Weekly News Roundup: Dispatches from the Silk Road Economic Belt

China to build observation station to protect Pamir Plateau

China will build an observation station in Taxkorgan County, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, northwest China, to improve the ecology of Pamir Plateau. Pamir Plateau was once a busy passage used by traders traveling along the ancient Silk Road. The station will be used by researchers concerned with water resources, biodiversity, grassland productivity, climate change, and disaster warning and forecasting, said Lei Jiaqiang, director of the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Xinhua

First UK rail freight service to China to depart
The first rail freight service from the UK to China will depart on a 7,500-mile journey from Essex on Monday. Thirty containers will carry British goods including whisky, soft drinks, vitamins and pharmaceuticals. A DB Cargo locomotive will leave the DP World London Gateway rail terminal in Stanford-le-Hope for the city of Yiwu in Zhejiang province, eastern China. After going through the Channel Tunnel the train will pass through seven other countries before arriving on 27 April.
BBC

Fellow Uighurs should beware of 'two-faced' people in separatism fight, official says

A senior Uighur Communist Party official in China's far-western Xinjiang has urged Uighur cadres to reveal "two-faced people" and "clean them out", the latest in a string of senior figures to single out their own ethnic group in the restive region. It was at least the fourth such warning from Uighur officials in the past two weeks. Another top Kashgar official warned last week that Uighur party cadres were not pulling their weight in the region's fight against extremism.

Baku-Beijing Relations and China’s Growing Interest in the South Caucasus

This past January, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev attended a session on “The Silk Road Effect” at the 2017 World Economic Forum in Davos, alongside Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili (President.az, January 19). Presumably, the intention of both leaders was to promote the importance of the new China-led “Silk Road Economic Belt” project and its role in the future development of the economy and infrastructure in the South Caucasus. As a source of and as a transit corridor for strategic global resources such as oil and natural gas, as well as the intersection of important transportation routes between the East and West as well as the North and South, the South Caucasus holds great geostrategic importance. In 2016, the China-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) approved its biggest loan so far for the construction of a gas pipeline connecting Azerbaijan to Turkey and Southern Europe. The AIIB lent $600 million to the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline Project (TANAP) which, when completed, will transport natural gas from fields in Azerbaijan across Turkey and then onward to markets in Southeastern Europe (Jamestown Foundation)

The Security Implications of China's Overseas Investment Boom

The international implications of Chinese investment abroad, and security moves designed to protest those assets (Diplomat)

China's Silk Road push in Pakistan edges out U.S. Investments

China is overtaking the U.S. as the largest direct foreign investor to Pakistan, with the South Asian nation increasingly favouring its neighbour’s “One Belt, One Road” trade route that’s funnelling in billions of dollars and revamping decrepit infrastructure. With relations frayed between the U.S. and Pakistan, China has been strengthening its ties to the nation of about 200 million people after it pledged two years ago to loan and finance about $55 billion in a so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. (Bloomberg)

CHINA IN THE MIDDLE: PAKISTAN TRADE CORRIDOR UNDER SPOTLIGHT AFTER INDIAN ‘SPY’ GETS DEATH SENTENCE

China is again caught up in a South Asian showdown as India cries foul over a Pakistani court decision to sentence naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav to death for alleged espionage and sabotage activities in Baluchistan – a key province in Beijing’s economic corridor project.India has labelled the military court’s decision “premeditated murder”, and promised to do everything in its power to save Jadhav. (Scmp)

New natural gas pipeline from southern Kazakhstan to China will further diversify country's gas import sources
A new strategically important natural gas pipeline running from southern Kazakhstan toChina began operating on Friday, China National Petroleum Corp said in a statement.The company said the pipeline, which has annual installed transportation capacity of 6 billion cubic meters of gas, will help ensure diversification of the nation's gas supplies.The 1,454 kilometer pipeline is being jointly operated by CNPC Trans-Asia Pipeline Co Ltdand Kazakhstan's state KazTransGaz－and will provide China with 5 billion cu m ofnatural gas each year－according to Asia's biggest oil and gas producer CNPC. (Peple's Daily)

