https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdPK1v0UxqQ
I now understand OBOR - it's about the metaphor of the The Silk Road, but still, I will never understand China.
Printable View
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdPK1v0UxqQ
I now understand OBOR - it's about the metaphor of the The Silk Road, but still, I will never understand China.
Greetings,
I will have to raise you one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONjMiLMw66g
mickey
Kung Fu Panda meets the Silk RoadQuote:
http://www.globalconstructionreview....gVuLghuJN.webp
China embraces Kung Fu Panda Power to electrify its new Silk Road
4 July 2017 | By Joe Quirke
A solar farm made to look like a giant panda has been connected to the grid in the city of Datong in China’s northern Shanxi province. It will be the first of 100 panda-shaped solar farms that will follow China’s modern Silk Road.
The 50MW Panda Power Plant covers a total area of 248 acres, with the black part of the panda composed of monocrystalline silicone and the grey and white parts made of thin film solar cells.
The panda in the photos of the solar farm bears a resemblance to the panda cubs from Dreamworks’ Kung Fu Panda films.
Designed to improve “youth engagement and innovation” the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and China Merchants New Energy say they will “work together to promote and popularise the promotion of new energy through summer camps and open innovation design contests”.
http://www.globalconstructionreview....PMCSKJgKb.webp
Image courtesy of Panda Green Energy
The camp “will offer participants a deeper understanding of green energies and first-hand experience of environmental protection, with top notch mentors and facilitators in the field to monitor and provide on-site support”.
The UNDP “will identify outstanding, marginalised youth groups in China to develop and strengthen their leadership skills through an international exchange initiative”.
There are plans over the next five years build 100 similar plants along the new Silk Road, with some being built outside China.
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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Johann Balleis
On the subject of pandas, in March this year China announced that it would link up 67 existing reserves to increase the population of wild bears, creating a space three times the size of America’s Yellowstone National park.
In 2016 the International Union for Conservation of Nature removed pandas from the endangered species list, they are now listed as “vulnerable”.
Recently the European Investment Bank supported China’s Silk Road strategy and Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged an extra $122bn for international infrastructure schemes as part of the development.
Top image courtesy of the UNDP
continued next postQuote:
The ‘Silk Road’ Verdict Why China's massive infrastructure plan won't measure up to economic reality By Valentin Schmid, Epoch Times | July 20, 2017 AT 10:54 AM Last Updated: July 20, 2017 2:18 pm
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Chinese workers at a pier in Qingdao, China, on April 13, 2017. The Belt and Road Initiative is supposed to boost trade both by land and by sea. (STR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
The idea, at first, sounded good: Plow trillions of dollars into infrastructure projects in the barren wasteland that is most of central Asia, and trade will start to bloom, economies will prosper, and peace will reign. However, most experts believe real world problems will result in the whole idea turning into nothing but a pipe dream.
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(VCG/VCG VIA GETTY IMAGES)
The concept is called the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also known as One Belt, One Road, launched by Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping in March 2015. It has two elements: one landlocked route from China to Europe through Asia, called the Silk Road Economic Belt, and one seaborne route going from China to Europe past India and Africa, called the Maritime Silk Road.
Although estimates vary, China has called for up to $5 trillion in infrastructure investments over the next five years in the 65 countries along these routes. Ports in Sri Lanka, railways in Thailand, and massive roads and power plants in Pakistan are just a few examples of the planned investments.
Speaking at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in May this year, Xi said: “In pursuing the Belt and Road Initiative, we should focus on the fundamental issue of development, release the growth potential of various countries, and achieve economic integration and interconnected development, and deliver benefits to all.”
His statement sums up the problems with the multitrillion dollar project: It talks about desirable outcomes but is exceedingly vague on the details. This is just like the BRI’s official plans. They call for improving intergovernmental communication, coordinating infrastructure plans, developing soft infrastructure, and strengthening tourism and trade, but the specifics are shaded over.
“There are no concrete action items set out in the Chinese government’s action plan for what has become one of Xi’s most visible policy initiatives. The document contains a number of generic proposals interspersed with platitudes about cooperation and understanding,” research firm Geopolitical Futures states in a July report.
But despite the lack of concrete programs, the vast sums involved show that the BRI has garnered support from many countries. China-led institutions, like the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank, have also pledged $269 billion dollars for the project. Even Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe voiced his support at the recent G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany.
Objectives Measured Against RealityQuote:
It is completely overhyped. The numbers they published, $4 trillion to $5 trillion, they are completely unrealistic.
— Christopher Balding, professor of economics, Peking University
China’s objectives, explicit and implicit, need to be measured against reality. On this account, most experts think the project is not economically viable—but it will allow China to gain political influence.
“It is completely overhyped. The numbers they published, $4 trillion to $5 trillion, they are completely unrealistic,” said Christopher Balding, professor of economics at Peking University.
