Why China's plans to build a Silk Road railway through Asia is a bad idea

Even China's banks seem smart enough to see what a busted project the government's touted Eurasian land bridge is

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result, what are we to make of China’s plans to build a Silk Road railway through the heart of Asia?

After all, those who think steel tracks are the best way to shift goods from the Pacific to the Atlantic have been able to use the Trans-Siberian Railway since 1916. In practice, the efficiency, flexibility, volumes and logistical simplicity of maritime freight have won out again, and again, and again.
 

That’s even been the case in the past five years, when President Xi Jinping’s One Belt, One