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China’s New Silk Road
By Nadège Rolland
February 12, 2015 | http://www.nbr.org/research/The “China dream” of the “great rejuvenation of the nation” has been the hallmark of Xi Jinping’s presidency since he became party chief in late 2012. President Xi’s main idea is to restore China’s pre–nineteenth century grandeur and influence in order to make it a “prosperous, strong, culturally advanced and harmonious country.” The proposed revival of a great trade route that two thousand years ago bridged Eastern and Western cultures across the Eurasian continent might well help realize that objective.
The idea of a new “Silk Road economic belt,” launched by President Xi during his tour of the Central Asian republics in October 2013, will mainly take shape along railway lines connecting several cities in western China to Europe via Central Asia, Iran, Turkey, the Balkans, and the Caucasus across the 11,000-kilometer-long Eurasian continent. The Chinese authorities see this transportation infrastructure as a first step toward the creation of a Eurasian “economic corridor,” allowing for the development of the landlocked Central Asian economies and their future integration with both European and Asian markets. They hope that trade liberalization and strengthened monetary cooperation among the economies connected by the railroad network will lead ultimately to a new form of regional economic community and—in the words of President Xi—give rise to “a sense of common destiny” among China’s neighbors. The new Silk Road will also branch out across Southeast Asia and have a maritime component extending across the Indian Ocean to the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean.
In all, the Chinese vision of a Silk Road economic belt (also dubbed “one belt, one road” by Chinese writers) encompasses a population of 4.4 billion people with a collective GDP of $2.1 trillion (one-third of the world’s wealth) and links emerging markets with strong growth potential. China already has close connections with the countries along this route thanks to existing trade and economic cooperation, but it hopes to strengthen transportation infrastructure and create new regional hubs and clusters of massive industrial parks. The infrastructure network envisioned by China will eventually link that country with three continents, with railroads, pipelines, and roadways reviving trade over land as well as along shipping routes. If this vision can be fulfilled, then eventually all roads will quite literally lead to Beijing. http://www.nbr.org/research/activity.aspx?id=531
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