Economically, it is mostly about investment and exports. “China has surplus capital and excess productive capacity, which is motivating this set of initiatives. With a high savings rate in China and a slowdown in industrial investment at home, they are looking for overseas projects that can be financed and a new outlet for Chinese exports,” said James Nolt, professor of international relations at New York University.
The result is the BRI, which would see China team up with countries along the routes to raise money for building infrastructure to facilitate trade. And Chinese companies would do the construction.
The China Overseas Ports Holding Company has expanded the Gwadar Port in Pakistan and has an operating lease until 2059. This is just the first, small step in connecting the Silk Road Economic Belt with the Maritime Silk Road. Highways, pipelines, power plants, optical connections, and railways are planned for the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, with a total investment of $62 billion.
Of course, local and international companies are going to bid for these projects as well, but with China providing most of the funds, Chinese state owned enterprises (SOEs) will get most of the contracts.
If Chinese companies got $5 trillion in contracts, this would indeed boost exports, but there are several problems with this notion even in theory.
First, infrastructure projects are very resource intensive, and with few exceptions China simply doesn’t produce commodities. Much of the value-added, therefore, will be absorbed by international commodity producers like Australia (though the Chinese steel industry will certainly get a boost).
Impossible to Finance
Then there is the question of financing these investments. The countries where the investments are going to take place, like Pakistan and Cambodia, don’t have the money to spend trillions and also can’t raise it in international financial markets. This leaves China to come up with a way to get the hard currency financing to achieve its economic goals.
At the beginning of the BRI, China still had almost $4 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, and it was looking to diversify. These have dropped to $3 trillion in 2017, a threshold the central planners in Beijing have made clear they will not cross.
“They have to tap international bond markets for that money, or they have to exhaust their foreign exchange reserves and even then go out and borrow. Even by global bond market standards, a $5 trillion bond sales program spread out over a couple of years is an enormous number. They are not going to shoulder that type of repayment risk and they are not going to deplete their reserves,” said Balding.
Research by investment bank Natixis estimates that such a borrowing binge would increase Chinese external debt from 12 percent to 50 percent of GDP. This would expose the country to exchange rate risks and put it in the same vulnerable position that the Asian tiger economies were in during the financial crisis of 1998.
Loans from China denominated in yuan from Chinese banks are not an option for two reasons. This “poses its own risks to the overly stretched balance sheets of Chinese banks. In fact, their doubtful loans have done nothing but increase during the last few years, which is eating up the banks’ room to lend further,” especially for risky projects, wrote Natixis Chief Economist for the Asia Pacific Alicia García-Herrero, in a blog post.
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In addition, recipient countries could only pay back a loan in yuan by selling goods and services to China, thus procuring the Chinese currency. This would be directly counterproductive to the goal of promoting exports from China with construction contracts and eventually through improved trade infrastructure.
“How is Pakistan to repay a yuan loan? They are going to generate a trade surplus in yuan. So China has to run a trade deficit with all the countries it lends to. Even if they don’t do that, Pakistan is going to have to generate some type of trade surplus with another country to have enough capital to pay back China,” said Balding.
Given that most of the infrastructure will be built to facilitate trade with China, this is highly unlikely. So in the end, China will be left to vendor finance these projects. The only way to achieve its economic objectives will be hard currency loans that are completely repaid, with interest—which China currently has no clear means of financing.
A lot of criticism has come out in the press on this lately.Quote:
Bad Risks
All of the economic indicators regarding the most prominent BRI projects point against this repayment scenario.
There is a reason countries like Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Pakistan, and Mongolia don’t have good infrastructure. They have a generally poor macroeconomic framework, underdeveloped institutions, and a high degree of corruption. Building roads and railways will not change that.
Additionally, “Central Asia, a patchwork of states whose borders were drawn to make the countries more easily controlled from Moscow during the Soviet era, is hardly a promising market for Chinese goods,” states the Geopolitical Futures report.
“People talk about [the BRI] as if China is giving away money. In almost every case, it’s the Chinese credit card company giving a credit card to a despotic dictator, like in Sri Lanka or Venezuela. None of that has ended well,” said Balding.
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The nature of the value proposition of the BRI leads to the worst countries needing the most infrastructure and the most financing. Economically stable and healthy countries like Malaysia and Vietnam need less investment than troubled states like the Kyrgyz Republic and civil war-torn Ukraine. These countries have an economic health ranking of 44 and 38.2, respectively, compared to Malaysia’s 66.8, according to a ranking by Oxford Economics.
“Where financial development is relatively weak and governments are heavily indebted, BRI financing will be crucial,” states the report by Oxford Economics. It is precisely these places that offer the lowest chance of repayment.
