by Pepe Escobar of the Asia Times (cross-posted by special agreement with the author)
With its focus on Central Asia and Eastern Europe, the Belt and Road Initiative can be seen as fulfilling a strategy of challenging the West that can be traced back to Mao
The 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress made it clear that the New Silk Roads – aka, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – launched by President Xi Jinping just four years ago, provides the concept around which all Chinese foreign policy is to revolve for the foreseeable future. Up until the symbolic 100th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, in 2049, in fact.
Virtually every nook and cranny of the Chinese administration is invested in making the BRI Grand Strategy a success: economic actors, financial players, state-owned enterprises (SOEs), the private sector, the diplomatic machine, think tanks, and – of course – the media, are all on board.
It’s under this long-term framework that sundry BRI projects should be examined. And their reach, let’s be clear, involves most of Eurasia – including everything from the Central Asian steppes to the Caucasus and the Western Balkans.
Representatives of no fewer than 50 nations are currently gathered in Tbilisi, Georgia, for yet another BRI-related summit. The BRI masterplan details six major economic “corridors,” and one of these is the Central Asia-West Asia Economic Corridor. That’s where Georgia fits in, alongside neighboring Azerbaijan: both are vying to position themselves as the key Caucasus transit hub between Western China and the European Union.
On the first day of the summit, Georgia’s Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili extolled the drive to “strengthen the economic and civilizational ties between Europe and Asia.” In practice, that translates into a push to build an economic free zone, in accordance with the memorandum of understanding signed by the Chinese and Georgian economic ministers.
Add in the recently inaugurated Baku-Tblisi-Kars railway and a new deep-sea port to be built in Anaklia, in the Black Sea, with Chinese investment, and we have Georgia as a key logistical hub in China-EU connectivity. It helps that, thanks to the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) gas pipeline out of the Caspian Sea, Georgia has already been positioned for years as an energy transportation hub.
Crucially, Georgia has signed free trade agreements with both the EU and China, with the latter coming into effect at the start of 2018. It is also maneuvering itself to profit from the interconnection of BRI with the Russian-led Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). Beijing and Moscow formally signed the BRI/EAEU partnership in June last year – although it will take time for that to translate into actual trade and economic cooperation projects, possibly starting in the Russian Far East.
Mao revisited
The action in the Caucasus was mirrored in Europe earlier in the week as Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban opened the sixth “16+1” summit, involving China and 16 Central and Eastern European nations, in Budapest.
“16+1” is yet another of those trademark Chinese diplomatic “away wins.” Some of these nations are part of the EU, some part of NATO, some neither.
From Beijing’s point of view, what matters is the relentless BRI infrastructure and connectivity drive. Beijing may have invested as much as US$8 billion so far in Central and Eastern Europe.
China is having a ball in the Western Balkans – especially in Serbia, in Montenegro, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where EU financial muscle is absent. China has invested in multiple connectivity and energy projects in Serbia – including the much-debated Belgrade-Budapest high-speed rail link. Construction of the Serbian stretch started this week, with 85% of the total cost (roughly €2.4 billion) coming from the Export-Import Bank of China.
The European Commission (EC) in Brussels predictably objected – claiming the tender process might not have complied with EU rules.
The strategic trade importance of Belgrade-Budapest cannot be overestimated. Think container fleets of Chinese merchandise arriving in Piraeus in Greece – a key hub of the so-called Maritime Silk Road – and then being shipped to the EU via Serbia.
In the midst of this frenzy of connectivity, it’s easy to overlook a significant historical point: that it was all anticipated by Mao Zedong.
Scholar Chen Gang has stressed how most BRI-participating nations are not as developed, economically, as China. And they are “not just limited to the Eurasian continent, but will eventually cover all the ‘middle zone’ and ‘third world’ put forward by Mao in his ‘Three Worlds Theory.’”
Flashback to 1974. That’s when Mao described the world as being divided between superpowers (the US and USSR); intermediate powers (Japan, Europe, Canada); and exploited nations in Africa, Latin America and Asia, which Mao praised as constituting the forces against First World hegemony. Mao placed China in the third world – as Deng Xiaoping told the UN.
What’s fascinating is how Chen Gang interprets BRI not only as a sequel to China’s historical ties with the Third World, but also as opening a “new era of China’s Third World strategy.” He correctly states that US and EU elites worry that BRI will bring about “the erosion of their global influence and overseas interests.”
Chen Gang’s analysis touches on what, by now, is obvious: “The international game around BRI has just begun.” And it goes almost without saying that Beijing’s BRI-driven foreign policy strategy, by turbo-charging China’s cooperation with the ‘Global South,’ is leaving the US, at best, marginalized.
Without nukes, Serbia needs a friend like China.
Don’t worry. Serbias first friend is Russia.
Americans are not happy about it. One of my cousins was pretty senior in the government until recently. He told me how the US Embassy heavily interferes there through the bribed/bought Serbs working for the US embassy. My cousin went to South Korea for instance (where he singed good deals with the Koreans profiting both Serbia and Korea). When he got back home, a woman from the US Embassy called him to express her deep disappointment – that ‘after everything Americans did for my cousin’ (which is nothing) – he dared to go to Korea without consulting Uncle Satan. My cousin replied to her that he will go wherever he wishes to go as long as it benefits Serbia.
He was never again invited to 4th of July parties at the US Embassy.
He also told me how his superior (one of the main ministers in the Serbian government) was probably installed there by Americans. He also told me about very shady deals with companies her cousin or brother had (also involving Americans). To cut the long story short – Uncle Satan is heavily involved in bribing and buying Serbian politicians.
