Weekly News Roundup: Dispatches from the Silk Road Economic Belt

Central Asia’s Silk Road Rivalries

Russia’s and China’s separate visions for Central Asia could transform the region’s political and economic landscape as well as relations between the two Eurasian giants. To the smaller, embryonic Central Asian nation states, the new geopolitical realities could offer both economic prosperity as well as worsening instability and conflict. (Crisis Group)

Beijing To The World: Please Stop Saying OBOR

To remedy a rather confusing situation where nomenclature and reality did not run together, the Chinese government decided to change the name of its epic initiative to wrap up the Eurasian supercontinent and Africa with an array of trade corridors like the laces running around the contour of a baseball. (Forbes)


WITH SHARIF GONE, WHAT HAPPENS TO CHINA’S INVESTMENTS IN PAKISTAN NOW?
China has been assured by Pakistan’s powerful military and politicians that its multibillion-dollar Belt and Road investments would not be disrupted by the landmark verdict on Friday that felled Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, even though some of its investments could come under the widening corruption probe currently playing havoc with Pakistani politics. (Scmp)

For Pakistanis, China 'friendship' road runs one way

The China-Pakistan Friendship Highway runs over 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) from the far western Chinese city of Kashgar through the world's highest mountain pass and across the border.For China, the two-lane thoroughfare symbolises a blossoming partnership, nourished with tens of billions of dollars of infrastructure investment.But for many Pakistani businessmen living and working on the Chinese side of the border, the road is a one way street. (Yahoo)
Border dispute with India could hurt Chinese trade

Beijing’s strong-arm approach could make an enemy of New Delhi, whose strategic position is key to the success of the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’
(Scmp)

Is Beijing’s hardline stance on border rows blowing its defence diplomacy?

“There is a fundamental disconnect between China’s assertive behaviour in the South China Sea and the Maritime Silk Road [part of the broader Belt and Road strategy that Xi has been championing] which China has not entirely resolved,” Pantucci said.“On one hand, China is building trust and relations, but on the other it is exacerbating tensions.”At the end of the day, how Beijing actually uses its power when dealing with disputes – such as the ongoing standoff with India in Bhutan – is what countries around the region are closely watching. (Scmp)

China Bans Uyghur Language in Xinjiang Schools

Authorities in northwest China’s Xinjiang region have issued a directive completely banning the use of the Uyghur language at all education levels up to and including secondary school, according to official sources, and those found in violation of the order will face “severe punishment.”
(rfa)

The 100-year History of Northeast China’s Frontier Railway

More than a century ago, the declining Russian Empire began an ambitious undertaking that would become one of the great wonders of human engineering: the Trans-Siberian Railway. Spanning northern Eurasia and traversing the frozen Siberian wastelands, its tracks stretched all the way from Moscow to the shores of the Pacific Ocean in the Russian Far East. (Sixth Tone)

Trump’s Iran contradiction

Russian military technology is reaching Tehran more freely than ever and with China viewing Iran as the regional hub in its Belt and Road Initiative, Tehran is doing a good enough job to resist Donald Trump’s attempts to isolate it. M.K. Bhadrakumar writes that there are also big contradictions in the Trump administration’s approach to Iran, because it is legislating sanctions while also certifying that Iran’s compliance with the important 15 July 2015 nuclear deal is satisfactory. (Asia Times)

Update: $1.5b China Loan for Iranian Rail Project

ProjectChina signed a contract with Iran to finance the electrification of a 926-km railroad from Tehran to the eastern city of Mashhad in Khorasan Razavi Province with a $1.5 billion loan.As per the agreement signed between the two sides in Tehran on Tuesday, the guarantee for the loan, which is to be granted by Exim Bank of China, will be provided by Iran’s Bank of Industry and Mine, IRIB News reported.A subsidiary of China General Technology Group, CMC is an international engineering contractor in transportation infrastructure, industrial facilities and power plants. In 2014, the company constructed the Ankara-Istanbul high-speed railroad, together with China Railway Construction Corporation Limited and Turkish companies. (Financial Tribune)

