The Age of Modern Caravans

High-speed trains are coming while sea trade is meeting with some crises

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Since the voyage of Vasco da Gama to India, sea transport has come to replace the land-based Silk Road for trade. However, on account of the rise of isolationist ideas amidst US society, coupled with the deadlock facing sea transportation’s further development, and innovation in the high-speed rail sector, the current global trade order is on the brink of change.

The Silk Road, a network of trade routes extending on 6,437 kilometers from China to the Eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, was actively used to exchange goods among states of the Ancient and Medieval worlds. Through the routes carved over the Asian steppes and deserts, global trade was conducted – and the world economy concentrated – in Asia. Therefore, over the period running from the Han Dynasty until the Qing Dynasty, states thrived in that particular continent.

However, the significance of the Silk Road decreased since the beginning of the 14th century due to several factors. Initially, the disappearance of the Timurid Empire and the spike of the ensuing civil war which engulfed Central Asia and Iran destabilized the center of the network, until the Shaybanid and Safavid dynasties came to rule. Secondly, the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks ended a focal point of the Western merchants on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean, that had been bridging Asia and Europe.

Finally, when China closed its doors to foreign merchants, trade with the East lost most of its importance. Since then, somehow, the collapse of the Asian giant dynasties began, owing to the isolation of global markets. Meanwhile, Westerners were forced to innovate in the realm of sea transport as well as to find new routes.

Shift to the seas

It was Vasco Da Gama, who revolutionized trade links with the discovery of the sea route to India, the second largest economy of the world according to GDP (PPP). Although the Portuguese and Spanish sailed towards Asia for religious and military purposes – as Robert Kaplan wrote in his book Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power, to avoid passing by the Muslim bastions in North Africa and Turkey like their English and Dutch counterparts – the former overtook the latter by crafting more innovative caravels.

Unlike Spanish and Portuguese caravels and galleons, which were used for military and trade purposes, the Dutch traded on the Dutch fluyt, a type of ship that constituted an advantage for Holland till the Anglo-Dutch trading war. After the success of this war, England gained the lead over maritime trade. In another sense, sea powers’ dominance became a reality for the first time since the loss of Athens against Sparta. Since then, goods have been overwhelmingly carried by caravans, i.e. on land.

For approximately three centuries, ships played a leading role in trade, until the emergence of railway trains at the beginning of the XIX century. Modern Ultra Large Container Vessels, the biggest ship of its type with 366-meter length, 49-meter width, and 15.2-meter draught, can transport at least 14 501 standardized shipping containers (TEU). This kind of carrier is constructed to fit the locks of the Suez Canal while the Panamax is sized for the Panama Canal and the Feeder is responsible for shipping from smaller ports to bigger ports. Currently, ship transport accounts for 80% of global trade, and more than 50,000 merchant ships set sail across the oceans yearly.

However formidable those facts look, the contemporary trade needs revolutionary changes to keep efficient growth.

Deadlocks of sea trade

When Donald Trump won the presidential election in the United States in 2016, the global community saw how strongly isolationist thoughts had been on the rise in an industrial powerhouse of the world economy. The wall along the Mexican border, the trade war with China, and withdrawal from international pacts may seem to be marginal and temporary actions by a four-year-long government, but critical from the point of social tendencies in the US.

Somehow, it resembles the Qing empire, whose closing to the world gradually rendered caravan routes through Central Asia and Iran meaningless. Similarly, the isolationist movement in the US costs tremendous strategic points while land powers, China and India, are growing and Russia is rebelling against the current world order.

Secondly, the blockage of the Suez Canal, due to the obstruction of Evergreen container ship,  demonstrated that contemporary sea trade standards have already approached their endpoints. Giant vessels no longer enlarge owing to the problems of crossing canals, docking to ports, and financial burdens. Furthermore, time spent on loading and unloading decreases the productivity levels of Ultra Large Container Vessels. This tendency motivates countries to cooperate through intra-regional land roads.

Finally, railway transport is undergoing considerable improvements in terms of speed. Born in Japan under the name of Shinkansen in 1964, high-speed rail grew as an international network in Europe. However, it is China that owns the most extended railway system of 40,000 kilometers, as well as the fastest Maglev train in the world – going at 600 km per hour – since 2021. Furthermore, during that same year, China promoted an autonomous machine that lays 2 km of high-speed tracks per day and powered its techniques with artificial intelligence.

In parallel with the development of high-speed rails on both historical sides of the Silk Road (China and Europe), the bridging countries (Uzbekistan, Turkey, and Hungary) are constructing their lines. This trend, unlike marine vessels, is prone to further growth taking into account China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”.

Final Word

To conclude, China, one of the centers of the global economy, is blocked by its geostrategic rivals (the USA, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) as 14th century Spain and Portugal were by the Ottomans. Only when alternative trade routes began to be looked for and, eventually, found did sea transport develop. Thus, China’s quest for restoring ancient caravan links is likely to awaken a revolutionary tendency among current trading networks. 

The work was originally published by Eurasian Affairs and republished by Technology in Global Affairs with the consent of the author.