China-Kazakhstan border trade gives him pot of gold

Ni Jianhua is never worried about slow sales in the free trade zone on the China-Kazakhstan border.
After seeing the fifth client of the day out, the baby care product trader hurried to a warehouse in the Horgos International Border Cooperation Center to inspect a batch of baby carriages, which just arrived at the northwest China's port from south China's Guangdong Province. "They will be sold to Kazakhstan very soon," he said, "Products always sell out here." Ni, 44, has been doing business in Horgos, the largest land port on the border with Kazakhstan in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, since 2006. Like his fellow merchants from east China's Zhejiang Province who are dubbed as the "Chinese Jews" for their success in doing business, Ni is diligent and works hard all day long. (Xinhua)

Authorities Urge Kyrgyz Herdsmen to Spy on Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang

Local authorities are urging Kyrgyz herdsmen in the mountains of a far-western prefecture in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to report suspicious people and events to the government in a new move to move to monitor Muslim Uyghurs in the restive area. (Rfa)

For those visitors who come to the city for annual ceremonious ritual, the biggest charm of Zhengzhou is actually its fantastic transformation and development in economy and urbanization

As mainland China transitions into a second period of economic opening up and reform, Zhengzhou is becoming the new engine for China’s rise and crucial point of the country’s "One Belt and One Road" national strategy, referring to the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. With increasing interest from other mainland provinces and neighbouring Asian nations, such as South Korea and Japan, the future for the Zhengzhou-Europe International Shuttle Train is bright, and only set to get brighter as the nation's development of the Silk Road Economic Belt grows.The 10,214km Zhengzhou-Europe International Shuttle Train is a key overland route that will be an integral part of the "Belt and Road" initiatives as the city now is a major hub for the country's "Look West" policy. (Scmp)


Nepal, China begin first-ever joint military exercises

China and Nepal began their first-ever joint military exercises on Sunday, a move likely to rattle India as Beijing boosts its influence in the region. The 10-day drill in Kathmandu, dubbed “Sagarmatha Friendship 2017” referring to the Nepali name for Mount Everest, will focus on counter-terrorism, according to Nepal’s army. (Scmp)

Tajikistan: Man Arrested for Slightly Disrespecting President
A man in northern Tajikistan has reportedly been arrested and potentially faces several years in jail for being slightly disrespectful to a poster of President Emomali Rahmon.Akhbor news website reported last week that Hasan Abdurazokov, an unemployed father of three in the Sughd region, offended Rahmon ahead of the recent Nowruz holidays.“In public view, he took a picture of Rahmon down from the wall, he threw it to the ground and said: ‘You have everything, you have a good life, and me, I have nothing with which to continue my life,’” an unnamed source familiar with the case was quoted as telling Akhbor. (Eurasianet)

Uzbekistan says told West that Stockholm attack suspect was Islamic State 

Uzbekistan's security services warned a western ally before last week's deadly truck attack in Stockholm that the suspected perpetrator was an Islamic State recruit, Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov said on Friday. Kamilov told reporters that Rakhmat Akilov had been recruited by the jihadist group after he left the Central Asian nation in 2014 and settled in Sweden.(Reuters)

Prospects And Challenges For Regional Economic Cooperation And Integration In Central Asia: A Kyrgyz Perspective 
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, all five Central Asian states have joined several regional organizations, jointly or separately, in order to guarantee further political and economic development for their countries. The forms, instruments and mechanisms of regional cooperation and integration differ from each other. CAREC (Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation), a project of the Asian Development Bank, offers an example of an organization whose activities extend not only to the five Central Asian states but also to Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, the People's Republic of China, Mongolia, and Pakistan. This “wider region” concept was used to enhance cooperation and improve connections between Asia and Europe. From a security perspective, cooperation in the wider region was also developed to improve the situation in Afghanistan.(Eurasia.net)


Kazakhstan announces plans to move from thr Cyrillic to Latin alphabet
Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev on Wednesday (April 12) set out a timeline for the ex-Soviet country to switch from Cyrillic letters to the Latin alphabet as part of a modernisation drive.
The 76-year-old leader has long called for ditching the Cyrillic alphabet - which Kazakhstan shares with neighbour and ally Russia - in favour of the more widely used Latin one. In an article published in the state-owned Egemen Kazakhstan newspaper Nazarbayev called for the government to begin "preparatory work" and "create a schedule" for the switch. (AFP)

Uzbekistan provides farmers with lemon trees and chickens to boost economy 

Uzbekistan's government plans to provide almost two million rural households with chickens and lemon trees so that they can feed themselves and sell their produce. (Reuters)