In the less than three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, China has emerged as a key player throughout Central Asia. Yet, despite increasingly prominent political, economic, and security relations, China for most Central Asians remains a little known, poorly understood, and even feared country.
On China’s border with Kazakhstan, a new Silk Road city has sprung up with such speed that Google Earth has scarcely begun to record the high-rises that now float on a winter mist above the steppe…Khorgos has become China’s gateway to Central Asia, and all the way to Europe.
To better understand the future of China’s role in Central Asia, and the world, you need to come to Khargos in Kazakhstan, the middle of nowhere. Straddling the Kazakh-Chinese border, a collection of cranes, railways, and buildings rises out of a barren stretch of desert surrounded by towering mountains to form the backbone of the Khorgos Gateway, one of the most ambitious projects in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, Beijing’s sprawling infrastructure project.
Indeed, with the collapse of a purported Sino-Russian economic-military division of labor, a growing economic interest in Central Asia as a main corridor in the Belt and Road Initiative, and an on-going anti-Uyghur separatist discourse, Central Asia is an obvious choice for a Chinese foreign military base.
Much of the narrative on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been polarised…Neither of these polarised narratives seems to fully account for the complex and heterogeneous variety of activities in the BRI.
More than 75 nations participate in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, launched in 2013 to develop trade and connect Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe with ports, roads and railways. But some countries worry about adding to already heavy debt burdens, and some projects have become an issue in local politics. Among the most vocal critics is Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad who has warned about a new colonialism.
For many emerging economies, it is imperative to pursue a rebalancing of growth patterns, with a more active approach to managing debt and capital flows and their effects on asset prices, exchange rates, and growth. Otherwise, the dangers of unsustainable growth patterns will bring expansion to an abrupt halt.
China has increasingly been involved in mediation efforts for international conflicts, particularly along the route of its signature “Belt and Road Initiative”, but its high-profile approach has failed to produce sustainable peace results, a new report from a leading European think tank has found.
China and India’s new Great Game has reached the playing field of the original imperial power rivalry in the 19th century: Iran and Central Asia. Each of the rising giants wants to be the one to shape a new regional order. Their competition for influence continues to unfold in Indian Ocean countries like the Maldives and Sri Lanka. But they are also pressing farther west, up into the Arabian Sea, Iran and the Central Asian states.
Read Here – Nikkei Asian Review
Also Read: Rising Power Of India’s influence On China in Regional Politics
China’s ambitious plan to recreate the old Silk Road trading routes across Eurasia and Africa is facing a serious financing challenge, according to the country’s senior bankers and government researchers.
