cross continental

Well they've got cross continental direct rail services between China and Germany.
We still have got to get our states connected by the Golden Quadrilateral, here the Chinese have gone cross continental on rail. They have managed to traverse 6 countries.

But then, I think the 2 things China has in its favour is the neighbourhood and religion.

Somehow I don't know why, but some twist of fate I guess, we have countries in our neighbourhood that are somewhere in between infidels and terrorists. Ironically these countries speak of democracy as though, oh yeah we've got McDonalds too.

The funny thing is India does not sell arms to private entities only governments, China as a matter of fact is a prominent arms dealing nation - private and government. So why is it that we have the infidels and terrorists in our backyard. Frankly I don't know, like I said bizarre twist of fate.
For that matter the 5 permanent member nations on the UN Security Council, are the largest arms dealing nations of the World: US, Russia, France, China and UK.
Is it coincidence that these countries are also the permanent members of the UN Security Council. I don't know, the fate thingies in play, again.

On religion, we in India can be as communal as we can get. We've got them all. Which becomes kind of a problem, I mean we Indians at times suffer from an identity crisis. What is our makeup, when you come to religion, I think the west would say: Man, they are a hodge-podge, I guess we have it all and we are lost. This becomes one hell of a problem with our neighbouring infidels and/or terrorists.
Everytime we stretch our hands out in fraternity and humanity, they throw religion at us.

However what is the religion of China, I wouldn't be surprised if I hear you say Chinese! I guess it makes more sense to just have one religion preferably the same as the neighbourhood or have none at all.