Weekly News Roundup: Dispatches from the Silk Road Economic Belt

China deploys new tank in Tibet, near India border
China deployed its latest military tank, the Xinqingtan, in an area of Tibet near the Indian border.
Chinese news site Guancha reported Monday Beijing is increasing military buildup in Tibet in a show of force designed to deter the Indian military.An integrated brigade of the People's Liberation Army in Tibet deployed an unidentified number of the new tanks, according Chinese state-owned television network CCTV. (Upi)

Can China Help GUAM Diversify Away from Russia?

As GUAM became inactive and U.S. support cooled, China began to show its ambition in broader Eurasia. In September 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping initiated the “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) across Eurasia. GUAM not only falls within the Silk Road Economic Belt, but it also draws China’s attention with its Trans-Caspian potential. (Eurasia.net)

Kazakhstan residents with family in China protest document confiscation drive

Residents of Kazakhstan say they are being prevented from seeing their families after Chinese authorities in the troubled northwestern region of Xinjiang began confiscating the passports of ethnic minority Kazakhs whose family members live across the border, sources told RFA. Meanwhile, members of the Turkic-speaking, mostly Muslim Uyghur ethnic group currently living across the border are being ordered to return to China, according to their relatives living in Kazakhstan. RFA

In Pakistan, China presses built-in advantage for 'Silk Road' contracts

Last year, Pakistan held informal talks with General Electric, Siemens and Switzerland's ABB to build the country's first high-voltage transmission line. Chinese power giant State Grid committed to building the $1.7 billion project in half the time of its European counterparts – and clinched the deal.(Reuters)

‘ISLAMIC STATE’ KILLINGS: CHINA’S CENSORED SOCIAL MEDIA IS IN UPROAR, SO WHAT’S BEIJING THINKING?

As Beijing scrambles to befriend neighbouring countries and ease anxieties over its rising military power, social media users are demanding their government send troops to Pakistan to seek payback for the killing of two Chinese nationals.Calls for action were stoked after Islamic State (IS), a terrorist group active in Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for executing a young man and woman last week in Pakistan. Chinese officials have yet to directly confirm the deaths, but a spokesman from the Chinese foreign affairs ministry said on Wednesday that Beijing was investigating whether the pair – described in some reports as Chinese language teachers – were illegally preaching in Pakistan before they were abducted. In an earlier press conference, the ministry said it had been told by Pakistan that the pair had “probably died”. (Scmp)

OBOR is sustainable

The costs of China’s One Belt, One Road project are sustainable and won’t reach into the trillions of dollars, says David Dollar, a former World Bank official and US Treasury emissary to Beijing. Doug Tsuruoka writes that Dollar also thinks India must participate if China’s plan is to succeed but downplays the possibility of Chinese participation in President Donald Trump’s plan to rebuild US infrastructure.

AIIB approves 150-mln-USD equity investment in India

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) on Thursday approved its first-ever equity investment, worth 150 million U.S. dollars, to catalyze private capital for infrastructure projects in India.The investment will go to the India Infrastructure Fund, which aims to invest in mid-cap infrastructure companies in India, according to an AIIB press release. (People's Daily)

How much danger can China tolerate in war-torn Afghanistan?

Major security concerns continue to hamper plans for large-scale Chinese investment and reconstruction in the ravaged central Asian country. “If the way and connectivity through Afghanistan is not open, it would be like an important vein being blocked on the Belt and Road, which leads to many diseases to this organ,” said Sun Yuxi, the first Chinese ambassador to Kabul after the Taliban regime was toppled in 2001. China had launched a freight train service directly to a station on the Afghanistan border last year, a 13-day journey via Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. But the trade flow is considered too thin to merit a regular service.(Scmp)

Interpreters witness booming border trade between China and Kazakhstan

Marina has to cross border every day for work, but the one hour drive from her home in Yarkent, Kazakhstan to China's border town Khorgos is nothing compared to the monthly payment of 2,700 yuan (about 400 U.S. dollars), an income above the average in her hometown.As the day breaks, Marina gets out of bed, takes breakfast and hops on a cab to start a day of busy work at the China-Kazakhstan Khorgos Frontier International Cooperation Center. She began to work as an interpreter at a Chinese trade firm there a month ago. (Xinhua)

