Weekly News Roundup: Dispatches from the Silk Road Economic Belt

Preventing Islamic risk on ‘Belt and Road’

A few years ago, I predicted that for the next 10 to 20 years, economic recession will worsen and cause major social instability in emerging countries. Africa, Latin America and Middle East Islamic countries will be the prime source of this upheaval and turmoil. For nearly three years, the Ukrainian crisis, the emergence of the Islamic State, the Yemen civil war and 2016 Turkish coup attempt have proved my prediction. In the next 10 to 20 years, "Islamic risk" will be one of the world's biggest political risks. For China's "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR) initiative, Islamic risk is also a prominent political danger. According to the broadest definition, OBOR involves 64 countries, 33 of which are Muslim countries, accounting for more than half the total. GlobalTimes

Chinese Capitalism and the New Silk Roads

The hottest topic now regarding China’s economic statecraft and foreign economic policy is undoubtedly the so-called “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) initiative, or the New Silk Road initiative. Announced by the Chinese central state in late 2013, the initiative has soon become the “umbrella project” for China’s new economic statecraft, under which almost all other major international policies are supposed to be framed. Consisting of the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, OBOR is also widely interpreted by the outside world as the symbol of geopolitical ambition of a new rising hegemon.Since most of the countries along the New Silk Roads are largely isolated from the previous rounds of globalization or economic integration led primarily by the US (e.g. the Central Asian countries), China’s new initiatives provide plans to integrate these economies in a process where China will play a leading role through an open and equal manner, thus heralding new types of world socialist solidarity.(Aspen Institute)

Chinese Consortium Buys 40% Stake in Pakistan Stock Exchange
The Karachi-based Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) has sold 40% strategic shares to a Chinese consortium at a deal valued at $85 million, Dawn reported on Friday.The Chinese consortium comprises three Chinese exchanges — China Financial Futures Exchange Company Limited (lead bidder), Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange.Together they will take up 30% of the strategic stock while two local financial institutions — Pak-China Investment Company Limited and Habib Bank Limited — will pick up 5% each, the maximum permitted to a single institution under the regulations, the newspaper said.

For Uighur exiles, Kashmir is heavenA second and third generation of Uighurs far removed from their Chinese homeland find home in Jammu and Kashmir. (Al Jazeera)

Under the Guise of Public Safety, China Demolishes Thousands of Mosques
The Chinese government has destroyed thousands of mosques over the past three months in the restive Xinjiang region in Beijing’s latest attempt to “rectify” the largely Muslim population there, RFA’s Uyghur Service has learned.Under the “Mosque Rectification” campaign launched by the Chinese Central Ethnic-Religious Affairs Department and overseen by the local police, the mosques were demolished as a way to sort out dilapidated buildings that allegedly posed a safety threat for worshippers in the Uyghur Autonomous Region, officials told RFA. (Radio Free Asia)

Beijing's Eyes and Ears Grow Sharper in Xinjiang
The troubled region of Xinjiang, in China’s northwest, has undergone a dramatic transformation over the last couple of months. Thousands of local police stations have cropped up across the region and tens of thousands of policemen have been recruited to man them around the clock. These structures, known as convenience police stations, are part of the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s latest effort to stem the religious and ethnic violence that has long marred Xinjiang. Since the deadly Urumqi riots in 2009, in which the Uyghur minority clashed violently with ethnic Hans, Chinese authorities have ratcheted up control through a massive expansion of its security apparatuses. And yet the violence continued, with market bombings, suicide attacks, and mass stabbings that have left hundreds of Han and Uyghur civilians dead over the past decade. (Foreign Affairs)

Russia to issue federal loan bonds in BRICS, SCO currencies
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed on Monday an order approving the issuance of federal loan bonds known as OFZ in the currencies of BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member countries. (Xinhua)

Chinese train maker to supply high-speed trains to Czech Republic, marking its first deal in EU
A Chinese train maker has signed a deal to sell multiple unittrains to the Czech Republic, the first such deal with an EU member. CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive Co., Ltd. signed a deal with Czech rail operator Leo Express tosell three electric multiple units (EMUs) for 20 million euros (21 million U.S. dollars) onMonday.(People's Daily)

AIIB approves 600 mln USD loan for Azerbaijan
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has approved a loan of 600 million U.S. dollars, its largest so far, to finance an energy project in Azerbaijan. (Xinhua)

Turkey, China realize first currency swap transaction in a move to use national currency in foreign trade
Pesident Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's proposal to use the national currency in foreign trade has gained momentum following the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey's (TCMB) first currency swap transaction with the People's Bank of China (PBOC). Erdoğan's proposal, which has been on the agenda for a long time, has garnered support from all segments of the society, as the first currency exchange transaction between the central bank and the PBOC took place on Nov. 30, 2016. (Daily Sabah)

Bridge to link China and Russia

AFTER 28 years of talks between China and Russia, construction has finally started on a modern highway bridge connecting China and Russia across the Heilongjiang River, the first between the two countries. The main span of the bridge is 1,283 meters and links Heihe to the Russian city of Blagoveshchensk. "The bridge is an important international link, and part of the China-Mongolia-Russia economic corridor". Costing 2.5 billion yuan (about 360 million U.S. dollars), the bridge will open in October 2019. (Shanghai Daily)


CENTRAL ASIA

Cocoon of Days. Walking to the last silk-making town in Uzbekistan
A long time ago—the story goes—the Chinese Princess Lei Zu, age 14, was sipping tea in her royal garden when a cocoon dropped from a tree into her teacup. Annoyed, she fished it out. But the hot tea had begun to unravel a fiber from the cocoon. Lei Zu peered at the loose filament. She pinched between her damp fingers a thread that would change the world: silk. (National Geographic)

India, Kyrgyzstan eye creation of joint military training center in Kyrgyzstan: Modi(Akipress)

Uzbekistan Delegation Heads to Tajikistan for Trade Powwow
The yawning, decades-long divide between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan will get that little bit narrower next week when a senior Uzbek delegation travels to Dushanbe for talks on trade and economic cooperation. The delegation will travel to Tajikistan on December 26 and be led by Uzbek deputy prime minister Rustam Azimov, whose recent removal as finance minister appears for now to signal his transition to a role as the lead on development of Uzbekistan’s external economic ties. (Eurasianet)