Why the New Silk Roads Terrify Washington

[AZJoe]

Why the New Silk Roads Terrify Washington
PEPE ESCOBAR http://www.unz.com/article/why-the-n...fy-washington/

Almost six years ago, President Putin proposed to Germany ‘the creation of a harmonious economic community stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok.’ … an immense trade emporium uniting Russia and the EU … In a nutshell: Eurasia integration.

Washington panicked. The record shows how Putin’s vision – although extremely seductive to German industrialists – was eventually derailed by Washington’s controlled demolition of Ukraine.

Three years ago, in Kazakhstan and then Indonesia, President Xi Jinping expanded on Putin’s vision, proposing One Belt, One Road (OBOR), a.k.a. the New Silk Roads, enhancing the geo-economic integration of Asia-Pacific via a vast network of highways, high-speed rail, pipelines, ports and fiber-optic cables.

In a nutshell: an even more ambitious version of Eurasia integration, benefiting two-thirds of the world population, economy and trade. The difference is that it now comes with immense financial muscle backing it up, via a Silk Road Fund, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the BRICS’s New Development Bank (NDB), and an all-out commercial offensive all across Eurasia, and the official entry of the yuan in the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights; that is, the christening of the yuan as a key currency worth holding by every single emerging market central bank. …

Beijing is betting that the overwhelming majority of nations across Eurasia would rather invest in, and profit from, a “win-win” economic development project than be bogged down in a lose-lose strategic game between the US and China. And that, for the Empire of Chaos, is absolute anathema. …

the G20 was preceded by an Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok … another de facto celebration of Eurasia integration, featuring Russia, China, Japan and South Korea. And that integration plank will soon merge with the Russia-led Eurasia Economic Union – which in itself is a sort of Russian New Silk Road.

All these roads lead to total connectivity. … cargo trains that are now regularly linking Guangzhou, the key hub in southeast China, to the logistics center in Vorsino industrial park near Kaluga. … saving … 80 percent of the cost if compared with air cargo. … another, vastly more ambitious, will be the high-speed rail expansion of the Transiberian …

the closer integration of China and Kazakhstan – which is also a member of the EEU. The duty-free Trans-Eurasia railway is already in effect, from Chongqing in Sichuan across Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus and Poland all the way to Duisburg in Germany. Beijing and Astana are developing a joint free trade zone at Horgos. And in parallel, a $135 million China-Mongolia Cross-Border Economic Cooperation Zone started to be built last month. …

Washington is totally paralyzed in terms of formulating a response – or at least a counter-proposal – to Eurasia integration. … Washington’s deep hostility towards the China-driven AIIB (Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank). Yet no amount of hardcore US lobbying prevented allies such as Germany, Britain, Australia and South Korea from joining in.

Then we had the mad dash to approve TPP – the China-excluding, NATO-on-trade arm of the pivot to Asia that was meant to be the cherry of the mostly flat Obama global economic policy cake. Yet the TPP as it stands is practically dead. …

With the pivot to Asia configured as a tool to “deter Chinese aggression”, exceptionalists have graphically demonstrated how they are incapable of admitting the whole game is about post-ideological supply chain geopolitics. The US does not need to contain China; what it needs, badly, is key industrial, financial, commercial connection to crucial nodes across Asia to (re)build its economy. …

The heart of the matter is that China has made an outstanding bet on infrastructure building – which translates into first-class connectivity to everyone … a large part of global infrastructure still needs to be built. While China turbo-charges its role as the top global infrastructure exporter – from high-speed rail to low-cost telecom – the “indispensable” nation is stuck with a “pivoting”, perplexed, bloated military obsessed with containment. …

Well, things haven’t changed much since Dr. Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski dreaming in the late 1990s of a Chinese fragmentation from within, all the way to Obama’s 2015 National Security Strategy, which is no more than futile rhetorical nostalgia about containing Russia, China and Iran.

Thus the basket of attached myths such as “freedom of navigation” – Washington’s euphemism for perennially controlling the sea lanes that constitute China’s supply chain – as well as an apotheosis of “China aggression” incessantly merging with “Russia aggression”; after all, the Eurasia integration-driven Beijing-Moscow strategic partnership must be severed at all costs. … even Dr. Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski is terrified. …

[goldenequity]

Awesome. US might just have to build a future instead of bombing one.

[AZJoe]

First 'Silk Road' train from China to Britain arrives in London after a marathon 7,500-mile journey
From almost the Pacific Coast to London, passing through China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, Belgium, France and under the English Channel to London.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...es-London.html

"Laden with 68 twenty-foot equivalent containers, the train brought in a cargo of small commodities including household items, clothes, fabrics, bags, and suitcases. Ten containers were taken off at the German hub of Duisburg. The remainder arrived in London at Barking's Eurohub freight terminal. ... The service is faster than sending goods by sea. ...

