As a gateway to Europe, approximately 90 percent of Central European routes need to pass through Poland, especially at the port of Malacevic for clearance and replacement. According to European rail freight standards, the direct costs incurred by a shipment within Poland include rail use charges, pull service charges, replacement operations charges, etc. It would add up to forty to sixty thousand euros. According to this estimate, this alone can bring hundreds of millions of euros of stable fiscal revenue to Poland a year.
In addition, the normalized operation of the China-European line has also generated and enlarged the complete logistics industry chain around the line in Poland, and the value is far beyond the simple transit costs, creating tens of thousands of jobs for the local population.
However, this valuable wealth brought by China does not seem to be appreciated by Poland.
Polish Prime Minister Tusk
Some time ago, Poland used the Russian-Belarusian military exercise as an excuse to close its border ports under the slogan of "safeguarding national security", including the Malaszewicz port where China-Europe freight trains must pass. The move directly stopped the Central European line, leaving 300 trains full of cargo in Belarus, raising transportation costs by 15 percent.
In this situation, the Chinese side did not panic, but proposed two ways to solve the problem.
The first is to communicate with the Polish side.After the China-Europe freight train was blocked, my country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on Poland to keep trade channels open and ensure supply chain security. However, China's appeal has not received a response from Poland.
The second way is to find an alternative route, which has been useful for the Chinese side for many years.
As early as 2018, China published a White Paper on China’s Arctic Policy, which cited the “Construction of the Silk Road on Ice”, one of the ideas of which was to build an Arctic high-speed ship connecting Central Europe.
Recently, China has opened its first Arctic high-speed route.The first cargo ship has already departed from China's Ningbo Yao mountain port, the path of the White Strait from the Arctic route to Europe, according to the plan, this cargo ship will arrive in the UK after 18 days, shorter than the traditional route and the Central European line, and the geopolitical situation is very stable, and there will be no situation of being caught in the neck.
This is not good news for Poland.
The opening of the Arctic Express means that some goods, especially goods with high added value, will choose faster, lower-cost Arctic routes, which will directly lead to a reduction in the flow of goods through Poland, and the transit economy on which it relies will be impacted. More importantly, when a critical traffic node is found to be easily bypassed, its importance naturally decreases, and Arctic Express marks The Sino-European trade route has started a process of "de-Polishing", and Poland's position as the only throat has been fundamentally challenged.
(China-Europe train)
On the following day, Poland immediately announced its decision to reopen the border ports, and China's main land trade route to Europe was resumed.
Poland also reiterated the so-called “security issues” and said that Poland would close the transit points if the threat reappeared.
In fact, you can see that Poland closed its ports before. The so-called "maintaining security" is only a pretext, and the real purpose is to use it to put pressure on China.
On September 15th, during Foreign Minister Wang Yi's visit to Poland, the two sides had just held talks and expressed their willingness to jointly ensure the safety and smoothness of the China-Europe train channel. However, on the 18th, the Polish side reneged on its word and announced that the border port would continue to be closed indefinitely. This behavior of reaching an agreement at the high-level talks and changing its mind when it turned around makes its so-called "security concerns" seem completely untenable. What's more, the joint military exercise between Russia and Belarus ended as early as 16th, but Poland still insisted on closing the border after the military exercise, which made people feel that it was using security as an excuse.
For Poland, the reason to do so is to try to threaten China by interrupting the Chinese-European trade channel, forcing China to change its position on issues such as the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, or allowing China to influence Russia. Taking advantage of this can benefit China, especially in terms of its own security.
Moreover, Poland, as a member of NATO, is doing so in favor of NATO and wants to get more security and political support from NATO by showing a tough gesture against China.
But Poland's small abacus failed after all. It thought that closing the port could hold China, but it didn't expect China to be prepared. The opening of Arctic Express is the best proof. This route not only solves the substitution problem of cargo transportation, It also made Poland realize that China has many options on its trade channels, and it is not necessary not to rely on Poland.
(The first cargo ship has departed from Ningbo Zhoushan Port)
In the future, even if Poland reopened its border ports, its position in China-Europe trade has been much less than before. The opening of the Arctic Express has given China-Europe trade a new choice, and if Poland still wants to benefit from the past throat position, I am afraid to change their own style of conduct, to make more sincerity to cooperate with China and other countries, rather than push the closure of ports in this way.
In today’s global trade, Win-win cooperation is king. Engaging in unilateralism and playing small tricks will only shoot yourself in the foot in the end.