgyzstan. Once completed, it will form the shortest overland route from China to the Middle East and Europe, cutting transit times by up to eight days compared with the China-Europe Railway Express — all three of whose main routes transit Russia or Kazakhstan, per CCTV. It will also serve as a vital trade gateway for southern Xinjiang, while landlocked Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan gain direct overland access to Chinese and Asia-Pacific markets.

Because the corridor is designed to bypass Russia, it has reportedly raised concerns in Moscow about Beijing's expanding footprint in Central Asia and the potential diversion of cargo from traditional transit routes through Russia and Kazakhstan, the South China Morning Post reports. However, the prolonged war in Ukraine has weakened Russia's strategic hold on the region, and Bishkek has increasingly prioritised securing alternative foreign capital. Meanwhile, Moscow's economic ties with Beijing remain deep — Russian outlet Izvestia reported that Moscow is expanding existing rail crossings and discussing new highways to accommodate growing bilateral trade.

To overcome long-standing technical disputes, the project has adopted a dual-gauge compromise, CCTV reported. A 167.5km stretch from the Chinese border to Makmal in Kyrgyzstan will use China's standard gauge, while the remaining nearly 140km toward Uzbekistan will retain the Soviet-era broad gauge, supported by a transshipment hub at Makmal. Li Lifan, director of the Centre for Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Studies at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, told CCTV that the arrangement means China's standard gauge enters the heart of Central Asia for the first time. All four countries involved, including Russia, belong to the SCO bloc.

Construction has begun on 27 tunnels, 43 bridges and 88 roadbed sections, with work under way on 20 railway stations, according to Chinese state news agency Xinhua. Interest in Central Asia's connective potential extends well beyond the rail line: at the SCMP China Conference in Astana on Monday, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee said his June visit to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan produced 96 co-operation agreements and MOUs exceeding US$1.65 billion, and noted that Kazakhstan's national rail operator KTZ has filed to list in Hong Kong.

The timeline itself has become a point of contention. Xi Jihong, the project's chief engineer, told CCTV the CKU railway is likely to be ready for operation by June 2031, but Uzbekistan is pushing for a tighter schedule — deputy transport minister Jasurbek Choriev said in June that Tashkent aims to speed up work and complete the railway by 2028, according to the Tashkent Times. Security cooperation is advancing in parallel: interior ministers from Central Asia and China met this week to combat transnational crime, cybercrime and drug trafficking, with Central Asian officials citing expanding economic and transport ties as the reason stronger law enforcement collaboration is needed.