Weekly News Roundup: Dispatches from the Silk Road Economic Belt

PUFFING ACROSS THE ‘ONE BELT, ONE ROAD’ RAIL ROUTE TO NOWHERE
Compared to sea or air, the Europe-China freight service just makes no economic or environmental sense, either coming or going (Scmp)

Security firms to cash in protecting China’s ‘New Silk Road’

Global security companies and their smaller Chinese rivals are jostling for business along Beijing’s modern-day “Silk Road”, the grandiose plan for land and sea routes connecting the world’s second largest economy with the rest of Asia and beyond. Security firms expect to tap the rush, offering to protect thousands of Chinese workers - and the pipelines, roads, railways and power plants they build - as they fan out across the world under the “Belt and Road Initiative”. (Scmp)

Trade with Belt and Road economies surges in Q1
China's trade with economies along the Belt and Road Initiative posted double-digital growth year-on-year in the first quarter of the year, the Ministry of Commerce said on Thursday. Sun Jiwen, the ministry's spokesman, said trade in goods between China and the Belt and Road economies grew 26.2 percent in the first three months from the same period of last year.China's exports to these countries and regions rose by 15.8 percent from a year earlier, and imports grew by 42.9 percent, Sun told a news conference. During the period, China's non-financial outbound direct investment in 43 economies in the Belt and Road regions reached $2.95 billion, accounting for 14.4 percent of the country's total, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce. Correspondingly, those economies set up 781 new companies in China, up 40 percent year-on-year. (People's Daily)

The Reality of the Sino-Russian Oil Alliance
Russia’s oil ties with China are deepening but markets, not politics, drive the evolving relationship. (Diplomat)

China-led ‘Belt and Road’ initiative links Kazakhstan with sea
"Our railway goes all the way to China's Lianyungang, where exclusive docks have been built," explained the director of the Nazarbayev University, adding that with most of the China-Europe freight trains crossing Kazakhstan, Chinese commodities could reach Hamburg and Istanbul in a short time. Kazakh public thought the country has lost its seaports when Soviet Union was dissolved, recalled Benedikt Sobotka, CEO of Eurasian Resources Group, adding that everybody back then was predicting a downturn for the country."But indeed, we don't need a sea at the door since China offers it to Kazakhstan," he stressed. China and Kazakhstan have given more weight to energy and resources in their capacity cooperation, with the investment into 51 projects totaling at $27.075 billion.(People's Daiy)

China-Pakistan, Economic Corridor

Initially hailed as a key part of China’s ‘One Belt One Road’ vision, the US$56 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor has yet to translate into the ‘game changer’ envisioned by its sponsors. F.M. Shakil writes that the imported labour from China, tax exemptions for Chinese firms and security costs have combined to bring debt of over US$2.5 billion and Pakistani analysts are now asking how Islamabad will see any benefit. (Asia Times)

Fact Box: Assessing the Key Elements of the Belt and Road Initiative

The Chinese government’s “One Belt, One Road” summit on May 14 and 15 is touted as the highest-level meeting since President Xi Jinping announced the ambitious plan in 2013 to revive the ancient Silk Road trade routes on land and sea.State leaders and government heads from 28 countries will participate in the summit, while more than 1,000 officials, scholars, entrepreneurs and representatives from international organizations will attend the meeting, according to China’s Foreign Ministry. But what exactly is the Belt and Road initiative? Is it just about using infrastructure to strengthen ties, or does it form the basis of a visionary blueprint for global economic development? By the end of 2016, China has helped more than 20 countries build 56 industrial parks. More than 1,100 Chinese companies have helped establish plants and branch companies involved in the auto, machinery, electronics, textiles and clothing industries among others. They have invested $18.5 billion and created 180,000 jobs for local people, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce. In the first quarter of this year, China has signed nearly 100 project contracts in 61 countries along the Belt and Road routes, generating $14.4 billion and accounting for nearly half of all revenue Chinese companies achieved in overseas projects, the Ministry of Commerce said. The trade volumes with Belt and Road countries such as Russia, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia have jumped by about a third in the first quarter year-on-year, far faster than those with the U.S., the EU and Japan, which increased by 11% to 17% (Caixin)

World Bank Group, China-led AIIB agree to deepen cooperation
The World Bank Group and the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank said on Sunday they agreed to deepen their cooperation with a framework for knowledge sharing, staff exchanges, analytical work, development financing and country-level coordination.The memorandum of understanding signed at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund spring meetings in Washington comes a year after the two multilateral lenders established mechanisms for cost-sharing and co-financing of investment projects. (Reuters)

Will China-led development banks get the coveted boost to shape a new financial world order?
The two development banks established under Beijing’s leadership, widely seen as China’s tools to help shape a new financial world order, are seeking ratings from international rating agencies to pave the way for future borrowing and the issuance of bonds. The Shanghai-based New Development Bank, commonly known as the BRICS Bank, and the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), are seeking credit ratings from Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s and Fitch Ratings, a vital step for them to borrow money in global capital markets and a key factor in deciding their financing costs. (Scmp)

