Weekly News Roundup: Dispatches from the Silk Road Economic Belt

China development banks expand links with foreign lenders

China’s development banks — the biggest lenders in the sector worldwide — are ramping up co-operation with overseas financial institutions after problems with their international investment projects. The China Development Bank (CDB) and the Export-Import Bank of China (Ex-Im Bank) are seeking to spread the burden of funding international projects, officials and executives said. (FT)

How the China-US trade row might pave the way for the soybean Silk Road

China already imports nearly 100 million tonnes of the crop a year, accounting for about 60 per cent of the world’s market. Last year roughly half of those imports came from Brazil and a third from the United States, with suppliers in places like Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan together contributing less than 1 per cent of the total. (scmp)

Is China’s US$62 billion investment plan fuelling resentment in Pakistan?
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor will stir up political tensions if Islamabad and Beijing cannot resolve existing concerns, NGO says. “While it is too early to assess if CPEC can deliver the economic gains Islamabad promises, the project risks inflaming long-standing tensions between the centre and smaller federal units, and within provinces over inequitable economic development and resource distribution,” the report said. (Scmp)

Kyrgyzstan grows wary of China amid corruption probe Kyrgyzstan is growing increasingly wary of China as details of a corruption case involving a project linked to Beijing are revealed. The country is heavily indebted to China and is now working to rebalance its diplomacy, moving closer to its neighbors. (Nikkei)

China targets vehicle pollution with pledge to deliver 30 per cent more goods by rail by 2020

China will boost rail freight capacity by 2020 and raise the volume of goods delivered by trains by as much as 30 per cent, an environment ministry official said on Thursday, as the country grapples with rising vehicle pollution. (Scmp)

China, Uzbekistan to deepen law enforcement, security cooperation

Chinese State Councillor Zhao Kezhi held talks with Uzbek Minister of Internal Affairs Pulat Bobojonov on 5 July on law enforcement and security cooperation. Zhao, minister of public security, said the two sides should implement consensus reached by leaders of the two countries, further improve security cooperation mechanism for Belt and Road projects, and strengthen pragmatic cooperation in crackdown on the "three evil forces" of terrorism, separatism and extremism and cross-border crime, as well as in law enforcement training to create a safe and stable environment for prosperity and development in both countries. (Xinhua)

China’s ‘prison-like re-education camps’ strain relations with Kazakhstan as woman asks Kazakh court not to send her back

Secretive “re-education camps” allegedly holding hundreds of thousands of people in a Muslim-majority region in western China are the focus of an explosive court case in Kazakhstan, testing the country’s ties with Beijing. (Scmp)

Opinion: A triple win for the EU, CEECs and China?
Compared with bilateral ties, this mechanism of multilateral cooperation between China and the sixteen CEECs has two advantages. First of all, it can facilitate policy coordination between the two sides in an efficient way. Chinese leader does not need to visit all the sixteen countries one by one, thus economizing diplomatic resources. Secondly, many projects go beyond one country’s boundary. Therefore, it is imperative to discuss ways and means of cooperation from a wider perspective among more partners. Challenges come from Berlin and Brussels. Out of the 16 CEECs, eleven are members of the European Union. So the EU accuses China of using the “divide and rule” tactics. In his State of the Union address in September 2017, Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, said, “If a foreign, state-owned, company wants to purchase a European harbor, part of our energy infrastructure or a defense technology firm, this should only happen in transparency, with scrutiny and debate. It is a political responsibility to know what is going on in our own backyard so that we can protect our collective security if needed.” (cgtn)

Pakistan seeks more loans from China to avert currency crisis

"The main issue is that once we are locked in an IMF programme, we will have to make full disclosure of the terms on which China has agreed to build the CPEC.” (FT)

Xinjiang relocates 460k residents

Authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China relocated 461,000 poverty-ridden residents to work in other parts of the region during the first quarter of the year, in what a Chinese expert on Friday said was a bid to improve social stability and alleviate poverty. (Global Times)

Chinese Investor Disappoints Kazakhstan's National Oil Company
China’s troubled CEFC will pass on a deal to buy a majority stake in KMGI, a subsidiary of Kazakhstan’s Kazmunaigas.China’s CEFC will not buy a majority stake in Kazmunaigas International (KMGI), owned by Kazakhstan’s state-owned oil and gas firm Kazmunaigas, a disappointing development for a deal more than two years in the making. (The Diplomat)


CENTRAL ASIA

Uzbekistan invites Russian ROSATOM to build nuclear power plant on its territory
A series of meetings since late December 2017 between officials from Uzbekistan and ROSATOM, the Russian state nuclear energy corporation, suggests that both sides have reached an agreement to build a two-reactor nuclear power plant (NPP) in this Central Asian republic. According to Bakhrom Ashrafkhanov, Uzbekistan’s ambassador to Russia, “[T]he nuclear power plant will definitely be constructed,” and the two sides are working on a road map. It is expected the final deal will be signed this autumn in Tashkent, during President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Uzbekistan