Prime Minister Theresa May has said the relationship with China remains 'golden' as she seeks to bring in billions of dollars in Chinese investment as Britain prepares to leave the European Union. ...

[goldenequity]

Russia Japanese relations are moving forward QUICKLY
from today:


►Abe says he wants to sign Russia-Japan peace treaty with Putin (this is yuge.. finally, a WWII Peace Treaty)



The Russian president’s visit to Japan that took place on December 15-16
was devoted to the peace treaty and the South Kuril Islands issue as well as bilateral economic cooperation.
After the talks, Vladimir Putin and Shinzo Abe adopted a statement saying
the beginning of consultations of the joint Moscow-Tokyo economic activities on the South Kuril Islands
could be an important step towards signing a peace treaty.

BACKGROUND:

►Russia and Japan to hold consultations on economic activity on South Kuril Islands

[jllundqu]

Cool

[goldenequity]

This is what the hegemons are pushing:

FORBES Japan: Go Nuclear Now

*Japan would make all democracies safer by protecting itself with a nuclear weapon.
*A stronger Japan will check China’s expansion and free U.S. military resources for deployment elsewhere.

[AZJoe]

With the recent Belt and Road ("Silk Road") Forum Conference, little notice was paid that Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB) added another 7 nations to its coalition, bringing the total now to 77 nations.

[AZJoe]

From a few years ago, but good insight to present events and future path. Pepe Escobar discussed New Silk Road on CrossTalk:

[AZJoe]

Make Trade, Not War:

China’s “Go West” strategy was brought into sharp focus at a forum in Shanghai last weekend. Billed as the Belt and Road Initiative: … The New Silk Roads, or the Belt and Road Initiative, involve six key economic corridors, connecting Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. …

Of course, Beijing’s massive economic project goes way beyond merely exporting China’s excess production capacity. That is part of the plan, along with building selected industrial bases in MENA countries …

this is will connect western China to the eastern Mediterranean. … developing a corridor through projects such as the Red Med railway. …

A look at the numbers tells a significant part of the story. In 2010, China-Arab trade was worth US$145 billion. By 2014, it had reached $250 billion and rising. China is now the largest exporter to assorted MENA nations …

The next stage surrounding energy will be the implementation of a maze of LNG, or liquefied natural gas, pipelines, power grids, power plants and even green projects, sprouting up across the new Silk Road corridors and transit routes. …

the myriad of Belt and Road infrastructure projects for the next 15 years could hit a staggering $26 trillion. Other less grandiose figures come in at $8 trillion during the next two decades. …

An excellent example is the city of Yiwu in Zhejiang province. This has become a mecca for merchant pilgrims from Syria or east Africa and has profited the region, according to the Zhejiang provincial government. …

There is also reconstruction projections elsewhere, with China deeply involved in the commercial renaissance of post-war Syria. …

Beijing’s strategy is to avoid a geopolitical collision in the Middle East. Its aim is to: Make Trade, Not War. …

Since geopolitical wobbles are never far below the surface in the Middle East, China has even suggested it would be willing to act as a mediator between intractable rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia. …

In his 2006 paper, entitled Rethinking Empire from a Chinese Concept “All-Under-Heaven”, Zhao argued that the country should follow a principle of harmony based loosely on the Confucian notion of “all under heaven” or Tianxia in Mandarin.

[AZJoe]

Behold the New Asia-Based Cooperation Sphere

The constant Trumpian rhetorics about the US trade imbalance with China and Japan have brought the two closer together. Add to the equation is the independent foreign policies of India … These are the economic powerhouses that are behind the global effort to shift the control of the global economy away from Western exceptionalists and towards multilateral cooperation ...

Abe Meets Xi then Modi: A New Asia ‘Cooperation Sphere’?

One of the more important consequences of the Trump Administration trade war against both China as well as Japan is the recent diplomatic and economic meeting between Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and China’s President Xi Jinping in Beijing. …

It also suggested a new political and economic strategy might be emerging across Asia’s largest economic sphere. Hours after leaving Beijing Abe hosted Indian PM Narenda Modi in Tokyo. …

Showing he saw the meeting in Beijing as more than a photo-op, Abe brought a business delegation of some 1,000 top Japanese businessmen. … deals worth $18 billion had been signed during the talks. As well the two agreed to resume $29 billion worth of mutual currency swaps in event of future currency crises. Both leaders agreed to create a hotline to communicate in event of possible future tensions. Abe also invited Xi to come to Japan in 2019, a major step. …

Japan has agreed to include the China Renminbi in Japan’s foreign exchange reserves, a significant boost to the credibility of China’s currency. China for its part will allow the Bank of Japan to invest directly in Chinese government bonds.

