At Khorgos, the Kazakh border town which is the first stop on the new Silk Road to Europe that Beijing has been building and promoting, China's presence is overwhelming.
Shops and restaurants within the Khorgos trade zone are run almost entirely by Chinese citizens. Most of its 15,000 daily visitors come from the Chinese side. Trains and trucks move in both directions, but the traffic from China is heavier as many of the shipping containers traveling east from Europe are empty.