Mongolia Gets On Board with China’s Belt and Road Initiative

China’s Belt and Road is putting pressure on Mongolia to resolve a strategic dilemma. On the one hand, Ulanbaatar is eager to reduce its political and economic dependence on China through its Third Neighbor foreign policy; on the other, Mongolia faces competition from Kazakhstan to reap the potential rewards of becoming a key node in the Belt and Road. (Eurasianet)

Latest China-Europe freight train leaves for Munich, Germany on July 28

China launched its newest Europe-bound freight train line at a ceremony in Linfen, North China’s Shanxi Province on July 28, 2017, people.com.cn reported. Departing for the first time, the China Railway Express line loaded with automobile parts and machine accessories is scheduled to arrive in Munich, Germany in around 10 days. The train will cover 10,000 kilometers along the Silk Road Economic Belt, eventually delivering cargo to 10 companies in Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, France and Italy. (Global Times)



CENTRAL ASIA

New Pipeline Will End Iran's Need for Turkmen Gas

The launch of a gas pipeline stretching from the city of Damghan in Semnan Province to Neka in Mazandaran Province next week will end the country’s need for gas imports from Turkmenistan, managing director of the National Iranian Gas Company said.“By launching the Damghan-Neka pipeline, there will be no need for importing Turkmen gas. But we will continue to swap Turkmen gas as part of a national policy to expand regional relations,” Hamidreza Araqi was also quoted as saying by Shana, the official news agency of Oil Ministry, on Tuesday. The Central Asian state unilaterally halted natural gas supplies to Iran in December in violation of the terms of its contract with Iran. The country increased gas prices ninefold to $360 per 1,000 cubic meters from $40.(Financial Times)

Uzbekistan Confirms Karimova Probes in PR-Boosting Exercise
Uzbekistan did more than confirm what all watchers of the region already suspected in announcing news of prosecutions against the late president’s eldest daughter — it also made a fresh bid toward achieving a sliver of international respectability.The General Prosecutor’s Office announced on July 28 that a slew of criminal probes were initiated against Gulnara Karimova as long ago as October 2013, when her father was still alive. Tashkent regional court sentenced her, in August 2015, to five years of “limited freedom,” the prosecutor’s statement said. From all that is known of Karimova’s fate, limited freedom appears to indicate house arrest. (Eurasianet)

Central Asia’s Catechism of Cliché: From the Great Game to Silk Road

When people ponder the history of Central Asia, they tend to have two ideas in mind – that the region has long been the subject of great power rivalry, known since the 19th century as the ‘Great Game,’ and that prior to that, for over 2,000 years, the region was at the heart of a major trade route connecting China and Europe, known as the ‘Silk Road.’Both of these ideas, as they are generally understood today, are inaccurate. They have become clichés that are sometimes used in absurd ways. (Eurasianet)

Uzbekistan to raise $137M to finance Navoiazot’s projects

Uzbekistan plans to get additional loans from foreign banks in the total amount of $137.36 million under a government guarantee to finance three investment projects at Navoiazot OJSC, the country’s biggest chemical plant producing mineral fertilizers.It is planned to get a loan of 2.5 billion Japanese yen (equal to $21.74 million) from a consortium of Japanese banks led by the Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ, and a loan of $115.62 million from Germany’s Commerzbank AG and Switzerland’s Credit Suisse. (Trend News Agency)

‘Our Future Will Be Violent Extremism’
Kazakhstan — Central Asia’s most stable state — is waking up to the fact that Islamic extremism has planted its roots and is here to stay. (Foreign Policy)

Is There A Terror Threat In Turkmenistan?
Is there a terror threat in Turkmenistan? That's the big question as the Turkmen government takes actions that appear to support the idea.The authorities seem more obsessed with security than normal lately, and that's saying a lot considering how tight the government's grip over society has been since independence in late 1991.This heightened anxiety comes as Turkmenistan prepares to host an international event later this year but suddenly faces increased extremist activity just across, and possibly even within its borders. (Rferl)