Weekly News Roundup: Dispatches from the Silk Road Economic Belt

Why China Just Added The Belt And Road Initiative To Its Constitution

The Belt and Road Initiative -- a loosely defined series of interconnected bi-lateral trade deals and infrastructure projects that seek to establish enhanced trade routes from China to Europe and Africa -- is a program that is inseparably connected with Xi Jinping, which could turn out to be on a similar level as the Great Leap Forward is connected with Mao and Reform and Opening with Deng Xiaoping. The writing of this initiative into the constitution could very well be used as a driver to extend Xi’s leadership a little farther into the future. I mean, how can China continue on with the BRI without the only person who really knows what it is? (Forbes)

The barren peninsula at heart of China’s trade dream with Pakistan
Development of Gwadar port, part of a project to create a trade corridor with China, faces problems with security, lack of infrastructure and skilled labour, say analysts (scmp)

How China’s key project in Pakistan got trapped in politics 
China’s high-stakes Belt and Road project in Pakistan has sucked it into the vortex of a power struggle between Pakistan’s elected government and its military on the one hand and an increasingly bitter geopolitical row on the other as the United States and India join forces.(scmp)

Chinese-Led Infrastructure Boom Mostly Bypasses Pakistan's Banks

China’s ambitious $55 billion infrastructure project that’s underway throughout Pakistan is in danger of becoming a non-event for the South Asian nation’s banks. (bloomberg)

New cargo route links Xinjiang with Ukraine

A new China-Europe freight train route was launched Sunday in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The first train, carrying oil drilling equipment, left Urumqi Sunday noon and is bound for Poltava, Ukraine, via Kazakhstan and Russia. This is the first cargo train linking Xinjiang with Ukraine. A total of 700 China-Europe freight trains are expected to depart from Xinjiang by the end of 2017. (Global Times)

Chinese engineers plan 1,000km tunnel to make Xinjiang desert bloom

Chinese engineers are testing techniques that could be used to build a 1,000km tunnel – the world’s longest – to carry water from Tibet to Xinjiang, experts involved in the project say. (scmp)

In letter to Tibetan herders, Xi sends message on China’s border row with India

Chinese President Xi Jinping has underscored his country’s claim to a disputed area on the border with India, with state media publishing a letter from Xi to a Tibetan family asking them to help safeguard the zone. Xi’s letter was a rare response to the flood of correspondence from the public to the Chinese leader, and presidential replies are seen as a window on the priorities of their writer. The Tibetan family – comprising a father and his two daughters – wrote to Xi about their community and Xi replied on 28 October, Xinhua reported on 29 October. (SCMP)

China provides emergency food aid to Afghanistan before winter

The Chinese embassy in Afghanistan said 29 October that China will provide Afghanistan with 4,242 tons of rice which is emergency food aid to the militancy-hit country. Chinese Charge d'Affaires Zhang Zhixin together with Afghan acting State Minister for Disaster Management and Humanitarian Affairs Mohammad Aslam Sayas attended a handover ceremony here on 29 October morning. The Chinese side handed over the first batch of 502 tons of rice, the rest will arrive in Kabul before March 2018. (Xinhua)

China to block Indian request for UN blacklist of head of Pakistan-based militant group again

China on Monday (Oct 30) signalled it would again block an Indian request at the United Nations to blacklist the head of a Pakistan-based militant group because there was no consensus, a move likely to cause recrimination in New Delhi. (Reuters)

Moscow and Beijing’s joint investment fund to grow to US$2 billion, paving way for ‘dozens of deals’
A joint China-Russia investment fund with a capital base that is about to double to US$2 billion will invest in “dozens of deals” that signal deepening financial ties between Beijing and Moscow. (scmp)

CENTRAL ASIA

Kyrgyzstan Rejecting Kazakhstan’s $100 Million Aid Package
In the latest fit of pique in a seemingly unending diplomatic row, Kyrgyzstan is going through the motions of formally rejecting a $100 million aid package offered to it by Kazakhstan. Speaking to the parliament’s budget and finances committee, Kyrgyz deputy prime minister Duishenbek Zilaliyev said on October 23 that Kazakhstan had long delayed the promised payment and that the funds were no longer needed. (Eurasianet)

Petroyuan may supplant petrodollars as Russia’s oil and gas replace US influence in Asia
The “Great Game” over oil and energy dominance is being played out in Asia’s energy markets. While US President Donald Trump plays a reactive, tactical game to “Make America Great Again” through unilateralism, China, Russia and Japan have their eyes on the long game. They are reshaping the global balance of power with bold, multilateral energy infrastructure plans and near-completed projects. (scmp)

Once Closed and Repressive, Uzbekistan Is Opening Up
An unexpected political thaw, called by some the Uzbek Spring, represents some of the first positive political news out of Central Asia in years. (nyt)

Fuel Crisis Exposes Kazakhstan's Energy Contradictions
For the past month, lack of gasoline, price increases, and public discontent highlighted Kazakhstan’s infrastructural and institutional impasse. (The Diplomat)

Alphabet soup as Kazakh leader orders switch to Latin letters
Kazakhstan is to change its official alphabet for the third time in less than 100 years in what is seen in part as symbolic move to underline its independence. President Nursultan Nazarbayev ordered his office on Thursday to prepare for a switch to a Latin-based alphabet from a Cyrillic one, distancing itself, at least graphically, from Russia. (reuters)

Tajikistan's Presidential Family Ousts Competitor in the Fuel Market
Tajik police detained a prominent businessman, leaving room for the president’s son-in-law. (The Diplomat)

A New Asia-to-Europe Railway Route Is Opening UpAzerbaijan opened a long-delayed railway through the Caucasus region that’s intended to become a new transport corridor for goods carried between Asia and Europe. (bloomberg)

Will the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars Railway Become Uzbekistan’s New Connection to Europe?Particularly since the death (on September 2, 2016) of Uzbekistan’s long-ruling president, Islam Karimov, and the election of his successor, Shavkat Mirziyaev, Tashkent’s foreign policy has been evolving toward ever more open cooperation with regional neighbors. And growing signs of Uzbekistan’s desire to participate in the BTK railway, as an outlet for the country’s goods to European markets, clearly fits this pattern. The 826-kilometer-long Baku–Tbilisi–Kars railway connects Azerbaijan to Turkey via Georgia, and by extension forms an important link in the trans-continental transport corridor connecting Central Asia and China to Europe. (jamestown foundation)

Iran Rejects Turkmen Proposal For Gas Shipments To Turkey

Energy politics around the Caspian Sea breeds complications, as a recent example involving Turkmenistan, Iran, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia reminds us. Turkmenistan is in a serious bind. The country has the fourth-largest natural gas reserves in the world but currently has only one customer -- China -- at a time when Turkmenistan's economy appears to be spiraling downward. (rferl)