Trade is thriving along the “modern Silk Road,” which passes through a far-flung city on the border of China and Kazakhstan.

Khorgos is about 3,500 kilometers due west of Beijing in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Flying over the oil fields of Karamay, this author arrived at the airport in the city of Yining. From there, it was a 100-km drive along a nicely paved expressway to the border. Soon after passing shimmering snowcapped mountains, the car arrived at a brand new town with skyscrapers and European-style shopping streets, surrounded by vast wilderness.

Khorgos is in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in northern Xinjiang, an area home to many Kazakhs. It is the largest customs clearance point for “Trans-Eurasian Logistics,” an international freight railway that connects China, Central Asia, Russia and Europe.

Trans-Eurasian Logistics began operating in March 2011. Although it started as a small-scale initiative, it was upgraded to a national flagship project when President Xi Jinping laid out the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013. New routes were opened up all over China as if in competition with one another.

It is now known as the “modern Silk Road,” and connects 125 cities in China with 227 cities in 25 European countries. The route serviced 17,000 trains in 2023, a 20-fold increase from 2015. The trains are faster than maritime shipping and cheaper than air freight.

“There used to be no paved roads in Khorgos, and the only buildings with two stories or more were the China Construction Bank and the Agricultural Bank of China,” said a taxi driver in Khorgos. “Trans-Eurasian Logistics has brought people and work to a town that had nothing before.”

The business center is a free trade area adjacent to the customs clearance facility at the border. By simply showing a passport or ID, people can enter without undergoing the departure procedures of either country. There are also some tax exemptions in the area.

The border between China and Kazakhstan is within the site. Many tourists upload photos of themselves straddling the border to social media. A total of 6 million people visited the area from January to October 2024.

The huge commercial buildings that line the expansive grounds are packed with wholesalers of daily goods, IT products, home appliances, clothing and more. They look exactly the same as the wholesale buildings in the city of Yiwu in Zhejiang province and the commercial buildings in the electronics district of Shenzhen in Guangdong province.

All along the aisles, workers were busy packing sold products into cardboard boxes, and the sound of plastic tape being wrapped around the boxes echoed constantly throughout the building.

“Business is going well here,” said an employee who was stacking up a massive number of boxes containing stainless steel sinks. The company manufactures kitchen equipment and door knobs at its factory in Jiangxi province. The Kazakh interpreters employed by the company can handle a variety of languages, including Chinese, Uyghur, Russian, Kyrgyz and Uzbek.

In another example, a bedding retailer has expanded from Zhejiang province, using its facility in Khorgos to develop new sales routes in Central Asia, Russia and Europe. The rent for each store varies, but one company said that it was extremely cheap at 7,000 to 9,000 yuan ($950 to $1,250) per year.

A variety of languages is spoken at each booth, including languages from Central Asia in addition to Russian, English and Chinese. Because of the time difference between Europe and Central Asia, peak business hours are in the afternoon here, which means it is late at night in the more populated eastern part of China.

That helped explain a sign on a building that read, “Khorgos cross-border e-commerce international livestream shopping zone.”

There, Hani, a Kazakh man in his twenties, was getting ready in a studio.

“I’m originally from this area, but when I was a kid, my family moved to Guangzhou in Guangdong province to run a business,” he said. “I heard that trade was booming in Khorgos, so I set up a business here in the hopes of finding some opportunity.”

His company mainly handles exports of IT products from China, and he says he started doing livestream shopping in Chinese for the domestic market while he was still in Guangzhou. He now shares videos in Kazakh on TikTok.

Hani noted that Trans-Eurasian Logistics “changed not just logistics, but also distribution channels.” Before, Chinese products had usually been exported to Russia, which has established transport routes, and then re-exported to countries in Central Asia by Russian traders.

Now, logistical links have been set up in various countries, meaning it is easier to do business directly. Additionally, many businesses point out the progress made in simplifying customs procedures and financial cooperation among countries.

For people in Central Asia, it reduces costs such as middleman fees and distribution expenses, and increases product options. It also speeds up delivery times. For Chinese exporters, it is a chance to enter a ‘blue ocean’ where there are still few competitors.

“I’ve only just started working here,” said Hani regarding his future plans. “First, I’d like to increase sales. But eventually I want to open up a livestreaming shopping class in Kazakh.”

Trans-Eurasian Logistics primarily services big companies that transport large quantities of cargo, and the small and medium-sized businesses that gather in Khorgos are just small parts of these huge enterprises.

So far, only a small part of the free trade area has been completed. While some of the buildings are bustling, there are also half-constructed buildings left abandoned — a scene familiar across much of China.

If conditions between China and Europe or Central Asia change, this “mini bubble” could burst very quickly, and the sudden prosperity of Khorgos could collapse like a house of cards.

But seeing people pushing carts piled high with cardboard boxes and others carrying bulging loads of goods very much reminded this author of Shenzhen’s rise in the early 2000s.

Although the Chinese economy is stagnant, not all Chinese are dejected.

“Even if there’s only a small chance of profit, I won’t let an opportunity pass me by,” said a Chinese businessman here. The border crossing offers a clear reminder of Chinese traders’ indefatigable spirit.