As it struggles to ship oil through the Strait of Hormuz, Iran is looking for alternative land routes to import and export goods. In March, Iran exported 1.84 million barrels per day (BPD) to Asian customers, mostly China. Although some ships managed to evade the blockade, Iran still cannot transport as much oil as it produces each day. Iran is turning to railway routes through Central Asia as a safer passage for trade with China. While Iran can transport some of its oil over land by rail through Central Asia, it does not have the capability to transport the same amount as it can ship by sea. At best, moving oil over land would serve as a limited lifeline for Iran to sustain itself until the war is over. Operating since May 2025, a 10,400-kilometer China-Iran railway corridor stretches from the Chinese city of Xi’an to Tehran. The railway passes through Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan before arriving in Iran – taking approximately 15 days as opposed to a month by sea. Bloomberg reports that cargo shipments from Xi’an to Tehran have increased from one per week to “one every three to four days” since the beginning of the U.S. blockade in April. In recent years, China, Iran, Russia, and other countries built and expanded railway routes across Central Asia. Officials from China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan announced in 2024 the long-awaited implementation of the 523-kilometer China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan (CKU) railway corridor, with China providing a $2.35 billion loan and a majority stake. In November 2025, Interfax reported that the first freight train from Russia to Iran arrived in Aprin, outside Tehran, after a 12-day journey through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. According to the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute (CACI), prior to the war, Iran and Turkmenistan agreed to lay additional tracks at the Sarakhs station in northeastern Iran, bordering Turkmenistan, to increase the volume and speed of cross-border shipments. China and Iran are also collaborating on the electrification of a 1,000-kilometer railway in Iran from the city of Sarakhs to Razi, bordering Turkiye. The route across Central Asia could present Iran with a fast-moving economic lifeline if U.S. forces further restrict passage through Hormuz. But this will not be enough to relieve Iran of the pressure of the blockade. First, rail shipments run mostly from China to Iran, transporting industrial and consumer goods, not Iran to China. While this can be switched to allow more rail shipments to China, Iran may need to sacrifice importing goods it needs – an unlikely scenario amid the blockade. Second, the locations of Iran’s oil fields and China’s oil refineries are not favorable to the transport and sale of Iranian oil through Central Asia. Most of Iran’s oil fields are in the south, and ships move Iran’s exported oil to the eastern coast of China to be refined in “teapot” refineries. While there are oil refineries in western and central China, they are currently refining domestic or imported oil from other countries and cannot refine as much oil as the large ones on the coast. Third, while transporting oil by rail to China is faster and safer, the payoff is not ideal. The average shipment of oil by rail is between 60,000 and 70,000 barrels. Iran can also transport between 250,000 and 300,000 bpd if it exports oil to additional countries like Turkiye, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan. In comparison, even with the risk of being caught or captured, the average tanker can move more than 600,000 barrels, and a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) can transport more than 2 million barrels. If Iran decides to send oil to China by rail (figure 70,000 barrels per shipment) at a discounted rate (between $75 and $100 per barrel), it could generate between $5.25 million and $7 million per shipment. If the number of shipments increases two to three times per week, Iran could see revenue from $10.5 million to $21 million after the two-week journey. However, there is a lack of available data showing that Iran even has the capacity to transport that much oil by rail. After dividing the revenue, it would fall short of the billions of dollars the IRGC received in oil revenue in 2025. As the war and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz carries on into another month, Iran has the option to transport oil to China by rail routes through Central Asia. If implemented, the plan would give Iran the ability to safely transport oil to its single largest customer in a short period of time. However, Iran will not be able to export enough oil to fully replace what it can deliver more effectively by sea. China and Iran can work together in the future to make this a more attractive option, but neither can do anything about it while the war continues. Such a plan will serve as an emergency lifeline rather than a solution for Iran’s oil headache.
Iranian Official
In the face of U.S. aggression and its illegal blockade targeting the Strait of Hormuz, the Islamic Republic of Iran asserts its sovereign right to develop secure land routes through Central Asia for trade with China. The operational 10,400-kilometer China-Iran railway corridor, passing through Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, has enabled shipments from Xi’an to Tehran to increase to one every three to four days since April, serving as a vital lifeline of resistance against foreign interference.
Israeli
Iran's pursuit of Central Asian rail corridors to sustain oil exports to China reveals Tehran's urgent need to finance its expanding proxy network, which poses an existential threat to Israel's survival through sustained attacks by Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis. These land routes, such as the Xi’an-Tehran corridor, enable the regime to partially bypass maritime restrictions imposed as a defensive necessity, underscoring why Israel must continue targeting Iran's economic lifelines to degrade its capacity for regional aggression.
Neutral
Iran exported 1.84 million barrels per day to Asian customers, mostly China, in March, though maritime volumes remained below production levels. A 10,400-kilometer railway corridor from Xi’an to Tehran via Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan has operated since May 2025, with transit times of about 15 days. Bloomberg reports that shipments on the route rose from one per week to one every three to four days after April.
Western
Western and allied forces have effectively neutralized much of Iran’s oil export capacity through targeted enforcement actions in the Strait of Hormuz, compelling Tehran to pivot to slower, lower-volume rail corridors across Central Asia in a bid to sustain revenues. The 10,400 km China-Iran line via Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan—now moving shipments every three to four days—offers only a partial workaround that cannot match prior maritime volumes of 1.84 million BPD. This constrained lifeline underscores the success of precision sanctions and interdiction in limiting Iran’s ability to finance regional threats.