China bans religious names for Muslim babies in Xinjiang
Many couples fret over choosing the perfect name for their newborn, but for Muslims in western China that decision has now become even more fraught: pick the wrong name and your child will be denied education and government benefits.Officials in the western region of Xinjiang, home to roughly half of China’s 23 million Muslims, have released a list of banned baby names amid an ongoing crackdown on religion, according to a report by US-funded Radio Free Asia. (Guardian)

Imagining Re-Engineered Muslims in Northwest China
While perusing the news from Northwest China in mid-April 2017, I came across a story about a Uyghur official who refused to smoke cigarettes in front of other devout Uyghurs. The Communist Party leader was publicly shamed and demoted for his failure to remain resolute in his “commitment to secularization.” Smoking, the state declared, was a personal choice that must be protected.By this logic, an individual’s right to smoke is thus a fundamental form of freedom: freedom to consume the secular. Smoking, like secularism, is a manifestation of the norms of Chinese citizenship. Any attempt at limiting it, in favor of respecting religious practices, is symptomatic of a social malady. The story, published by the Associated Press on April 11, 2017, reminded me of my own experiences of smoking with Uyghur friends. (Art of Life in Central Asia)

China party urges Uighur youth to 'love motherland' to avoid 'terrorist' label

Young members of China's Uighur Muslim minority should "love the motherland" and learn Mandarin to help fight a perception they are "terrorists", Uighur members of the ruling Communist Party said in state media on Thursday. (Reuters)

Think the RCEP is about free trade? Think again
Beijing-led pact is aimed at saving China's own economy via the Belt and Road.

While these negotiations are ostensibly aimed at setting regional trade rules, Beijing considers the RCEP to be a key piece of its One Belt, One Road strategy. China's Commerce Ministry has often linked the two initiatives explicitly: One Belt, One Road is meant to develop industrial and business infrastructure to promote trade and investment with China, while the RCEP is intended to take advantage of that new infrastructure by establishing a free trade framework that suits Beijing. If successful, the pact will open up neighboring markets to a flood of Chinese exports. Chinese companies won $126 billion worth of contracts related to One Belt, One Road last year. That is up 36% from the $92.6 billion in 2015, when contracts related to the initiative posted 7.4% growth from the previous year. Many of these exporters are state-owned raw materials producers that have been struggling with overcapacity and slow reforms.(Nikkei)

Reconnecting Asia has added over 250 infrastructure projects to its database since October 2016, and it has finally reached the 1800+ mark. (Reconnecting Asia)

China ratifies SCO border defence agreement

China's top legislature on 27 April ratified an agreement on border defence cooperation among member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The agreement was approved at the closing meeting of the bimonthly session of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee. (Xinhua)

CENTRAL ASIA

Russia’s Friendships And Its Discontents

In the divided and shifting diplomatic climate of recent years, Russia has needed to maintain its friendships in Central Asia as never before. But Moscow has had to strain its regional friendships to an onerous extent for the sake of larger global games it is playing. While none of its Central Asian partners is about to abandon Russia, not least because they cannot afford to do so just yet, more durable and satisfying partnerships require non-zero sum, more liberal relationships. (Eurasia.net)


Tajikistan: State Media Forced to Always Call President By Unwieldy Title

State media in Tajikistan are under strict instructions to start always referring to President Emomali Rahmon by his full title: The Founder of Peace and National Unity — Leader of the Nation.
A worker for a state media told RFE/RL’s Tajik service, Radio Ozodi, that the new rule has been in force as of last week. (Eurasia.net)

Kyrgyzstan: Thin-Skinned President Sets Dogs on Media, Again

Life in Kyrgyzstan for independent media and critics of President Almazbek Atambayev took a fresh turn for the worse on April 28 as an embattled website revealed it is facing a fifth lawsuit from the government.Yet again, the irreverent news website Zanoza.kg faces accusations of offending the dignity and honor of the president — both qualities cynics might suggest are in increasingly short supply. This time, the outlet and its co-founders are being sued to the tune of 9 million soms (around $135,000) for reproducing outspoken remarks by former MP and long-time Atambayev detractor Cholpon Dzhakupova. (Eurasia.net)

Russian beyond Russia: The politics of language in Eurasia
Language is harmfully intertwined with politics these days in Eurasia. The swirling debates are raising questions about the boundaries of Russianness.

(Eurasia.net)

Remittances sent by labor migrants from Russia to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan falling
EurasiaNet.org reports that remittances paid by migrant laborers from Russia to Central Asia in 2016 fell compared to 2015. As stated before, the Russian Central Bank did note last week that money transfers by individuals to Uzbekistan had hit $2.74 billion in 2016, but this actually represented a drop not a rise, since the figure for 2015 was $3 billion, according to EurasiaNet.org. Second place among cash transfers made from Russia to former Soviet republics is taken by Tajikistan. The figure for remittances in 2016 was $1.9 billion — a global figure smaller than Uzbekistan, but one that accounts for a far greater proportion of the nation’s economy as a whole. This is a fall from the previous year, when it was $2.2 billion. Kyrgyzstan with $1.7 billion is in the third place. Now, this is an improvement, from the $1.5 billion recorded in 2015, EurasiaNet.org says. (Asia Plus)