by Pepe Escobar (cross-posted with the Asia Times by special agreement with the author)
The geopolitical focus of the still young 21st century spans the Indian Ocean from the Persian Gulf all the way to the South China Sea alongside the spectrum from Southwest Asia to Central Asia and China.
That happens to configure the prime playing ground, overland and maritime, of the New Silk Roads, or the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The epicenter of global power shifting East is ruffling feathers in some US political circles – with a proliferation of parochial analyses ranging from Chinese “imperial overstretch” to Xi Jinping’s Chinese Dream provoking “nightmares.”
The basic argument is that Emperor Xi is aiming for a global power grab by mythologizing the New Silk Roads.
The BRI is certainly about China’s massive foreign exchange reserves; the building know-how; the excess capacity in steel, aluminum and concrete production; public and private financing partnerships; the internationalization of the yuan; and full connectivity of infrastructure and information flows.
Yet the BRI is not a matter of geopolitical control supported by military might; it’s about added geopolitical projection based on trade-and-investment connectivity.
The BRI is such a game-changer that Japan, India and the “Quad” (US, Japan, India, Australia) felt forced to come up with their own “alternative”, much-reduced mini-BRIs – whose collective rationale essentially lies in accusing the BRI of “revisionism” while emphasizing the need to fight against Chinese global domination.
The basis of the Trump administration’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy, introduced in October 2017, was to define China as a hostile existential threat. The National Security Strategy (NSS) and the National Defense Strategy (NDS) amplified the threat to the level of a new doctrine.
The NSS states that “China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity.” The NSS accuses China and Russia of wanting “to shape a world antithetical to US values and interests.” It also accuses Beijing of “seek[ing] to displace the United States in the Indo-Pacific region” and of “expand[ing] its power at the expense of the sovereignty of others.”
The NDS states that Beijing “seeks Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global preeminence in the future.”
That’s the new normal as far as multiple layers of the US industrial-military-surveillance-media complex are concerned. Dissent is simply not permitted.
Time to talk to Kublai Khan
“Revisionist” powers China and Russia are regarded as major double trouble when one delves into the direct link between the BRI and the Russia-led Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). The EAEU is itself one step ahead of the Russia-China strategic partnership announced in 2012, crucially a year before Xi announced the BRI in Astana and then Jakarta.
At the BRI forum in Beijing in May 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin solidified the notion of a “greater Eurasian partnership”.
The Russian “pivot to Asia” started even before Maidan in Kiev, the referendum in Crimea and subsequent Western sanctions. This was a work in progress along multiple sessions inside the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the BRICS and the G-20.
Kazakhstan is the key link uniting BRI, EAEU and the SCO. Russia and Kazakhstan are part of one of the top overland connectivity corridors between East Asia and Europe – the other going through Iran and Turkey.
Xinjiang to Eastern Europe by rail, via Kazakhstan and Russia, now takes 14 days and soon will drop to 10. That’s a major boost to trade in high value-added merchandise – paving the way for future BRI high-speed rail able to compete head-on with low-cost maritime transport.
As for Moscow’s drive to be part of the BRI/EAEU economic connectivity, that’s only one vector of Russian foreign policy. Another one, as important, is enhanced German-Russian trade/investment relations, a priority also for German industrialists.
China for its part is now the top foreign investor in all five Central Asian “stans.” And it’s crucial to remember that Central Asia is configured not only by the five “stans” but also by Mongolia, Xinjiang and Afghanistan. Thus the SCO drive to solve the Afghan tragedy, with direct participation of major players China, Russia, India, Pakistan and Iran.
The BRI strategy of forging a pan-Eurasian connectivity/logistical grid naturally poses the question of how Beijing will manage such an open-ended project. The BRI is not even in its implementation phase, which officially starts next year.
It’s useful to compare the accusations of “revisionism” with Chinese history. When Marco Polo reached the Yuan court in the late 13th century he saw a multicultural empire thriving on trade.
It was the Silk Road trade routes and not the projection of military power that epitomized Pax Mongolica. The 21st century Pax Sinica is its digital version. Is Xi a new emperor or a post-modern version of Kublai Khan?
The Yuan dynasty did not “control” Persia, Russia or India. Persia, a superpower then, linked the Nile, Mesopotamia and the Indus with trade with China. During the Tang Dynasty in the 8th and 9th centuries China also had projected influence across Central Asia all the way to northeastern Iran.
And that explains why Iran, now, is such a key node of the BRI and why the leadership in Tehran wants the New Silk Roads solidified. A China-Russia-Iran alliance of – Eurasia integration – interests cannot but rattle Washington; after all, the Pentagon defines all those geopolitical actors as “threats.”
Historically, China and Persia were, for centuries, wealthy, settled agricultural civilizations having to deal with occasional swarms of desert warriors – yet most of the time in touch with each other because of the Silk Road. The Sino-Persian entente cordiale is embedded in solid history.
And that brings us to what lies at the heart of non-stop BRI dismissal/demonization.
It’s all about preventing the emergence not only of a “peer competitor,” but worse: a New Silk Road-enabled trade/connectivity condominium – featuring China, Russia, Iran and Turkey – as powerful across the East as the US still remains across the much-troubled “Western Hemisphere.”
That has nothing to do with Chinese neo-imperialism. When in doubt, invoke Kublai Khan.
The globalists, led by private bankers, had two major obstacles to their globalist, imperial agenda. These two obstacles were Russia and China, who control Eurasia.
