Asia–Europe Trade Routes in the Shadow of Conflict just moving around

Usually on this blog I write about history and travel. Yet recent events affecting the main Asia–Europe Trade Routes have prompted me to step for a moment into the area I deal with professionally. When key transport corridors become unstable, the consequences reach far beyond shipping and logistics – they begin to influence trade, supply chains, and the everyday functioning of economies. This article looks at what is currently happening along the routes linking Asia and Europe, why disruptions in the Red Sea matter so much, and what alternative transport corridors might play a larger role in the future.

Asia–Europe Trade Routes in the Shadow of Conflict | Routes commerciales Asie–Europe à l’ombre des conflits | Rutas comerciales Asia–Europa a la sombra del conflicto | アジア・ヨーロッパ間の貿易ルート―紛争の影の中で | 亚洲—欧洲贸易路线：冲突阴影之下

For the past three decades, Asia–Europe trade routes have operated in a relatively stable environment, disrupted only occasionally by minor incidents. The primary objective in logistics was simple: minimise costs wherever possible. Global trade – including trade with China – was widely seen as a remedy for Europe’s high production costs.

Today, however, it is becoming increasingly clear that this model is changing. In global logistics, transport costs are no longer the only decisive factor. Reliability, security, and predictable delivery times are becoming just as important. One of the most visible signs of this shift can be seen in recent developments in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf – regions through which some of the world’s most important transport corridors linking Europe and Asia pass.

Escalating Disruptions on the Red Sea Route – A Brief Chronology

Although tensions in the Red Sea region are now largely associated with conflicts in the Middle East, the instability of this route has been emerging gradually over the past decade and a half. It has repeatedly shown just how vulnerable the trade connections between Asia and Europe are to disruptions in this region.

One of the first serious challenges was piracy off the coast of Somalia. At the turn of the first and second decades of the 21st century, the waters near the Horn of Africa became one of the most dangerous areas for commercial shipping. Somali pirate groups attacked merchant vessels, kidnapped crews, and demanded substantial ransoms for their release. Although piracy was not a state-driven conflict, its scale was significant enough for many countries to deploy naval forces to protect maritime routes. Joint patrols and new security procedures on board ships gradually brought the problem under control.

In the following decade, another source of tension emerged – this time linked to the civil war in Yemen. As the conflict unfolded, the Houthi movement took control of a large part of northern Yemen, including sections of the Red Sea coastline. Over time, the group began using its geographical position to target commercial vessels sailing close to the Yemeni coast. In some ways, this echoed the earlier problem of Somali piracy: once again, an armed group was operating along one of the world’s most important shipping routes. However, these attacks were more closely tied to regional political tensions and the broader conflicts of the Middle East. As a result, the risk of disruption in this part of the world never fully disappeared and continues to be factored in by shipping companies and logistics operators planning routes between Asia and Europe.

Attacks in the Red Sea region have prompted some shipping companies to alter their routes. Instead of sailing through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, a number of vessels have begun avoiding the area altogether and travelling around Africa via the Cape of Good Hope. This detour adds several thousand kilometres to the journey between Asia and Europe and can extend transit times by well over a week or more. For global logistics, the consequences are very tangible: transport costs increase, delivery times become longer, and shipping lines need to deploy more vessels to maintain regular service schedules – which in turn pushes their costs even higher.

Another type of disruption occurred in 2021, when the giant container ship Ever Given ran aground in the Suez Canal and blocked the passage for other vessels. For several days, one of the main Asia–Europe trade routes was completely cut off. Hundreds of ships were forced to wait before they could pass through the canal, and global supply chains continued to feel the effects of the blockage for weeks afterwards. The incident demonstrated that even a single technical failure can cause serious disruption to the global transport system. It also highlighted how heavily modern world trade depends on the smooth functioning of a few critical maritime chokepoints.

Today, the Red Sea region also lies in the shadow of broader geopolitical tensions across the Middle East. Conflicts in this part of the world are increasingly multi-layered and rarely limited to direct confrontations between states. Alongside regular armies, a wide range of armed organisations, militias, and political groups operate there, often linked to wider regional power dynamics. As a result, it is difficult to speak of a single conflict; rather, it is a complex web of overlapping tensions stretching across both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Conflicts of this kind are particularly difficult to resolve through a single intervention or agreement.

From the perspective of global logistics, this means that one of the world’s most important trade routes runs through a region that remains unstable. Piracy, the activities of armed groups, infrastructure incidents, and tensions between states can all affect the safety of shipping at any moment. As a result, shipping lines and logistics companies are increasingly treating the Red Sea not as a temporary problem, but as a permanent source of risk within the global transport system.

