Weekly News Roundup: Dispatches from the Silk Road Economic Belt

How China’s Belt and Road builds connections

As the dust settles from the Chinese Communist Party’s 19th Congress, one of the strongest edifices left standing is Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy initiative — the US$1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Two members of the BRI Leading Small Group, Wang Hunning and Wang Yang, secured five-year positions on the reshuffled Politburo Standing Committee. The BRI even received an awkward mention in the revised Party Constitution. (East Aisa Forum)

Trump tweet draws China, Pakistan closer

A Twitter attack by US President Donald Trump against Pakistan on New Year's Day appears to be helping boost the already close ties between Pakistan and China as days after the tirade two important advances in financing and military cooperation between the latter two countries were reported.
Trump's tweet, which accused Pakistan of giving safe haven to terrorists, drew a stern backlash in Islamabad and staunch defense of Pakistan in Beijing - a dynamic that experts say highlights the further strengthening of the relationship, as the US, in its broader geopolitical strategy, aims for closer ties with India, while casting aspersions on Pakistan. (Global Times)

THANK YOU TRUMP: THAT TWEET WAS JUST WHAT CHINA NEEDED TO TAME PAKISTAN
US president’s outburst and Washington’s decision to punish old ally comes at an opportune time for Beijing, which has been facing uncharacteristic pushback from Islamabad (scmp)

First Djibouti ... now Pakistan port earmarked for a Chinese overseas naval base, sources say

Beijing plans to build its second offshore naval base near a strategically important Pakistani port following the opening of its first facility in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa last year.Beijing-based military analyst Zhou Chenming said the base near the Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea would be used to dock and maintain naval vessels, as well as provide other logistical support services. (Scmp)
Turkmen November gas supplies to China slide versus October amid winter supply crunch: customs data

China’s monthly natural gas imports from leading supplier Turkmenistan fell in November from the previous month to their lowest since December 2016, leaving Beijing increasing purchases from elsewhere to try to cope with a growing supply crunch. (Reuters)

China's Imports of Turkmen Gas Decline
Turkmen gas exports to China fell from October to November, with sources indicating Ashgabat isn’t pumping promised volumes. (The Diplomat)

Russia Tightens Oil Grip With China's Second Pipeline
The project is intended to deepen energy cooperation between the countries and serve the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, according to Xinhua. Russia also aims to start natural gas sales via the Power of Siberia pipeline by December 2019. (Bloomberg)

Time China met its promises and took leading role in Afghanistan

Beijing needs to move beyond rhetoric and take more concrete action to help and guide the violence-torn nation on its northern borders, writes Raffaello Pantucci (Scmp)

China’s Ambitious New ‘Port’: Landlocked Kazakhstan 

China’s largest shipping company has poured billions of dollars into buying seaports in Greece and other maritime nations around the world. But the location of its latest big foreign investment has given a curious twist to the expanding ambitions of the China Ocean Shipping Company: The nearest ocean is more than 1,600 miles away. The state-owned Chinese shipping giant, known as COSCO, became the 49 percent owner this past summer of a patch of frost-covered asphalt bisected by railway tracks and lined with warehouses in landlocked Kazakhstan. The barren wilderness close to the border with China stands near the Eurasian Pole of Inaccessibility, meaning that nowhere on the landmass of Europe and Asia is more distant from the sea. (NY Times)

China and Pakistan to use yuan in bilateral trade
Pakistan is hoping to boost trade and economic ties with China by trading with the country in yuan, the State Bank of Pakistan in Karachi has announced.Imports, exports and financial transactions between the two countries can now be denominated in the yuan, it said in a press release. (scmp)

Cargo trains make record trips between Yangtze River Delta, Europe

Freight trains made a record 1,127 trips last year from China's Yangtze River Delta to Europe and central Asia on 14 routes, according to Shanghai Railway Bureau on 2 January. It marked a yearly increase of more than 47%, it added. A greater variety of products, from small commodities, electronics, textiles, auto parts to vehicles, mechanical equipment and furniture are delivered between China and 16 countries in the European Union and central Asia. The fastest train can arrive at Europe in 12 days, only one-third of the transportation time by sea. (Xinhua)

