I/II. http://www.atimes.com/article/peace-harmony-happiness-plus-deluge-rmb/
Peace, harmony and happiness, plus a deluge of yuan Inclusive globalization, win-win global trade, Made in China 2025 ... President Xi uses Belt and Road Forum to explain how sprawling trade initiative will change China and the world By PEPE ESCOBAR MAY 15, 2017 2:48 AM (UTC+8) President Xi Jinping, in his keynote speech that opened the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, did his best to explain the future of the New Silk Roads. Xi said that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – that what was once “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) – is a multilateral project set to bring “peace, harmony and happiness” across Eurasia by “strategically connecting” nations as diverse as Russia, Mongolia, Turkey and Vietnam through development plans that are already operational. And, he added, they will be a success because extra funds are already on their way. Xi told his audience, that included Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte and a host of other world leaders and top ranking officials, that he had proposed an additional RMB 780 billion (approximately US$113 billion) to be disbursed through multiple sources. These include the Silk Road Fund; the China Development Bank; the Export and Import Bank of China and also overseas capital provided by Chinese banks. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is not part – at least not yet – of this proposed package. That’s still a long way towards fulfilling Asia’s gargantuan infrastructure needs – estimated to be at least $5 trillion up to 2022. Economic logic certainly points to connectivity between Asia and Europe compressing as mutual trade multiplies. Italy and the UK are already enthusiastic supporters of OBOR/BRI. As too are Germany’s industrialists. China's route through Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. Image: Agence France-Presse China’s route through Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. Image: Agence France-Presse Significantly, before the summit, Xi was in a phone call with new French President Emmanuel Macron, who took power this Sunday. Xi not only offered the requisite support for EU integration; he encouraged Macron to buy into the New Silk Roads – which are not exactly understood in France’s business and media – as part of a unified EU strategy. There’s no question that this massive attempt at infrastructure building – pipelines, ports, roads, high-speed rail, fiber-optic cables – that aims to unify Eurasia into a seamless trade emporium is the definitive 21st century geoeconomic/geopolitical project. OBOR/BRI will configure Globalization Mark II, or which Xi in Davos defined as “inclusive globalization”. Which is really the same as interpreting OBOR/BRI as “de-Americanized globalization”. And OBOR/BRI will certainly act as an essential component of Xi’s Made in China 2025 strategy and the now central aspirational “Chinese Dream” concept. The initiative has become the trade/economic foreign policy arm of Xi’s drive to move China into the status of a “moderately affluent” society. What Xi is aiming at during the Beijing summit is to address two key but controversial points. How China proposes to finance OBOR/BRI. And how to build a consensus that this is a Eurasia-wide “win-win” operation. About that black or white cat New Silk Road activity is already frantic. Take the China-Europe Railway Express for for instance. It spans 51 different rail links with freight trains already connecting 27 Chinese and 28 European cities. There’s also a planned rail line between China and Laos and a high-speed rail between Yunnan province in China and Thailand. In Malaysia there is Kuantan port industrial park and aluminium and palm oil processing. In Turkey three state-owned Chinese companies are turning the country’s third largest port, Kumport, into a key OBOR/BRI node. Among all these myriad projects, arguably the most ambitious is the US$46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). It’s a complex network of roads, rail, oil/gas pipelines, ports, airports and special economic zones linking Xinjiang to Gwadar port in Balochistan and is first New Silk Road project to get direct investment from the Silk Road Fund. In November 2016, an upgraded and extended Karakoram highway linked this Arabian Sea port with the ancient Chinese silk road of Kashgar. As Xi has stressed, China, beyond CPEC, will get even closer, geopolitically, to Pakistan under the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Cue to India throwing tantrums – and then sending a low-level delegation to the Beijing summit. That could be said to be counterproductive because China and India’s development strategies are not mutually exclusive. India is the second largest shareholder of the AIIB, after China and both China and India are equal partners in the New Development Bank (NDB) – the BRICS bank – which is not directly implicated in financing OBOR/BRI projects. And most of all China and India are both members of the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor (BCIM-EC); that has the aim of – what else – economic development. BCIM-EC could either become a branch of OBOR/BRI or proceed as a stand-alone mechanism, with equal voice by all members. So to upgrade Deng Xiaoping. “It doesn’t matter if the New Silk Road cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice”. And catching mice in the 21st century means Eurasia