What was not mentioned in the press accounts either in China or Japan was an historic offer of the Japanese Emperor conveyed through Abe to Xi. … Abe conveyed the wish of Japan’s Emperor Akihito to visit China before he abdicates next April to formally apologize to the Chinese people for the Japanese invasion of China during the 1930s. At the same time the Emperor extended an invitation to China’s Xi to come to Japan. … Xi accepted …

Li formally invited Japan to reconsider its participation in China’s ambitious Belt-Road Initiative infrastructure project … Never in history has a nation so recently underdeveloped attempted a multinational series of projects across so many countries and cultures as China with its BRI. …

Abe asked Beijing for cooperation on investing in infrastructure in third countries … Premier Li asked Abe to actively extend Japanese cooperation for the One Belt One Road initiative as the two major Asian economic giants agreed to join on a number of BRI projects. …

Geopolitical Shift — Japan India Russia …
As Zbigniew Brzezinski described her, Japan was regarded in Washington as a mere vassal of US interests. When a dollar crisis threatened Washington, US Treasury Secretary James Baker arm-twisted the Japanese to agree the Plaza Accord in 1985 to depreciate the US dollar against the Yen. Within two years the dollar fell over 50% and the legendary Japanese asset bubble was ignited. The effects of the collapse of the bubble in 1990 still haunt Japan today. Japan dutifully continued to buy US Treasury securities to now and agreed to install the provocative US THAAD missile defenses aimed at both China and Russia. …

the move to clearly reach a rapprochement with Beijing has huge potential. Both countries have a major stake in the emerging moves between the two Koreas to re-establish economic and political ties amid denuclearization. Since the end of the Cold War the US has manipulated the situation on the Korean Peninsula to repeated crises in order … to have an excuse to keep the US naval fleet in the Sea of Japan not only for North Korea, but also China and potentially Japan he noted.

Almost within hours of his return from Beijing, Abe held a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Tokyo. … If Japan and India include China and the relevant countries in constructive cooperation dialog, it could give a huge boost to the Belt, Road Initiative …

In light of the amicable talks with Abe and Xi only days before, the clear aim of this meeting with Modi is to insure that Japan is fully engaged with the two economic giants—China and India—in a way that can insure a more effective development for all Asia, something clearly unwelcome in Washington.

At the same time as it deepens cooperation with China and India, Japan is increasingly engaged with Russia … Japan has just announced it will conduct logistics tests using the existing Trans-Siberian Railway and a ferry line to connect Russia, China, Japan and South Korea in a freight corridor. The ferry line will connect China’s Jilin Province to Russia’s Vladivistock, Donghae in South Korea and Sakaiminato in Japan. This could give a significant boost to Japan-Russian trade and provide support for the ongoing upgrade of the current Trans-Siberian line that stretches 5,772 miles across Russia’s vast expanse. It could dramatically cut the current 62 days ship routing and reduce transport costs an estimated 40%.

All these initiatives suggest the enormous potential for constructive engagement among the powers and nations of Asia if left to their own, without Washington interference. Yet the mind-set in Washington continues to be a stone age one of “might makes right” and Washington Über Alles. …

[AZJoe]

Updated Analysis from PEPE ESCOBAR: MAGA Misses the Eurasia Train

the U.S. is missing an historic chance to join a multilateral world, clinging instead to military empire … the Eurasian century is already upon us. The era of the West shaping the world at will (a mere blip of history) is already over. This is despite Western elite denials and fulminations …

Hop on the Trans-Eurasia Express …
Beijing’s elites are fascinated at how Russia, in less than two decades, has returned to semi-superpower status after the devastation of the Yeltsin years. That happened to a large extent due to science and technology. The most graphic example is the unmatched, state-of-the-art weaponry unveiled by President Vladimir Putin in his March 1, 2018 speech. …

Russia and China will be advancing the alignment of China’s New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), with Russia’s Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). There’s ample potential for a Trans-Eurasia Express network of land and maritime transport corridors to be up and running by the middle of next decade, including, for instance, road and railway bridges connecting China with Russia across the Heilongjiang River. …

closer attention is being paid to the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), a 7,200-km long lane mixing sea and rail routes essentially linking the Indian Ocean with the Persian Gulf through Iran and Russia and further on down the road, to Europe. … From New Delhi’s point of view, that means shipping costs reduced by up to 40 percent, and Mumbai-to-Moscow in only 20 days.