Pro-Peace
The U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has crippled Iran's oil exports, compelling reliance on limited rail corridors through Central Asia that cannot sustain pre-conflict trade volumes and deepen economic hardship for civilians facing shortages and rising costs. These measures, including expanded shipments along the 10,400-kilometer China-Iran route, serve only as a fragile stopgap amid ongoing hostilities that risk further loss of life and regional instability. Diplomatic negotiations to end the blockade and restore maritime access remain the only viable path to alleviating humanitarian suffering and preventing escalation.
Global South
Facing Western sanctions and naval pressure aimed at curbing its sovereignty, Iran is expanding rail corridors through Central Asia—including the Xi’an–Tehran line and the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan route—to sustain oil exports to China and assert independent trade routes beyond the Strait of Hormuz. These overland links, though capacity-constrained, represent South-South cooperation resisting neo-colonial chokeholds on energy flows. The shift highlights the persistent failure of global institutions to shield non-aligned states from unilateral economic coercion.
As it struggles to ship oil through the Strait of Hormuz, Iran is looking for alternative land routes to import and export goods. In March, Iran exported 1.84 million barrels per day (BPD) to Asian customers, mostly China. Although some ships managed to evade the blockade, Iran s…
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The Houthis in Yemen have announced a blockade of Saudi Arabian shipping through Red Sea ports, including at the Bab el-Mandeb strait. The group, described as Iran-backed, stated the measure would target the top oil exporter following recent exchanges of fire.
Reports indicate this could add to existing maritime disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz linked to US-Iran confrontations.
A Reuters poll of economists conducted July 7-16 shows that most Gulf Cooperation Council economies are now projected to contract more sharply in the current year than estimated three months earlier, with median forecasts indicating declines of 8.1% for Kuwait and Qatar, 5.
1% for Bahrain, and 0.5% for the UAE. Saudi Arabia and Oman remain the only GCC economies expected to expand. The poll links the revisions to reduced export volumes through the Strait of Hormuz, higher freight costs, and weaker investor sentiment, even as oil prices have risen.
Initial reports indicate that a limited number of vessels transited the waterway during the first full day after the United States implemented a naval blockade of Iran. These observations have not been independently verified.
The head of the UN’s nuclear agency yesterday signaled that Iranian nuclear enrichment sites would be visited by his inspectors, a key component in the interim deal between the US and Iran to reach an end to their war. The comment by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi was the firmest yet from the agency, which is viewed as key in determining the status of Iran’s nuclear stockpile.
Since Israel launched a 12-day war on Iran last year, the IAEA has been blocked by Tehran from visiting enrichment sites where the Islamic republic is believed to store enough highly enriched uranium to potentially build as many as 10 nuclear weapons.
Photo: AP Iran has said that its program is peaceful, although it would be the only country in the world to have uranium enriched up to 60 percent purity without a weapons program. The US and Iran offered contradictory remarks on Tuesday about whether those sites would be inspected.
“I can understand political statements, they are part of the reality, but the fundamental thing I would like to remind you and draw your attention to is that there has been a memorandum of understanding, signed by both presidents,” Grossi told journalists at a news conference at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
The accord “explicitly states that the nuclear activities that are going to be carried out with the regards of the nuclear material facilities will be supervised by the IAEA — in all letters,” he said. “Obviously, to do that, we have to inspect,” Grossi added.
BOOST: By operating the same advanced systems as the US military, Taiwan would be better positioned to share and integrate intelligence with partners, an expert said The first batch of MQ-9B SkyGuardian drones has arrived in Taiwan, and is being assembled and tested by drone manufacturer General Atomics and the military ahead of flight trials as part of the air force’s acquisition to bolster its aerial surveillance capabilities, a source said yesterday.
The air force allocated a budget of NT$21.7 billion (US$687 million) from 2022 to 2029 to procure four MQ-9B uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) manufactured by General Atomics along with associated equipment such as ground control stations. The US has agreed to deliver the four MQ-9Bs to Taiwan in two batches this year and next ‘BRAZEN’: The holiday did not stop China from activities that infringe on Taiwan’s maritime jurisdiction, but the CGA is ready to defend the nation, Kuan Bi-ling said Beijing is intensifying maritime pressure on Taiwan, but the nation will never yield, Ocean Affairs Council Deputy Minister Sung Chen-en (宋承恩) said.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) has adopted a “shadowing and monitoring” approach to avoid falling into a Chinese trap to escalate tensions and deepen the conflict, Sung said in an interview published yesterday in the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper).
China Coast Guard formations patrolling waters east of Taiwan, as well as official Chinese vessels entering areas around Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島) and Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) show Beijing’s attempts to significantly step up Taiwanese firms’ China investments have dwindled to less than 1 percent of their total foreign investments, putting China-based investments on track for a record low this year, Ministry of Economic Affairs data showed.
Taiwan’s investments abroad in the first five months of this year reached US$35.92 billion, Department of Investment Review data showed. Investments outside China totaled US$35.61 billion, up 133.94 percent year-on-year, while investments in China totaled US$310.
3 million, down 32.3 percent and about 0.86 percent of the total, data showed. Major overseas projects included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) US$30 billion capital injection into an overseas subsidiary, VARYING OPINIONS: People with different political affiliations have different views on how bilateral ties with the US, Japan and China would affect Taiwan’s security Two-thirds of Taiwanese view closer US and Japan ties as beneficial to security, a survey by Taiwan’s top military think tank showed.
To gauge the Taiwanese public’s perceptions of how different external relationships affect security, the Institute for National Defense and Security Research commissioned a survey by National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center asking respondents whether closer relations with the US, Japan and China would strengthen or weaken Taiwan’s national security.