China comes with rails: Latvia is left with Central Asia — via Russia

A Russian-language story showed up in my Facebook Reels. In it, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, quietly, almost wearily, tells an anonymous companion that China will never come with tanks. It will come with rails, concrete and loans. And whoever controls the rails controls everything that runs on them.

We found no original source for this quote. The story has no date, no place, no recording. The companion, it says, asked not to be named. Zhirinovsky died in April 2022 and will neither confirm nor deny anything.

But the idea about rails can be tested. And for Latvia it is uncomfortable. Because the question is not about Kazakhstan. The question is about us.

Who controls the rails our freight comes on?

China's trade with the five Central Asian states in 2024 was 94.8 billion dollars (Chinese customs data). Russia's was more than 50 billion, according to Kazakhstan's president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. On these figures, China is almost twice as large. The Eurasian Development Bank puts China's trade lower, at 66.2 billion, but even then China is ahead.

On 27 December 2024, with a groundbreaking ceremony in Kyrgyzstan, construction began on the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway; full-scale works got under way in 2025. Length: about 486 kilometres, most of it in Kyrgyzstan (other sources give 454–523 km). Estimated cost: 4.7 billion dollars. In the joint venture building it, China holds 51%, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan 24.5% each. The controlling stake is in Beijing.

There is an older example too. In January 2011, Tajikistan's parliament voted to hand over about 1,000 square kilometres of the Pamir mountains to China. China had originally claimed more than 28,000.

It is not that simple, though. The share of the Export-Import Bank of China in Kyrgyzstan's external debt is falling: about 30% at the end of August 2025, 28.4% on 30 November. Three Central Asian states are members of the Organization of Turkic States. Russia's base in Tajikistan can stay until 2042. The viral story claims that Central Asia already belongs to China. The numbers show something else: it is a market where China is the largest player, but not the only one.

Latvia dreamed of Chinese transit for a long time. The first Chinese container train arrived in Riga in November 2016. At the time, a deputy head of China's rail container carrier said costs would fall once the route ran both ways. In 2017 a route from Urumqi via Kazakhstan to Riga was opened; in 2018 a train from Xi'an via Minsk arrived in Riga. We found no record of a lasting regular Chinese train service that has survived to this day.

Rail Baltica's planners did not pin great hopes on China either. The 2017 cost-benefit analysis (EY) estimated Rail Baltica's potential on the China–Europe land route, by analogy with the Adriatic corridor, at “approx. 0.39 mln tonnes by the year 2050”. For comparison: Latvian rail carried 9.5 million tonnes in 2025.

On 11 August 2022, Latvia left the “16+1” cooperation format between China and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The foreign ministry's statement was short. The reason: Latvia's current foreign and trade policy priorities. Latvia said it would continue to strive for “constructive and pragmatic relations” with China.

Imports from China kept growing in the meantime. In 2025, Latvia imported goods worth 1.02 billion euros from China — 4.35% of all imports. We exported 222 million euros' worth to China. China sells to us. We found no regular Chinese transit train through Latvia, and statistics do not show Chinese freight separately.

This is where it starts — the part that often gets left out of conversations about transit. Freight entering Latvia by rail, thousand tonnes (Central Statistical Bureau):

In 2019, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan together accounted for about 1.3% of this freight. In 2025, about 31%. Russia, about 36%.

Freight entering by rail has fallen sixfold since 2019. But of what remains, almost a third is Central Asia.

Now look at the map and see which way it travels.

You cannot get from Kazakhstan to Latvia by rail, without a ferry, without crossing Russia. And this year Russia acted.

From 1 June 2026, Russia doubled rail tariffs on freight bound for Estonia, Latvia and Finland (Federal Antimonopoly Service order No. 306/26). Whether this also affects Kazakh and Uzbek transit, the LSM report does not say. From 1 July, Russia “temporarily” closed the Pytalovo border crossing opposite Kārsava. No reason was given, and no end date either. The main crossing, Zilupe–Sebezh, which handles freight to and from Russia and Central Asia, remains open.

For now.

The line attributed to Zhirinovsky says: whoever controls the rails controls everything that runs on them. Latvia's rails are run by Latvian Railways. But the route to them is controlled neither by China nor by Latvia. It is controlled by Russia.

The Latvian foreign minister's annual report on 2025 says that Latvia supported deeper EU–Central Asia relations, strengthening the EU's role in the region and practical inter-regional cooperation, as well as balancing the influence of Russia and China. The same report says China “enables” Russia's aggression “with dual-use goods, technologies, economic supplies” (our translation).

Latvia also has its own person in the region. Since 1 March 2025, the EU Special Representative for Central Asia has been a Latvian diplomat, Eduards Stiprais (mandate until the end of February 2027).

Europe talks in big numbers. In January 2024, the European Commission announced 10 billion euros for transport connections in Central Asia. The Commission's own statement, however, says these are “compiled contributions from international partners”. The Commission and the European Investment Bank themselves have committed 1.5 billion to this aim.

And there is one more number that has to be discussed honestly. Latvia's exports to Kyrgyzstan were 6.7 million euros in 2021. In 2023, 58.2 million. In 2024, 20.4 million; in 2025, 22.8 million. The data do not show where these goods ended up, and they do not prove any violation. But in July 2024 the director of Latvia's Customs Administration, Raimonds Zukuls, explained on LTV that once freight has been cleared through customs in Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan, any further obstacles to it reaching the Russian Federation are no longer in Latvia's zone of control. In April 2026, the EU applied its anti-circumvention tool to Kyrgyzstan for the first time, banning exports there of certain categories of dual-use goods.

Latvia's influence on Central Asia is small, and it will not change that alone. The real lever is the EU, and Latvia is inside it: with the EU Special Representative and with the EU Border Management Programme in Central Asia (BOMCA), led by Latvia's State Border Guard. Latvia itself ran eight bilateral development cooperation projects in Uzbekistan in 2025. Kazakh and Uzbek freight grew in 2025 compared with 2024, while the total fell. Riga cannot cancel Russian tariffs.

But that is exactly why the questions remain.

• Do the 1 June tariffs also apply to Central Asian transit?
• How much has transit lost since the tariffs were doubled?
• What is the plan if Russia also closes Zilupe?
• Does the Middle Corridor — across the Caspian, bypassing Russia — give Latvia anything?
• Do the latest Rail Baltica calculations include Central Asian freight at all?

China came with rails. Just not to us.

Here the rails are the same as they were, and the route to them runs through the same neighbour. Kazakh and Uzbek freight is almost a third of what still enters Latvia by rail. But it travels on Russian rails, at Russian tariffs, through Russian border crossings.

So — who controls the rails our freight comes on?

The answer is known. The question is whether there is a plan.

• Whether Russia's 1 June tariffs also apply to Kazakh and Uzbek transit through Russia. Some media say so; we found no confirmation.
• How much of the freight entering Latvia is of Chinese origin. The Central Statistical Bureau does not show it separately.
• Where Latvia's exports to Kyrgyzstan in 2022–2023 ended up.
• Whether the latest Rail Baltica cost-benefit calculations include Central Asian freight. We could not open the full 2024 analysis.