700 China-Europe trains pass through Xinjiang in 2017

Urumqi Railway Bureau said 700 China-Europe trains ran through the capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in 2017.Westbound freight trains from other parts of China stopped in Urumqi for goods adjustment before exiting the country through Horgos or Alataw Pass for destinations in Central Asia or Europe. Last year, 70 percent of China-Europe trains exited China from Xinjiang.(Xinhua)

Why China could double down on its support for Iran despite US calls for action over ‘freedom’ protests

China is expected to uphold its strong support for Iran amid US calls for emergency United Nations sessions to pressure Tehran over nationwide protests.As the protests entered a second week, US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley called on the international community to speak out about demonstrations, which have claimed more than 20 lives. (Scmp)

Iran to probe into frozen bank accounts in China
“Chinese banks claim that the main reason for blocking the bank accounts of #Iranian companies and businessmen is money laundering and providing financial support for terrorists. Investigations are being made in this regard.” (Meher News)

China land grab on Lake Baikal raises Russian ire
Nationalists up in arms after Chinese investors snap up lakefront properties (FT)

The Geopolitics of the Beijing-Moscow Consensus

The integration of China’s Belt and Road and Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union will have major implications. (The Diplomat)

Kazak and Chinese employees jointly guard the 10,000-km Central Asia-China gas pipeline

Oscar, a Kazak national, was patrolling like any other day along the Central Asia-China Gas Pipeline in Kazakhstan. A vice manager for the security department in AGP (Asia Gas Pipeline LLP), a joint natural gas pipeline company between China and Kazakhstan, he has worked there for the past eight years.Entering winter in late-December, the demand for natural gas had been increasing dramatically in China as millions of households have recently began transitioning from coal to gas to heat for heating their homes following the government's push for a cleaner environment.PetroChina provides 30,000 jobs to Kazak locals. And as more and more locals are employed, gas companies across Central Asia are sending many of them to China to learn the Chinese language and culture. (Global Times)

Xinjiang towns, villages celebrate Party spirit on loudspeaker systems

Xinjiang towns and villages have been using loudspeakers to repeatedly publicize the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in a move that local officials say is cheering people up and warming their hearts.Loud speakers in Akto county, the Kizilsu Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region began to repeatedly play reports delivered at the 19th CPC National Congress after it was held in October, as well as government policies beneficial to people, the region's government said on Wednesday. (Global Times)

HSBC opens China desk in Poland to further tap Belt and Road opportunities
HSBC has launched a business desk in Poland to facilitate trade and investment flows between China and countries in Central and Eastern Europe （CEE） as two-way business increases dramatically under the Belt and Road Initiative.The bank’s new China Desk will focus, in particular, on Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania, which together have attracted the bulk of China’s investment in the region. According to research consultancy Rhodium Group, Chinese investment in these five countries increased to 4.5 billion euros (US$5.4 billion) between 2000 and 2016. (Shine)

CENTRAL ASIA

Making Uzbekistan. Nation, Empire, and Revolution in the Early USSR

Adeeb Khalid’s Making Uzbekistan is an important book, which challenges, through impressive research work and an extremely enjoyable narrative, recent scholarship and the many myths surrounding the national-territorial delimitation of Soviet Uzbekistan. Khalid has produced a very welcome attempt to return agency to modern Central Asians, by arguing that the ultimate configuration of the Uzbek nation-state was not imposed by a distant power: rather, it represented the culmination of a longer-term plan led by the lively, progressive and cosmopolitan Uzbek intelligentsiya that emerged locally during the late tsarist era. (Taylor & Francis online)

Turkmenistan’s president banned black cars

To satisfy Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s latest whim, drivers must repaint their black vehicles at their own expense.

Turkmenistan Turns Off the Lights in Northern Afghanistan
Nothing says friendship like turning off the power on New Year’s Eve. (The Diplomat)

This Is What Nuclear Weapons Leave in Their Wake
A remote area of Kazakhstan was once home to nearly a quarter of the world’s nuclear testing. The impact on its inhabitants has been devastating. (National Geographic)

The Feminized Farm: Labor Migration and Women's Roles in Tajikistan's Rural Communities
As Tajik men go abroad in search of higher pay, women take on increased roles in Tajikistan’s agriculture sector. (The Diplomat)