Ethnic Kazakh Imam Dies in Custody of Chinese Police in Xinjiang

An ethnic minority Kazakh imam has died in police custody in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang, with authorities attributing the cause of death to "suicide," sources in the region told RFA.
The Kazakh imam, known by a single name, Akmet, was detained last week by authorities in Xinjiang's Sanji (in Chinese, Changji) Hui Autonomous Prefecture, a source close to the case said on Thursday. (Rfa)

China Builds Its Global Role, One Infrastructure Loan at a Time

Among the 16 projects approved by the AIIB, 12 were co-financed with other development lenders including the World Bank, ADB, and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The arrangements implied that the bank is less likely to compromise humanitarian and environmental standards as initially feared, at least not in those projects. (Bloomberg)

Dutch city of Tilburg sees "golden opportunity" in direct Chengdu rail link
A new direct rail link from Chengdu to Tilburg, the sixth largest city and the second largest logistic hotspot in the Netherlands, is being seen as a "golden opportunity."Chengdu is 10,947 km away in China's southwest Sichuan Province. The latest alternative logistic service is growing in popularity and promises broadened industrial cooperation between the two cities.The service, launched in June last year, now has three trains westbound and three trains eastbound per week. "We plan to have five trains westbound and five trains eastbound by the end of this year," Roland Verbraak, general manager of the GVT Group of Logistics told Xinhua. Cargo coming from China is mostly electronics for multinational groups such as Sony, Samsung, Dell and Apple as well as products for European aerospace industry. Some 70 percent of them go to the Netherlands and the rest are delivered by barge or by train to other destinations in Europe, according to GVT. (Xinhua)

How The New Silk Road Is Saving Lives

According to a recent report by the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS), a Washington DC think tank, entitled Safety on the New Silk Road, Kazakhstan loses upwards of $9 billion — or nearly 4% of its GDP — each year due to road accidents. Only 3% of the country’s roadways meet internationally recognized highest standards, while 17% fall below the minimum. Of the 13,000 kilometers of highway that the CSIS investigated, over three-quarters were undivided two-lane roads, more than half were not paved in asphalt, and 45% were considered to be in bad condition — all of which increases the risk of accidents. Backing up the findings of the CSIS, of the 52 countries that the World Health Organization analyzed in their study on global road safety, Kazakhstan ranked dead last. Meanwhile, the number of cars on Kazakh roadways have more than doubled in the past ten years. (Forbes)

HOW THE QATAR CRISIS COULD TURN INTO A DISASTER FOR BEIJING

The recent row between Qatar and its Arab neighbours puts a big question mark over the feasibility of Beijing’s plans to promote connectivity and build a China-centred trade network among Eurasian countries.The diplomatic rift will interrupt Beijing’s efforts to manage its multitrillion-dollar projects under the Belt and Road Initiative, as the crisis in the Gulf region might mark the beginning of a new round of chaos, and perhaps military conflicts, in the wider Middle East. (Scmp)

Footprints: A Korean ‘front’ for Chinese evangelists?

Some interesting Dawn reporting around the two Chinese killed in Balochistan and their activities in Quetta (Dawn)

CENTRAL ASIA

Uzbekistan Starts Shopping For Kazakh Weaponry

Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have steadily begun to build military ties, suggesting that Tashkent's thaw in relations with its Central Asian neighbors may even extend to such a sensitive area as military cooperation with its regional rival. (Eurasianet)

Kyrgyzstan's Presidential Election Looks To Be A Cliffhanger

The nomination of candidates in Kyrgyzstan's presidential election officially started on June 15, and the vote already promises to be one of the most interesting and exciting elections yet seen in Central Asia.Current Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambaev is prohibited by the constitution from seeking another term and, unlike leaders in some of the neighboring Central Asian states, Atambaev is really going to honor that stipulation. (Rferl)

Energy in Central Asia: Who Has What?
Each summer, BP releases a statistical review of world energy. The review — in its 66th year — is well regarded and draws on a variety of sources, giving one of the most comprehensive views of energy reserves and consumption around the world.Buried amid the tables are Central Asia’s three energy-rich states: Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. As energy plays a central role in the economies of these states, it’s worth taking stock of where the last few tumultuous years have left them. (Diplomat)