The Red Sea Route

Although public discussion often refers simply to the route through the Suez Canal, in reality it is an entire system of interconnected seas and narrow maritime passages that together form one of the most important transport corridors in the modern world. A vast share of trade between Asia and Europe moves along this route – from containers carrying electronics and clothing to industrial components and energy resources.

Ships departing from East Asian ports – such as Shanghai, Shenzhen, Ningbo, or Singapore – first pass through the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca into the Indian Ocean. They then sail along the southern edge of Asia towards the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa. At this stage of the journey, they approach one of the key chokepoints of the entire system – the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

The Bab el-Mandeb Strait connects the Gulf of Aden, which forms part of the Indian Ocean, with the Red Sea. It is a narrow passage between the Arabian Peninsula and Africa. The northern shore lies along Yemen, while Djibouti and Eritrea sit on the southern side. After passing through the strait, ships enter the Red Sea – a relatively long and narrow body of water stretching between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. At the northern end of the Red Sea lies the Suez Canal. This artificial canal in Egypt links the Red Sea with the Mediterranean. When it was opened in the 19th century, it dramatically shortened the sea route between Europe and Asia. Thanks to it, ships can sail directly from the Indian Ocean into the Mediterranean basin and then head towards ports in southern Europe – such as Piraeus, Gioia Tauro, or Valencia – or continue further to the major ports of northern Europe, including Rotterdam, Antwerp, and Hamburg.

The importance of this transport corridor is best illustrated by the scale of ship traffic. Tens of thousands of vessels pass through the Suez Canal each year. In practice, this means that several dozen ships transit the canal every single day – including large container vessels, tankers, and ships carrying a wide range of bulk cargoes. It is estimated that around 10–15% of global maritime trade moves through the Suez Canal, and in container shipping the share is even higher.

The entire Asia–Europe route through the Red Sea can therefore be seen as a system of several successive transport gateways. Each of these elements also represents a potential point of vulnerability for global transport. Disruption to shipping at any of them – whether caused by conflict, a technical incident, or security threats – can immediately affect trade flows between Asia and Europe.

Maritime Freight, Transit Time, and the Risk of Disruption on the Asia–Europe Route

The importance of the route through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal does not stem solely from its geographical position. Equally important are the economic consequences that arise when this connection is disrupted. Modern maritime transport forms the backbone of global trade, yet it is highly sensitive to changes in shipping security, route length, and delivery times. Each of these factors directly affects transport costs and the functioning of supply chains.

One of the first areas affected by disruptions along the Suez route is maritime freight rates. Maritime freight refers to the cost of transporting cargo by ship – most often calculated for a container or for a specific quantity of goods. In theory, maritime transport remains the cheapest way to move goods over long distances. In practice, however, freight rates are highly sensitive to geopolitical conditions and disruptions in transport. If risks emerge in a key region such as the Red Sea, shipping companies must include additional costs in their calculations. These may include higher insurance premiums, the need to implement vessel protection measures, as well as the risk of delays during voyages. In the past, regions affected by piracy also saw cases of ships being hijacked and large ransoms demanded for the release of crews and cargo. Although such incidents occur less frequently today than they did fifteen years ago, the mere possibility of them still affects how transport companies and insurers assess risk.

The second key factor is transit time. The route through the Suez Canal is the shortest connection between Asia and Europe. However, if shipping companies consider passage through the Red Sea too risky, vessels may be redirected along an alternative route around Africa – via the Cape of Good Hope. Such a decision has very concrete logistical consequences. Sailing around Africa means extending the journey between Asia and Europe by several thousand kilometres. In practice, the voyage may become longer by well over a week. For shipping lines, this primarily means higher fuel consumption and the need to keep vessels deployed for longer within a single transport cycle. As a result, the operational costs of the entire transport process increase.

A longer journey time has consequences not only for shipping lines but also for companies that rely on maritime transport. In global supply chains, an important concept is inventory in transit. This refers to the value of goods that are currently being transported between the producer and the buyer. If transport takes longer, the goods cannot be used in production or sold. The capital invested in them remains tied up in cargo that is still at sea. The higher the unit value of the goods being transported, the greater the economic importance of reducing transport time. In the case of high-value goods – such as electronics, industrial components, or automotive parts – extending transport by several days can have a real impact on companies’ operating costs.

In practice, disruptions along the route through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal can trigger a domino effect across the entire logistics system serving trade between Asia and Europe. Rising freight rates, longer transit times, and increased security risks mean that companies must adjust delivery schedules, inventory planning, and the organisation of transport along this route.

