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The new Silk Road is made of iron—and stretches from Scotland to Singapore
At some point in the next 200 million years, according to Yale University scientists, the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates will collide at the North Pole. When they are eventually joined by Africa, the singular super-continent will re-emerge, reminiscent of the Pangea that existed hundreds of millions of years ago.
Until that time, however, the vast oceans that separate North America from the western and eastern halves of Eurasia will continue to have a major impact on the evolution of geopolitics. The pace of globalization has altered our perceptions of space and time: Communications technology inspires many to proclaim the “death of distance.” Yet a contrary narrative is also emerging, one in which America’s distance from Eurasia places it on the wrong side of the world from the “cockpit of history,” a rapidly integrating Eurasian super-continent that is shaping its own future independently of the Western Hemisphere and the U.S. And the technology that is driving this epochal transformation is one of the most traditional: railways.
Earlier this month, China announced plans to invest an additional $140 billion into 25 new rail projects across the country as part of its massive stimulus campaign aimed at creating jobs and modernizing national infrastructure. China lays more than 5,000 miles of new railway track each year domestically (and by 2020 should have more high-speed rail than the rest of the world combined), and is sponsoring the modernization or deployment of new rail lines across Eurasia towards Europe as well, which has long led the world in mass transit with 24 of 27 countries featuring high-speed rail already. By comparison, the U.S. has failed to muster even the modest $50 billion proposed by President Barack Obama for rail projects. The resulting portrait is appears bleak: while America licks its wounds at home, Chinese blood is pumping through Eurasian veins as the more populous and important hemisphere unites into an organic whole.