“While a new airport or railway can be built in just a few years, amassing the human and institutional capital needed for them to operate efficiently and contribute to economic and social progress is a slower process,” states a report by research firm TS Lombard.
Small Scope
Given the constraints in viable economic projects as well as available financing, the scope of the BRI will likely remain small, while China can still focus on its political objective to exert greater influence over the participating countries.
“What this leaves us with is a much more modest program of $15 billion to $30 billion a year,” commensurate with the $269 billion already pledged by the China-led institutions, Balding said. “I don’t want to say that it’s irrelevant, but it is irrelevant. The United States is spending $300 billion in direct investment every year overseas.”
One of the initiatives that makes sense but needs little infrastructure and investment is protecting ships from pirates. “The cooperation with Singapore to keep the sea-lanes safe is promising, and that would have happened either way,” said Nolt.
While Chinese propaganda is touting that the BRI will revive the spirit of the ancient Silk Road through central Asia to Europe, it may have missed the boat on that one.
Given advances in shipping technology, it is far easier and cheaper to transport goods by ship rather than by land. That’s why most of China’s and the world’s trade (80 percent) is done by sea.
In the end, keeping out pirates and building a few ports in Pakistan and East Africa is a worthwhile endeavor—but it’s one that falls far short of building trillions worth of landlocked infrastructure.
“The Silk Road was a constantly evolving marketplace that moved goods across a vast continent where they could be exchanged for other goods. And unlike today, Eurasia was the center of world civilization, home to the most important economies,” states the Geopolitical Futures report.
Today, the most important economy, also for China, is the United States, and it is best reached by sea through the Pacific Ocean, far away from the Maritime Silk Road and the One Belt.
CHINESE INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS IN ASIA
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BOATS AT THE GWADAR PORT IN PAKISTAN ON THE ARABIAN SEA. China Overseas Ports Holding Company is leasing the port until 2059 and has already started expanding it. China has been looking to secure sea trading lanes along the so-called Maritime Silk Road, and the Pakistani port is an important piece in the puzzle. (J. PATRICK FISCHER/CC BY-SA)
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A SKY TRAIN IN BANGKOK ON MARCH 20, 2013. Thailand will borrow a total of $69.5 billion to fund high-speed railways and other transportation mega projects, with most of the money coming from China and Chinese companies providing the construction. Thailand’s railways will form part of the Kunming– Singapore railway system. However, Thailand will repay the loans with rice and rubber exports, thus running a trade surplus with China and going against the objective to generate export growth. (NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
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THE BANKS OF THE IRRAWADDY RIVER IN BURMA ON OCT. 2, 2015. Although not officially part of the Belt and Road Initiative, the $3.6 billion Myitsone Dam project is an example of a Chinese infrastructure project in a very poor country that hasn’t gone as planned. Construction has been suspended for six years, as both countries could not agree on how to proceed. (YE AUNG THU/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
The Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour Part 19: Through the Eye of the Camel - The Secrets of Ancient Kung Fu in China's Mogao Caves, Western Frontier Fortresses and the Gobi Desert by Greg Brundage
Greg Brundage's Silk Road Journey continues. The Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour Part 20: Through the Eye of the Camel - Dunhuang Museum and Mosque, and White Horse Temple.
'Road blocks' would've been better than 'buffers'. Sorry, it's the publisher in me. :o
Quote:
China’s Silk Road revival hits the buffers
Par Sam Reeves, with Dessy Sagita in Walini, Indonesia, publié le 12 November 2017 à 4h41.
5 minutes
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The 'One Belt, One Road' initiative, unveiled by Xi in 2013, envisages linking China with Africa, Asia and Europe through a network of ports, railways, roads and industrial parks© AFP/File JANEK SKARZYNSKI
From a stalled Indonesian rail project to an insurgency-threatened economic corridor in Pakistan, China‘s push to revive Silk Road trade routes is running into problems that risk tarnishing the economic crown jewel of Xi Jinping’s presidency.
The “One Belt, One Road” initiative, unveiled by Xi in 2013, envisages linking China with Africa, Asia and Europe through a network of ports, railways, roads and industrial parks.
Xi, the most powerful Chinese leader in decades, has pushed the infrastructure drive which is central to his goal of extending Beijing’s economic and geopolitical clout.
The initiative was enshrined in the Communist Party’s constitution at a key congress last month, and some estimates say more than $1 trillion has been pledged to it, with projects proposed in some 65 countries.
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China’s President Xi Jinping has pushed the infrastructure drive which is central to his goal of extending Beijing’s economic and geopolitical clout© POOL/AFP/File Mark Schiefelbein
But on the ground it has run into problems. Projects traverse insurgency-hit areas, dictatorships and chaotic democracies, and face resistance from both corrupt politicians and local villagers.
“Building infrastructure across countries like this is very complicated,” said Murray Hiebert, from Washington think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), who has studied some of the projects in Southeast Asia.