The New Silk Road and the Asia–Europe Rail Connection

A project that has gained increasing attention over the past decade and a half in discussions about trade between Asia and Europe is the so-called New Silk Road. This initiative was launched by China as part of a broader economic and infrastructure strategy known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Its objective is to develop networks of transport and logistics connections linking the Chinese economy with markets across Eurasia, the Middle East, and Europe. From the outset, China’s policy towards this project has been highly proactive. The Chinese state has invested in the development of railway infrastructure, logistics terminals, and transport connections along the entire route from China through Central Asia to Europe. The project has been supported both through infrastructure investment and through various financial mechanisms designed to increase the attractiveness of transport along this corridor.

Within the Belt and Road Initiative, several different variants of transport routes have emerged. Some of them are maritime and run through the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. There are also land-based variants that cross the Eurasian continent. From the perspective of transport between China and Europe, the rail corridor is particularly important, as it enables the direct movement of goods between these regions by land. The main rail connections run from central and western regions of China through Kazakhstan, Russia, and Belarus to Central Europe. One of the key points along this route is the transhipment hub in Małaszewicze on Poland’s eastern border. It is there that a large share of rail transport from China enters the territory of the European Union.

One of the key characteristics of this connection is transit time. Freight trains operating between China and Europe usually cover this route in around 12–18 days, depending on the specific route and operational conditions. By comparison, maritime transport between Chinese ports and Europe typically takes between four and six weeks. This means that Eurasian rail transport allows goods to be delivered between these two regions significantly faster. However, rail transport cannot replace maritime transport in terms of the scale of shipments. Its role lies rather in handling part of the cargo that is more sensitive to delivery time.

At the same time, this route runs through regions of considerable geopolitical importance. The situation of this corridor changed markedly after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in 2022. In the initial phase of the conflict, some logistics companies and transport operators began limiting the use of rail connections running through Russia and Belarus. This was primarily due to political uncertainty, concerns about sanctions, and the overall unpredictability of the situation in the region. As a result, in the first months after the start of the war, traffic along this route declined significantly and at one point fell to only around 10–15% of its previous transport volume. In public debate, there were even proposals to reduce the importance of rail routes passing through Russia and Belarus within the European transport system. The corridor, however, did not come to a complete halt. After the initial decline, rail transport gradually began to recover.

In the case of the New Silk Road, the key factor is above all trade between China and Europe, rather than the broader trade between Asia as a whole and Europe. It is also worth noting China’s recently announced new five-year plan. Increasingly, it points towards a shift away from a model based on the production of low-cost consumer goods and towards the production of goods with higher technological value. This implies a greater share of advanced industrial components, electronics, and technological products in Chinese exports, which – due to their higher unit value – are more sensitive to transport time and the cost of inventory in transit. This may further reinforce the trend of relocating the lowest-cost production from China to other countries in the region, such as Vietnam, Bangladesh, or India. In their case, maritime transport will most likely remain the dominant way of moving goods to Europe. China, by contrast, may continue to use the rail alternative, especially since Beijing possesses significant political and economic leverage that may help sustain the functioning of this transport corridor.

Publicly available data suggests that the current volume of traffic on the China–Europe rail corridor is around 2 million TEU per year. It is more difficult to indicate a single official figure for its maximum capacity, because this is not a single railway line but a system of several routes and terminals. It can nevertheless be assumed that the potential capacity of the corridor before it enters the European Union is higher than the current transport volume and, with further infrastructure development, could reach several million TEU annually. Infrastructure development plans in Małaszewicze (Poland) envisage capacity of around 500,000 TEU per year, although more ambitious logistics scenarios suggest that, with further expansion of terminals and improvements in traffic organisation, it could approach around 1 million TEU. The key question, however, concerns not only the terminal itself but also the capacity of Poland’s railway infrastructure, which would need to handle the onward transit of containers deeper into Europe. Container trade between China and Europe is currently estimated at around 20–25 million TEU per year. This means that even with capacity of about 1 million TEU, the Eurasian rail corridor would handle only a few percent of transport on this route, although its role in the overall structure of China–Europe transport could gradually grow if volumes continue to increase.

Are There Other Alternatives for Transport Between China and Europe?

Apart from the maritime route through the Suez Canal and the northern rail corridor running through Russia and Belarus, other transport concepts linking China with Europe have also emerged. The most frequently mentioned alternative is the so-called Middle Corridor – a central transport route running through Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Turkey. In recent years, it has appeared increasingly often in logistics analyses as a potential route that could partially reduce the dependence of trade between Asia and Europe on corridors passing through Russia.