Down the line, INSTC will merge with BRI …

This is happening just as Japan is looking at the Trans-Siberian Railway – which will be upgraded throughout the next decade – to improve its connections with Russia, China and the Koreas. Japan is now a top investor in Russia and at the same time very much interested in a Korea peace deal. That would free Tokyo from massive defense spending conditioned by Washington’s rules. The EAEU free trade agreements with ASEAN can be added to that. …

The Huawei-Venezuela “Axis of Evil”

While Washington remains a bipartisan prisoner to the Russophobic Platonic cave – where Cold War shadows on the wall are taken as reality – MAGA is missing the train to Eurasia. …

What’s left are tens of trillions of national debt; a quadrillion in derivatives; the Deep State running amok; and a lot of pumped up fear of evil Russians, devious Chinese, Persian mullahs, the troika of tyranny, the Belt and Road, Huawei …

The Pentagon and the “intel community” pushed the Trump administration to go after Huawei, branded as a nest of spies, while pressuring key allies Germany, Japan and Italy to follow. … The U.S. Department of Justice requested the extradition of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou from Canada last Tuesday, adding a notch to the Trump administration’s geopolitical tactic of “blunt force trauma.” Add to it that … is killing Apple across Asia and in most latitudes across the Global South. The real the battle is over 5G, in which China aims to upstage the U.S., while upgrading capacity and production quality.

The digital economy in China is already larger than the GDP of France or the UK. It’s based on the BATX companies (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi), Didi (the Chinese Uber), e-commerce giant JD.com and Huawei. These Big Seven … investing fortunes in big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet. American giants – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google – are absent from this enormous market.

Moreover, Huawei’s sophisticated encryption system in telecom equipment prevents interception by the NSA. That helps account for its extreme popularity all across the Global South, in contrast to the Five Eyes (U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) electronic espionage network.

The economic war on Huawei is also directly connected to the expansion of BRI across 70 Asian, European and African nations, constituting a Eurasia-wide network of commerce, investment and infrastructure able to turn geopolitical and geo-economic relations, as we know them, upside down.

Greater Eurasia Beckons
Whatever China does won’t alter the Deep State’s obsession …

China is upgrading highways, building dams, railways and bridges that are useful not only for its own economic expansion but also for its neighbors’ development. Compare it to U.S. wars – as in Iraq and Libya – where dams, railways and bridges are destroyed.

Russian diplomacy is all but winning the New Cold War — as diagnosed by Prof. Stephen Cohen in his latest book, War with Russia: From Putin and Ukraine to Trump and Russiagate. Moscow mixes serious warnings with diverse strategies, such as resurrecting the South Stream gas pipeline to supply Europe as an extension of Turk Stream after the Trump administration also furiously opposed the Nord Stream 2 pipeline with sanctions on Russia. Meanwhile, Moscow ramps up energy exports to China.

The advance of the Belt and Road Initiative is linked to Russian security and energy exports, including the Northern Sea Route, as an alternative future transportation corridor to Central Asia. Russia emerges then as the top security guarantee for Eurasian trade and economic integration. …

Greater Eurasia … established as the overarching concept of Russian foreign policy – with top Russian analysts. …Putin is on board. He referred to Eurasia recently as “not a chessboard or a geopolitical playground, but our peaceful and prosperous home.” …

U.S. think tanks dismiss the idea as “abortive”. … As much as the Beltway may refuse it, “The center of gravity of global trade is now shifting from the high seas toward the vast continental interior of Eurasia.”

Beijing Skirts the Dollar
Beijing is realizing it can’t meet its geo-economic goals on energy, security, and trade without bypassing the U.S. dollar.
According to the IMF, 62 percent of global central bank reserves were still held in U.S. dollars by the second quarter of 2018. Around 43 per cent of international transactions on SWIFT are still in U.S. dollars. Even as China, in 2018, was the single largest contributor to global GDP growth, at 27.2 percent, the yuan still only accounts for 1 percent of international payments, and 1.8 per cent of all reserve assets held by central banks. …

It takes time, but change is on the way. China’s cross-border payment network for yuan transactions was launched less than four years ago. Integration between the Russian Mir payment system and Chinese Union Pay appears inevitable. …

Russia and China are developing the ultimate nightmare for those former shamans of U.S. foreign policy, Henry Kissinger and the late Zbigniew “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski. …

Thus the despair of the current National Security Strategy, forecasting China displacing the United States “to achieve global preeminence in the future,” through BRI’s supra-continental reach. The “policy” to counteract such “threats” is sanctions, sanctions, and more unilateral sanctions, coupled with an inflation of absurd notions peddled across the Beltway – such as that Russia is aiding and abetting the re-conquest of the Arab world by Persia. Also that Beijing will ditch the “paper tiger” “Made in China 2025” plan for its major upgrade in global, high-tech manufacturing just because Trump hates it.

Once in a blue moon a U.S. report actually gets it right, such as in Beijing speeding up an array of BRI projects; ….

a new geopolitical and economic era is at hand. And the U.S. is being left behind at the station.

[Swordsmyth]

[AZJoe]

China Belt & Road goods trade exceeds $6 trillion from 2013 to 2018
(While China continuous to build trade, Washington continuous to build sanctions and trade wars. )

The total trade volume of goods between China and the Belt and Road (B&R) countries exceeded six trillion U.S. dollars from 2013 to 2018 ...