integration. II. http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/ Russia, Belt and Road and the ‘Big Picture’ Russia has not been a significant beneficiary so far of the Chinese honeypot known as Belt and Road Initiative – although there is vast untapped potential to attract Chinese investments into Russia’s infrastructure and industry. Yet, no sooner than the invitations went out for the RBI Forum summit in Beijing (May 14-15), word came that President Vladimir Putin look forward to attending the event. Russia has similar concerns as India regarding RBI. Putin said at a roundtable in Beijing earlier today, “It is important that all integration structures — both existing in Eurasia and newly formed — would rely on universal internationally recognized rules, and, of course, take into account the specific features of the national models of development of the participating states, act openly and transparently.” PM Modi could have said much the same thing in Beijing yesterday. However, the bottom line is that Russia has total clarity as regards the historic significance of the BRI and here Putin was unequivocal: All proposed projects correspond to modern development trends, and all these things are extremely necessary and highly demanded. That is why Russia supports ‘One Belt, One Road’ project and will actively participate in its implementation together with Chinese partners and, of course, with all other interested states. Putin said that the creation of the economic development belt and organization of mutually beneficial trade between Asia and Europe seem to be an important initiative that takes into account the current trends in the world economy and also reflects the overall need for coordination of diverse integration processes on the Eurasian continent and in other regions of the world. A major thrust of the BRI will be to connect China – Xinjiang, in particular – with the rest of Eurasia. And China’s New Silk Road originating from Xinjiang will run through regions that in modern history constituted Russia’s “sphere of influence” – especially, Central Asia. Curiously, a Voice of America report in the weekend mentioned that China has proposed an extension of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan and Central Asia, involving the construction of an expressway linking Peshawar to Kabul and will run northward to Kunduz “and then deeper into Central Asia.” The pundits in Moscow understand that the RBI is a geopolitical project. To quote Viktor Larin, Director of the Institute of History at the Russian Academy of Sciences, “I think that the One Belt, One Road initiative is a geopolitical project in the first place and only then an economic one.” Larin puts President Xi Jinping’s vision as a continuation of Deng Xiaoping’s policy of “openness” and Jiang Zemin’s motto “to go outside.” To quote Larin, “As China grows, it needs more markets, more raw materials. This is one and the same idea, which today received a new, rather successful form — the One Belt, One Road initiative.” Larin analyses that the core of Beijing’s geopolitical doctrine reflected in the BRI is a “peaceful international environment” that can be created through economic collaboration. In this respect, the Russian and Chinese foreign policies overlap. By the way, Russia ranks first in the list countries that the government-owned China Daily compiled last week as the “most friendly” toward BRI. (Sputnik) Quintessentially, Russia does not share India’s spirit of keen sense of envy or rivalry toward China, and, secondly, Russia is not weighed down by the backlog of the US’ pivot strategy in Asia. Again, the sustained western attempts to create discord between Russia and China have not worked. The alchemy of the Sino-Russian alliance comes out clearly in the reports on Xi’s meeting with Putin yesterday. Xi used an extraordinary idiom for the first time at a meeting with Putin when he said yesterday that China and Russia “have played the role of ‘ballast stone’ in safeguarding regional and global peace and stability.” Now, ballast stone signifies heavy material used to make a ship steady – an anchor sheet. Xi’s usage of the forceful expression is hugely significant in the contemporary setting of the international order characterised by high volatility. (Xinhua) In sum, the Russian considerations are to attract investments under the BRI, inject fresh dynamism into the Eurasian Economic Union by integrating it with the BRI and to make up for the deficiencies of the SCO’s economic agenda that has failed to gain traction so far. It doesn’t mean Russia is walking into a debt trap. Nor does it mean that China dictate BRI projects to Russia to dump its excess industrial capacity. But it is a pragmatic approach which becomes possible because Putin keeps the ‘big picture’ in view. Russia has taken in its stride the US’ U-turn to depute a delegation led by a senior White House official to attend the event in Beijing. It could anticipate the inevitability of Donald Trump concluding at some point early enough that his ‘America First’ plan and the high-powered engine for stimulating global economic growth that the BRI is would be a match made in heaven. And, most important, Russia had no doubt the China will enthusiastically welcome such a development. Read a Chinese commentary on the ‘knock-on effects’ of US’ volte-face on BRI — Belt and Road can complement America First. By M K Bhadrakumar – May 15, 2017 -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. 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