The Middle Corridor runs from western China through Kazakhstan, then across the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan, and further through Georgia and Turkey to Europe. Unlike the northern rail route, however, it is not a single continuous railway corridor. Transport along this route operates in a mixed system – rail and maritime – because containers must be transhipped in ports on the Caspian Sea. This means additional logistics operations that extend transit times and increase costs. A second limitation of this route is infrastructure. Ports on the Caspian Sea and the railway network in the Caucasus region have significantly lower capacity than the northern Eurasian corridor. In practice, this means that the Middle Corridor may serve as a complementary route to other transport corridors, but for now its ability to handle very large cargo volumes remains limited.

An important factor is also the geopolitical situation in the region. This corridor runs through areas where political tensions and conflicts have occurred in recent years, particularly in the Caucasus and parts of the Middle East. In practice, this means that this transport option is not entirely free from risks associated with political instability.

Another variant that appears in logistics analyses is a corridor running through Ukraine, including the use of the broad-gauge LHS line reaching the terminal in Sławków. Under current conditions, however, its use is practically impossible due to the ongoing Russian–Ukrainian war, which has completely destabilised transport operations along this route. In some infrastructure concepts, this solution is considered as part of a broader transport system linked to the Middle Corridor, but its real significance could emerge only after the end of the conflict and the reconstruction of Ukraine’s transport infrastructure.

An important element of the northern transport system linking Asia and Europe is the Trans-Siberian Railway. For many years it served as the main land corridor connecting the Far East with Europe and formed a key part of the so-called Northern Eurasian Land Bridge. In practice, it was along this route that the first regular container services between China and Europe began to develop, even before the concept of the New Silk Road became widely recognised.

Over time, the role of this connection began to be taken over by new logistics corridors developed as part of China’s infrastructure initiatives, most notably the corridor running through Kazakhstan, Russia, and Belarus to transhipment terminals at the border of the European Union, particularly in the Małaszewicze area (Poland). However, after the outbreak of the Russian–Ukrainian war, the situation of these connections changed significantly. Transport between the transhipment hub near Moscow and the European Union declined markedly, which is visible in both rail and road traffic. At present, the role of the Trans-Siberian Railway in trade between China and Europe has clearly weakened. The line remains an important transport corridor, but it is increasingly used primarily for trade between Russia and China, as well as for the transport of raw materials and goods directed to Asian markets.

In the longer term, transport analyses point to another potential alternative – the so-called Northern Sea Route along the Arctic coastline. As Arctic ice continues to melt, the possibility of using this route as a shortened maritime connection between Asia and Europe is increasingly being considered. This results from the shape of the Earth itself: on flat maps the distances may appear similar, but in reality the Arctic route between Asia and Europe is significantly shorter. For example, a voyage from ports in eastern China to Northern Europe via the Suez Canal is around 20,000 km, whereas the Northern Sea Route could shorten this distance by roughly 30–40%, or about 6,000–8,000 km.

What Next for Trade Between Asia and Europe?

In a scenario of a full-scale conflict in the Middle East that led to a prolonged disruption of shipping through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, the consequences for trade between Asia and Europe would be multi-dimensional. First of all, a large share of maritime transport would have to be redirected around the Cape of Good Hope. In practice, this means higher fuel consumption, longer utilisation of vessels within a single transport cycle, and the need to deploy a greater number of ships to maintain the same services, which usually leads to higher freight rates. Longer transit times also increase the cost of inventory in transit. In such a situation, part of the cost advantage of production in distant regions of Asia could begin to diminish, as the growing share of transport costs and delivery time affects the final price of goods. As a result, the prices of goods arriving from Asia to the European market could become more sensitive to changes in transport costs than during periods of stable shipping. This would be particularly relevant for products with higher unit value and for industrial components, where both transit time and the cost of inventory in transit play an important role in companies’ calculations.

In such a situation, the importance of alternative transport corridors could increase. A larger share of Chinese cargo – particularly shipments that are more sensitive to delivery time – could be redirected to the Eurasian rail corridor linking China with Europe through Russia and Belarus. In such a scenario, however, the key factor would be the geopolitical situation and the agreements between China and Russia ensuring the stable operation of this corridor.

It is also worth considering another scenario. If the disruptions currently affecting Asia–Europe trade routes were to persist over the longer term, companies might begin searching not only for alternative transport routes but also for different production locations. In such a situation, the trend already visible in recent years towards so-called nearshoring – relocating parts of production closer to end markets – could strengthen further. From the perspective of the European economy, this would mean a gradual shift of some manufacturing from distant regions of Asia to countries closer to Europe, as well as to Europe itself. Shorter supply chains would make companies less vulnerable to transport disruptions and reduce the risks associated with long and unstable logistics routes. In this sense, changes in international transport could become one of the factors accelerating broader shifts in the geography of production. Another possible alternative would be to reduce Europe’s current level of consumer excess – but that is a subject for another article.