Weekly News Roundup: Dispatches from the Silk Road Economic Belt

Xinjiang sets up local committees to better serve religious activities

The requirement for residents to report religious activities to local residential committees in some places in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is aimed at assisting with the residents' religious practices, and will be expanded to the whole region, expert said. Xinjiang has established religious committees and residential communities to manage religious practices since September, requiring local residents to report their religious activities or activities attended by religious people, including circumcision, weddings and funerals, La Disheng, a professor at the Party School of the Communist Party of China Xinjiang regional committee, told the Global Times on the 22 November. (GlobalTimes)

Xinjiang officials deny holding ordinary citizens’ passports

Sources from Xinjiang police denied that the government is holding ordinary citizens' passports, noting that the government only holds passports of those who are suspected of having links to terrorism.  A source from Urumqi, capital of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, told the Global Times that local police are not holding residents' passports except for those with suspicious connections. (Global Times)

In China’s Xinjiang, Some Uyghurs are Forced Into a Sharecropper’s Life

Some Uyghurs living in China’s Xinjiang are compelled into a type of sharecropper’s existence as they are forced to abandon their children and travel hundreds of miles to find work in the cotton fields as there are no jobs near their homes, RFA’s Uyghur Service has learned. An auxiliary police officer in Guma (Pishan, in Chinese) county, called the shortage of agricultural water and farmland the “biggest problem in our county.” “The local labor force is forced to move other regions such as Aksu (Akesu, in Chinese) and Korla (Kuerle, in Chinese) and even to the bingtuan’s cotton fields in the northern part of Xinjiang because the local farmers have no other income aside from being able sell their physical labor,” said the police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity. (RFA)

Cooperation between SCO, UN of great significance, says SCO Secretary-General 

Deepening cooperation between the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the United Nations is of great significance in countering global terrorism and tackling challenges and threats, SCO chief said on the 22 of November. "Fighting global terrorism is a work without an end," SCO Secretary-General Rashid Alimov told Xinhua in an exclusive interview at the UN headquarters after attending a high-level special event on "the United Nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization: Jointly Countering Challenges and Threats" . It is of great significance to deepen cooperative relations between the Regional Anti-terrorism Structure of the SCO and related anti-terrorism agencies within the UN system, he said, noting that "it is also the direction of our future work." (GlobalTimes)

The Countries Building The New Silk Road -- And What They're Winning In The Process

When the Soviet Union fell the political and economic landscape of central Eurasia shattered into a melee of disconnected, dysfunctional shards as 14 new countries suddenly emerged in tandem with a pronounced political and economic vacuum. However, almost as soon as the Soviet Union disintegrated, the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus began looking for ways to reconnect again. Inspiration for the future was soon taken straight from the pages of history. (Forbes)

China About to Start $35 Billion of Silk Road Plan in Pakistan
More than three quarters of $46 billion of planned Chinese-led investment in Pakistan will be implemented by next year as part of the world’s second-largest economy’s flagship Silk Road plan. “Out of this $46 billion, we have been so far able to energize about $35 billion,” Pakistan’s Planning, Development and Reforms Minister Ahsan Iqbal said in an interview in London. “By energizing I mean these are projects either in advanced implementation or in a stage of financially closing.” (Bloomberg)

China and Russia: Gaming the West
In September 2016, Russia held joint naval manoeuvres in the South China Sea with China, bringing some of its best ships to the party. Two weeks later, China shied away from joining Russia in a veto of yet another Western resolution on Syria at the UN. The discrepancy sums up the extent and the limits of the strategic convergence between both countries. (Ecfr)

Chinese Emb Bishkek is not issuing visas leading to protests damage after terror attack earlier in the year blamed. Domestic drivers-carriers gathered at the Chinese Embassy in Bishkek. Currently, there are about 30 people. They demand issue of visas to China to continue their work.(24Kg)

China-Kazakhstan trade center sees surge in visitors

A China-Kazakhstan trade center received 4.24 million visits from January to October, up 44 percent year-on-year, according to local border inspection authorities. Hu Ruifeng with Horgos City border checkpoint in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, said the China-Kazakhstan International Border Cooperation Center in Horgos saw 23,000 visitors a day during peak time, forcing the staff to offer faster customs clearance. (China.org)

China's Economic and Military Expansion in Tajikistan

Following its economic expansion in Central Asia, China unexpectedly took a step to expand its military dominance in the region. In September 2016, Beijing offered to build 11 new border checkpoints and a new military facility along the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border, which raised some concerns in Russia. Although these moves could position China as a security player in Central Asia, Russian experts seemingly are doubtful about the future of any China-Central Asia military alliance. Notably, Russia has an entrenched presence in the region and its largest foreign military base is located outside the Tajik capital. (The Diplomat)

Kazakhstan university may offer scholarships to Hong Kong students under ‘One Belt, One Road’ The president from a Kazakhstan university has said her institution is considering offering scholarships to Hong Kong students in a bid to strengthen connections with the city under China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative. Professor Loretta O’Donnell, vice-provost of Kazakhstan’s Nazarbayev University, was speaking at a forum organised by Polytechnic University yesterday on the belt and road policy. (SCMP)

China’s ‘new Silk Road’ could expand Asia’s deserts
China’s massive Asian infrastructure network of proposed new roads and railways, new ports and airports, linking 65 countries to itself must grapple with the same problem as the ancient Silk Road it has been named after. Sand. Deserts present as big a problem along the “Silk Road Economic Belt” and the shores of the “21st Century Marine Silk Road” as when camel caravans ambled across Central Asia in the Tang Dynasty. At a June event in Beijing to mark World Day to Combat Desertification, Yong Liqiang, deputy head of the State Forestry Administration, highlighted the scale of existing desertification, soil degradation and drought in more than 60 of the 65 countries covered by the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) strategy. (China Dialogue)