Weekly News Roundup: Dispatches from the Silk Road Economic Belt

Cargo train delivers Chinese Spring Festival goods to Europe

A cargo train loaded with Chinese Spring Festival purchases left Zhengzhou, a key transport hub in central China's Henan Province, and headed for Germany Wednesday. China Railway Corporation's Zhengzhou bureau said it would increase the proportion of food products on the trains during the Spring Festival travel rush to meet the demand of overseas Chinese in countries along the Belt and Road routes. (Xinhua)

China in talks over military base in remote Afghanistan: Officials

Worried about militants sneaking into a restive Chinese region from war-torn Afghanistan, Beijing is in talks with Kabul over the construction of a military base, Afghan officials say, as it seeks to shore up its fragile neighbour.The army camp will be built in Afghanistan's remote and mountainous Wakhan Corridor, where witnesses have reported seeing Chinese and Afghan troops on joint patrols. (AFP)

Xinjiang assigns 76,000 officials to poor villages

Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region have assigned 76,000 officials to villages in 2018 to fight poverty and maintain stability. In an effort to enhance work in extremely poor villages and to alleviate poverty, the Communist Party of China (CPC) Committee in Xinjiang has assigned
76,000 officials and 12,000 working groups to cover every village in the region, the Xinjiang Morning Post reported on Thursday. (Global Times)

Chinese tycoon sues local government for $640m
One of China’s richest men has revealed an attempt to sue a municipal government for Rmb4bn ($640m) over a suspended project to build a new city, the biggest case of its kind brought by an entrepreneur against the state.Yan Jiehe said the company he founded, China Pacific Construction Group, had not been paid for its work on Lanzhou New City, a settlement once billed as “Las Vegas in the Gobi”, where diggers flattened dozens of hills before officials suspended the project in 2013. (FT)

Beijing sends in new envoy in sign it wants bigger role for Afghanistan in ‘New Silk Road’

Beijing is poised to step up security and economic engagement with Afghanistan, naming an official who has worked on President Xi Jinping’s signature trade initiative as its new envoy in Kabul. (scmp)


Defense Ministry's Regular Press Conference on January 25

I have noticed two different kinds of reports on this issue on the Internet. One says that China is financing Afghanistan to build a military base. I haven’t heard of anything like that.The other report says that China is planning to establish its own military base in Afghanistan. What I want to tell you is that China and Afghanistan maintain normal military security cooperation. China and the international community are all supporting the Afghanistan side to strengthen its capability-building in national defense and counter-terrorism. The report on China’s building of its own military base in Afghanistan is ungrounded. (Mod)

StanChart signs $1.6 billion 'Belt and Road' funding deal with China

State-owned China Development Bank will make available up to 10 billion yuan ($1.59 billion) to Standard Chartered to fund projects in countries along China’s ‘Belt and Road’ infrastructure route, StanChart said on Thursday. (Reuters)

Gerry Shih on China’s Uyghur Muslims, under pressure at home and abroad
Associated Press (AP) reporter Gerry Shih was hard at work in 2017 writing a remarkable series of articles on China’s Uyghur Muslim minority. By traveling not just to China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where 10 to 15 million Uyghurs live, but also to Syria, where some have fled and taken up arms with militant groups, he sought to answer the most politicized and consequential
questions about the ethnic group. (supchina)

Tibet's foreign trade rebounds in 2017
Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region saw its foreign trade rebound in 2017. The total value of imports and exports in the region rose 13.9% to 5.885 billion yuan (934.4 million US dollars) last year. Tibet's foreign trade fell for two consecutive years following the Nepal earthquake in 2015. Xinhua

Chinese shipping employee shot dead in Pakistan's city of Karachi

A Chinese man working with a shipping company in Pakistan was shot dead on Monday in what police described as a targeted attack in Karachi, police and hospital officials said. (Reuters)

Businesses tapping Belt and Road 'will have recourse'

Beijing's recent decision to set up three international commercial courts to resolve disputes arising from its ambitious multi-billion dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been viewed as a logical next step, according to observers. (Strait Times)

How Come China’s Ex-Reds Are So Much Better off Than Russia’s Ex-Reds?

China and Russia followed two distinct approaches to reform, leading to drastically different trajectories of economic growth.While both countries have experienced rising inequality over the last 30 years, Russia’s income distribution has worsened at a faster pace and in a bigger magnitude. What caused the difference in income distribution dynamics between the two? There are important lessons to be learned on the impact of policy decisions on inequality. (Asia Sentinel)

Kazakhstan focusses on water efficiency to ease water sharing with China
Policymakers in Kazakhstan shift focus to domestic water saving measures to reduce reliance on river water flowing from China. (the third pole)

CENTRAL ASIA

Kazakhstan: Online Anonymity Ban in Force from April
Any websites failing to stop people from commenting anonymously will face fines of $750 or more.This strict anonymity rule is part of a broader set of restrictions on the media that were approved by President Nursultan Nazarbayev in November. Critics of the legislation have cried foul, insisting it will severely limit the freedoms of journalists to do their jobs. (Eurasianet)

Uzbek President Announces Reform of Notorious Special Service

The National Security Service of Uzbekistan (SNB) will be refocused on the core tasks of the special service and transfer all non-related units to other government institutions, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev announced during an extended meeting of the SNB's leadership on January 31, the presidential press service reports. (Fergana News)

Former Uzbek leader's daughter resigns as ambassador

Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva, daughter of former Uzbek leader Islam Karimov, has stepped down as Uzbekistan’s UNESCO representative, becoming the latest official from her father’s administration to depart. (Reuters)

How Shavkat Mirziyoev Became Uzbekistan's Supreme Leader

The dismissal of the head of Uzbekistan’s National Security Service (SNB), Rustam Inoyatov, on January 31 was the latest and arguably most important step so far in President Shavkat Mirziyoev’s consolidation of power.It was clear when Mirziyoev came to power in September 2016 after the death of Uzbekistan’s first president, Islam Karimov, that Mirziyoev would have to fend off some challenges before he could cement his claim to leadership. (rferl)

Work Resumes On Troubled Turkmenistan-China Pipeline
Work has resumed in Tajikistan on construction work on a natural gas pipeline running from Turkmenistan to China.Deputy Energy and Water Resources Minister Jamshed Shoimzoda said at a
press conference on January 30 that funding for building work is being provided by China. Payments are being made on a regular basis, he said. (Eurasianet)

Tajikistan expanding cotton fields in a bid to raise output
Cotton cultivation area in Tajikistan has increased by 13,500 hectares this year, local news agency TajikTA reported Feb. 5.“Cotton is one of the Tajik export commodities and a raw material for the local light industry. With growth of market demand cotton is now being cultivated in a total area of 187,500 hectares, 13,500 hectares more compared to 2017,” Tajik Ministry of Agriculture states. (Trend)

Tajikistan Converts 2,000 Mosques Into Public Facilities

Tajikistan last year converted 2,000 mosques into facilities for general public use in its latest effort to streamline the practice of religion in the country and marginalize those not directly under government control. (Eurasianet)

Tajikistan: Opposition Leader Tried in Absentia
A spokesman for the court has declined to state what Muhiddin Kabiri is being charged with, saying those details are a "state secret." (Eurasianet)