In the 19th century Halford Mackinder, the famous English geographer, warned of a Russian-German economic alliance, which would surpass the power of the British Empire. In the 20th century Berzezinski wrote his book “The Grand Chess Board”, which was based on Mackinders writings. He too warned of the economic potentials of Eurasia. He also stipulated that the US cannot tolerate the emergence of any power which would challenge it’s globalist interests. In effect he warned both Russia and China of US plans, which was nice of him. We now have a Russian/Chinese economic partnership, which is reaching out to sovereign countries, fully respecting their sovereign status and offering trade and development on an equal basis. Such policies, of course, are in direct collision with Washington’s imperial methods based on war, regime change and outright plundering of sovereign states.
Can Washington and Wall Street change ? The answer is “no”. The gigantic US foreign and domestic debt does not permit this, nor can plundering habits be overcome. These facts will turn the world towards Russia and China. No threats and false flags can, in the long run, prevent this, certainly not foolish false flags of the type that was instigated some days ago in London. The world is not buying it.
Yes, let us remember that in Marco Polo’s time Farsi was the common trade language between China and Persia, and along the Silk Road.
“The Shape of Ancient Thought” by Thomas McEvilley. A huge book, big in size and in concept, closely typed and closely reasoned. It’s all coming alive again. the ancient East-West axis of Eurasia. Both for trade and for thought: “The trader would also carry a bag of books in his boat.” Of the four modern “connectiviity countries” mentioned by Pepe, two have been on that road from the beginning of history: Iran and China. So have Turkey and Russia been parts of that road, though Turkey was called Greece / Persia and Russia was called the Black Sea colonies of Greece. The country that used to be a vital part of Ancient East-West Eurasian connectivity and thought — but is missing from Pepe’s List! — is of course India. I think India’s present Leader, Modi, is standing in the New Silk Road unaware that the Juggernaut of History is coming towards him.
Thank you for reminding me of this book. It seems the pre Socratics were likely transmitting Indian thought into Greece, which was built upon before returning East. For example, it is easy to imagine Buddhism as a outgrowth of Graeco-Indian thought. I remember how it thrilled me when I encountered McEvilley’s thesis.
Thomas McEvilley on ‘The Shape of Ancient Thought’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HAiTfOSP_w
Pepe escobar, putting a positive spin on the Yuan dynasty and Kublai Khan tells you how completely out of touch he is with China and its history. I was at Asia Times when I read this article and the comments from Chinese commentators about Pepe’s praise of Kublai Khan and his ill-conceived comparison of Kublai to Xi was met with real anger (go check for yourself).
To truly understand the positive contribution of China to ancient trade and mutual prosperity you have to focus on the Tang and Song dynasties, not Kublai Khan – a man who belonged to a clan that had a murderous parasitical colonial relationship with the Chinese people and not an enlightened one. It’s sort of like glorifying the blood-sucking British Raj in India and concluding that they like kublai did a great job of economic integration even though what they really did was steal and murder and destroy the sovereignty of other peoples in order to enrich themselves. Nobody needs that kind of economic integration and the comparison of the Mongol Yuan domination of China to President Xi’s BRI is stunningly inappropriate.
Pepe you need to look a little deeper into Australia rather than just at the ‘surface’ Federal level. Australian states have been very busy sending delegations of Councils, Businesses and State Ministers to China over the last decade or so. At a Federal level there are constant pushes to support the US bilateral (was ANZUS once) coverage. Dangerous Allies, a book written quite a few years ago by a one time Conservative Australian Prime Minister talks extensively about the dangers of Australia tying everything to the US wagon.
Just because our Prime Minister and certain Cabinet members are saying one thing doesn’t necessarily mean all of the country is following that line of thought. We have the usual demonization of Sino migrants ala the Old White Australia Policy to ramp up nationalist idiots to help the Conservatives stay in government but the truth is our main trade partner is China while our main military ally is the US. Rock and a hard place. The US were extremely put out that our Federal government leased the main northern Port to Chinese interests, especially as it handles the coming and going of the ‘training base’ for 2,000 odd US service men and women. But the lease still went ahead.
Australian government, executive and legislative are put out that China has also managed to supplant them in the Pacific, as Australia has lowered our Foreign Aid budget to the Pacific Islands Chain has increased theirs. It’s causing a few people to be upset about it. Australia honestly seems to not know which way to turn on any of this. One of the main projects with an Indian businessman (Adani Coal Mine) is seeing government funding blocked by State governments and it has become clear to the ruling elite that the voters does not want it. Coupled to the fact no bank of any real value is going to finance it either.
I guess the whole thing is a little more nuanced when it’s observed on a scale smaller than just the Federal mouth pieces that hit the international news cycle. As for our White papers on Foreign Policy and Defence, Asia and/or China has figured in them extensively for decades to help push the ‘fear’ factor and rally support for the US ‘umbrella’.
Other than that, another insightful piece that gives us something more to consider. I was glad to find you here after I stopped reading Asia Times when it changed hands, so thank you.
RCD is right. “It was the Silk Road trade routes and not the projection of military power that epitomized Pax Mongolica. The 21st century Pax Sinica is its digital version.” is a nonsense. These “epithets” are coined by intellectuals and far from reality. If you like to learn really something about BRI and the Chinese foreign commerce policy, read the original texts of Xi and his fellows and not such ahistoric comparisons.