As of Friday, the China-Europe freight train network has completed 1,000 trips this year, reaching this milestone eight days earlier than in 2024.
On Friday morning, the China-Europe freight train X8489, loaded with electronic products, mechanical parts, and chemical goods, departed from Xi'an International Port Station, heading for Malaszewicze, Poland. This marks the 1,000th trip for China-Europe freight trains in 2025.
To enhance efficiency, the Xi'an Railway Bureau has used the Internet of Things, big data, and artificial intelligence to develop an intelligent station system, significantly reducing operation times.
Xi'an International Port Station now operates 18 international trunk lines, ensuring comprehensive coverage of major freight sources across Eurasia.
"China-Europe freight trains have maintained strong operational momentum this year. With an average of over 14 departures daily, a train leaves or arrives at Xi'an International Port Station every 100 minutes. The station has also set new records for daily loading volumes five times this year, with a peak of 1,366 carriages loaded in a single day," said Liu Shunli, chief duty officer of Xi'an International Port.
To enhance the transportation efficiency, the port yard has been upgraded from two tracks to six, increasing its annual container handling capacity to 6 million TEUs (20-foot equivalent units) and its freight volume to 75 million tons. This upgrade has further consolidated Xi'an's position as a major hub for the Eurasia Railway Fleet.
"This train that departed on Friday will take only 10 to 12 days to its destination. With the high-quality development of the China-Europe freight train (Xi'an), high-value goods are forming a significant scale, and cross-border e-commerce goods are becoming more sophisticated and branded, achieving the goal of 'Shaanxi goods, Shaanxi collection, Shaanxi manufacturing, and Shaanxi transportation'," said Shi Miao, deputy general manager of the Multimodal Transport Company under the Xi'an International Port Group.
"To further improve the high-quality operation of China-Europe freight trains, we collaborated with 13 work units in the park and established a joint functional Party branch. Since its creation last June, the branch has continuously worked on improving the efficiency by integrating railway and customs inspection procedures and optimizing operational processes, we've reduced the return trip costs by 20 percent and increased assembly and distribution efficiency by 52.9 percent compared to previous levels," said Shi Zhiyuan, secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) General Branch of Xi'an International Port.
China-Europe freight trains surpass 1,000 trips in 2025
The people-to-people exchanges should be encouraged rather than limited as they can promote relations among countries, said an expert from the United States.
On April 10, 1971, the U.S. table tennis delegation visited China, breaking the ice for China-U.S. relations and is remembered as the Ping-Pong Diplomacy.
This year marks the 55th anniversary of the Ping-Pong Diplomacy.
Odd Arne Westad, a renowned historian and a global Cold War scholar at Yale University, said in a recent interview with the China Global Television Network (CGTN) that history shows sports and cultural links can steer state relations toward positive interaction.
"I'm glad that we are celebrating the anniversary of the Ping-Pong Diplomacy, because I think all kinds of exchanges, including sports exchanges and cultural exchanges among countries, are really important, particularly in the kind of setting that we are seeing today. And as you rightly said, the kind of sports links that gradually started to develop between the United States and China, then became a kind of conduit over onto much more significant positive changes in the relationship between the two countries. What I want to see today is much more interaction in terms of those people-to-people contacts between the United States and China," he said.
The scholar said such exchanges should develop naturally rather than be restricted.
"Instead, we are heading, it seems to me, in the opposite direction. There are far fewer American students in China now than was the case a decade ago. The number of Chinese students coming to the United States also seemed to be going down. At Yale, some of my very best students are Chinese. As an institution, we take enormous pride in the more than 100-year-old relationship that we have with China. I think it's very important for those kinds of links to continue, not just because they are good for the people involved, but much more importantly, as the Ping-Pong Diplomacy shows that they can influence the broader relationships, including even issues that have to do with high politics and strategy, if we let them develop naturally instead of trying to limit it," he said.
In April 1971, nine players from the U.S. Table Tennis team took a historic trip to China, becoming the first delegation of Americans to visit China in decades. Their trip helped lay the groundwork for the establishment of official diplomatic relations between China and the United States.
Later that year, then U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger secretly visited Beijing in July, paving the way for a groundbreaking 1972 meeting in Beijing between then U.S President Richard Nixon and China's late Chairman Mao Zedong.
On Feb 28, 1972, as Nixon's visit to China drew to an end, the historic Shanghai Communique was issued, becoming the political foundation for normalizing China-U.S. relations.
The two countries officially established diplomatic relations in 1979.
US scholar stresses importance of people-to-people exchanges in promoting ties among countries