Well written, Pepe and ironically enough Real Americans (as opposed to Tories and other Empire Lackeys) have always loved the Underdog!
One of those canino-sapiens is a regular in the Moveable Feast Cafe, along with his canino-not so sapiens (but cuter….sorry, my friend….I’ve seen the pictures of both…..) little sidekick.
And over there, in the Cafe I quote from his expectations and semi-anxieties (hopefulness mixed with doubt….)
/moveable-feast-cafe-2017-11-28/#comment-451417
However in Murica we also have our longstanding Underdogs……in the Deep South…the decaying cities of the “Rust Belt” and especially Appalachia….. and WEST VIRGINIA.
Now, the last thing I want is for those in the Serbia-Hungary corridor to feel diminished but in the interests of IRONY, that great component of Wit, Poetry and Wisdom, the amount of infrastructure committed to in Beijing earlier this very month by Xi to Jim Justice, Governor of West Virginia was $83 billion USD…..ten times what you cite for Serbia/Hungary.
I hope the Serbia/Hungary investment is increased. But some Americans don’t like any dogs at all, over or under…except the TOP DOG of Empire, whose toes they are fond of licking.
Anyway Alicia Cerretani breaks down this issue from Justice’s Point of View, right here in 5 short and sweet minutes:
https://youtu.be/xkUFrJ78l_k
Alicia: “What if, instead of leading the United States in per capita overdoses in heroin addiction, West Virgina, with a renewed purpose for its people, becomes an economic power house in the United States……?”
Governor Justice: “And I would say to all of y’all that may be doubters that this could become a reality: Don’t get on the wrong side of this….because really and truly, it’s a coming!”
Really interesting video, and the Governor of WV is right; I have seen absolutely nothing about this agreement with China in the MSM.
China ready to dominate the CryptoCurrency markets of the future using supercomputer power superiority
http://bit.ly/2AlJ3Ik
The inevitable is happening. Political and economic power is shifting to the East, to Russia and China. The Russian-Chinese partnership made this possible. In fact, it was inevitable after Brzezinski wrote that masterpiece of stupidity called “The Grand Chessboard”, where he not only underlined the importance of Eurasia, but stated that the primary US foreign policy goal was to prevent the rise of any power that might challenge US global interests. He was ofcourse alluding to Russia and China, inviting them to create a partnership, which they did. What is even worse for the US, Americas allies are now quietly looking towards the East. Once the Eurasian Economic Union is created, its inevitable that Europe will join it, the chief catalyst being American foreign policy initiatives during the past few years, making Europe very nervous. The biggest mistake the US made after World War Two was in 1989, when the Warsaw Pact broke up. NATO should have been disbanded within a year. However, the appetites of the European and American elites increased, who were hoping for the breakup of Russia. Now the opposite is happening. The EU will certainly break up, followed by NATO, while the US will be in a heap of financial and economic trouble, trying to pay off its gigantic foreign and domestic debt. Its these factors which are scaring the Western elites. As far as I can see, they are seeing what is happening and are completely helpless to do anything about it, as they have no answers, short of a wider war, which would be catastrophic.
NK is flipping the bird at the US, which has them stunned. Their bluff has been called. The US, can of course obliterate NK but not without payback. Would the US risk losing LA? The country nearly had a nervous breakdown after 9/11.
This presumes rational actors, of course – but all the BS has failed. The US has painted itself into a corner and desperation can override reason.
Any further comments on NK should go either to a relevant post or MFC. Thx. Mod
Notice that all economic projects from the East or West that involve Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, all exclude Armenia?
The East and the West must know at some level that they are backing the plan of the above three nations to strangle Armenia to its death. This is nothing new in our history. We’ve been surrounded by enemies for many centuries that have nothing better to do than kill us. But somehow we survive. And we will have our revenge if it takes decades.
Armenia is part of the EAEU – so is included as Russia and China, as Pepe says, signed a deal last year.
If all your neighbors hate you with such passion then there must be something wrong with you. Don’t try to become Israel v2.0 by saying that you have been tortured by all your neighbors throughout history.
Geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar put it wonderfully when visiting Iran, “So once again, in Tehran, provoked by the meeting of minds around the conference – the absolute opposite of “clash of civilizations” – it was possible to discuss how Iran (resistance against injustice), China (remixed Confucianism) and Russia (Eurasianism) are offering post-Enlightenment alternatives that transcend Western liberal democracy – a concept that has been completely co-opted and shattered by the hegemony of neoliberalism.”
From one of the best descriptions about the BRI (formerly OBOR) and its profound contribution to the decline of the West, It’s worse than that. The West is becoming irrelevant. See:
https://limpidus.org/2017/11/18/the-weight-of-the-apparatus-will-only-accelerate-the-wests-demise/
Looking at the map of the maritime routes, I’m struck by a longer historical comparison. The original reason for “discovering” the Western Hemisphere was to connect Rotterdam and Venice with Jakarta more directly and quickly. Now China is connecting Rotterdam and Venice with Jakarta more directly and quickly, thus eliminating the need to “discover” the Western Hemisphere. We’re redundant.
“to connect Rotterdam and Venice with Jakarta ”
But Murica was in the way!
Shoulda turned left, not right
Nice one.
Katherine
Interesting to see that Georgia regained South Ossetia and Abkhazia
Why worry? If the US & EU elites haven’t figured out the Oligarcical Collective ( USA/Russia/China) had this BRI thing agreed upon…well…those elites never visited the audience hall at the Vatican….just sayin…