Belt and Road becomes concrete in port

Cosco's acquisition of Piraeus is a major step forward for China's plan for boosting Eurasian trade

Ever since President Xi Jinping unveiled his strategic vision for the Belt and Road Initiative, following in the footsteps of the ancient Silk Road, the media has been full of plans, theories and suggestions as to what form it might take.

Well, in Europe, we now know how it is going to shape up.

Xi's vision is starting to take concrete form with China Cosco Shipping Corp's acquisition of the Greek Port of Piraeus for 368.5 million euros ($415 million), which will see the Chinese shipping giant hold a total of 67 percent of Greece's biggest port complex.

So after all the imaginary maps being drawn up, at last there's a concrete end point. Greece now seems to be the point where maritime traffic from Asia will terminate after transiting the Suez Canal and entering the Mediterranean.

From there, you can expect a tentacle of road and rail links spreading across Europe.

Probably safe to say that from a historian's point of view, what's going on with the Belt and Road Initiative is a fine tribute to men like Marco Polo and his fellow travelers who forged the first European links with imperial China.

We shouldn't forget either the clippers of the 19th century that raced from Chinese ports to London, carrying their precious cargoes of silk, spices and tea. A fitting tribute to those early traders is the Cutty Sark, a beautifully restored tea clipper that now resides in a special dry dock at Greenwich, on the River Thames in London. Chinese visitors flock to see her.

Cutty Sark and her chief rival, the Thermopylae, took 122 days to reach the UK.

Nowadays the kind of cargo ships that will ply the new Silk Route take between 15 and 30 days to reach Europe, trundling along at a steady 15 knots.

I think, also from a historian's perspective, that the modern initiative is a fitting tribute to the grand Chinese imperial fleet of 1421, despatched by Emperor Zhu Di on a two-year voyage of discovery that many believe led the Chinese to circumnavigate the world a century before Portugal's Ferdinand Magellan, reach the Americas 70 years before Christopher Columbus, and Australia 300 years before Captain James Cook.

The story of Admiral Zheng He and his fellow mariners has a sad ending - they returned home just as China was entering a period when it closed itself off to the world, and their ships and records were left to rot.

So the initiative sits well with the current image of an resurgent China, confident in its ability to forge close ties with its allies and promote a plan that's so breathtaking.

And don't forget, it doesn't stop at Piraeus. There are plans for a huge Chinese-financed logistic entrepot nearby, and port facilities in neighboring Turkey and the island of Cyprus are also being targeted by Chinese concerns.

Greece's problems and economic woes have been well documented in recent months, so perhaps it's fitting that China, with its new-found economic muscle, is stepping in to help revitalize the old world.

Given that the Belt and Road Initiative route goes through some troubled areas, might we not be seeing the dawn of yuan-diplomacy?

The author is managing editor of China Daily European Edition, based in London. Contact the writer at chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com