“You’ve got land issues, you have to hammer out funding agreements, you have to hammer out technological issues.”
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying however insisted the initiative was “moving forward smoothly”.
Troubled train line
Beijing won the contract to build Indonesia’s first high-speed railway in September 2015, but more than two years later work has barely started on the route from Jakarta to the city of Bandung.
A recent visit to Walini, where President Joko Widodo broke ground on the train line in January last year, found excavators flattening land but no track laid for the train, which is meant to start operating in 2019.
“The first year after the ground-breaking ceremony, I did not see any progress at all,” Neng Sri, a 37-year-old food stall owner from nearby Mandala Mukti village, told AFP.
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Chinese infrastructure projects traverse insurgency-hit areas, dictatorships and chaotic democracies, and face resistance from both corrupt politicians and local villagers© AFP/File ADEK BERRY
The central problem has been persuading villagers to leave their land on the proposed route, which is often an issue in the chaotic, freewheeling democracy.
The Indonesian transport ministry declined to give an update on the project and the consortium of Chinese and Indonesian companies building the line did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
On another planned high-speed line from southern China to Singapore, the Thai stretch of the railway was delayed by tussles over financing and protective labour regulations, and it was only in July that the military government finally approved $5.2 billion to start construction.
Work is under way on the 415-kilometre (260-mile) part of the line in Laos, a staunch ally of Beijing.
But even there the project has stoked controversy due to its huge price tag — at $5.8 billion, roughly half the country’s 2015 GDP — and the question of how much deeply poor Laos will gain from the project.
Lopsided gains
There have been concerns in many countries about how much they will benefit from One Belt, One Road initiatives.
Gains for China, such as access to key markets and tackling overcapacity in domestic industries, are often more obvious than those for their partners.
Such worries have bedevilled projects in Central Asia, part of a potential route from western China to Europe.
These include a free trade zone at Horgos on the China-Kazakh border, notable for flashy malls on the Chinese side and relatively little on the Kazakh side, and a planned railway to Uzbekistan that has stalled in large part due to opposition in Kyrgyzstan, through which the line would run.
“I am against this railway as it stands because the financial benefits that could accrue to Kyrgyzstan accrue to (China and Uzbekistan) instead,” said Timur Saralayev, head of the Bishkek-based New Generation movement.
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a $54-billion project launched in 2013 linking western China to the Indian Ocean via Pakistan, has been targeted by separatist rebels in Balochistan province, who have blown up gas pipelines and trains and attacked Chinese engineers.
But the Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua insisted the One Belt, One Road initiative enjoyed broad support.
“We have seen more and more support and approval of our projects. Many projects have delivered tangible benefits to the people in these countries,” she said.
The view from the ground, however, is not always so positive.
“The high-speed train… is only for super busy people who think time is money,” said the villager Sri, who lives next to the Indonesian rail project.
“We are not rushing to go anywhere.”
Greg Brundage continues his Silk Road quest. READ The Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour Part 22: The Noble Martial Art Legacy of Qatar Continued by Greg Brundage
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continued next postQuote:
China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’: after five years, is the bloom off the rose?
A strategic environment much changed since Xi Jinping unveiled the massive infrastructure plan in 2013 has the country’s top leaders wondering how far this grand enterprise can go
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 07 October, 2018, 8:32pm
UPDATED : Monday, 08 October, 2018, 4:41pm
Kristin Huang
Laura Zhou
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China credits President Xi Jinping’s massive infrastructure plan, the “Belt and Road Initiative”, with sparking a surge in the construction of railways, roads, bridges and ports across more than 65 countries and regions.
Five years after its launch, however, a litany of risks and criticism and a changing strategic environment have the country’s top leaders wondering just how far this grand and ambitious enterprise can go.
A new sense of urgency was palpable when Xi asked belt and road officials for their reports on the risks facing various projects, a source with knowledge of the gathering early this year told the South China Morning Post.
When officials attempted to impress Xi with descriptions of the progress being made on his pet programme, the president interrupted them, insisting they level with him about the risks and difficulties increasingly dogging it, the source said.
When first unveiled in September and October 2013 during the president’s visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia, the strategy – initially known as the “One Belt, One Road” initiative – was promoted as “a bid to enhance regional connectivity and embrace a brighter future”.
China watchers wary of Beijing, however, termed the proposal a push by the government to seize a larger role in global affairs via a China-centred trading network.
Encompassing 65 countries with a combined gross domestic product of US$23 trillion and total population of 4.4 billion, the belt and road strategy was introduced as a way to advance China’s political interests abroad while reducing its overcapacity problems at home.
Focused on infrastructure, it was to be a model not only for developing countries, but also industrialised nations in Europe and North America that needed to replace ageing facilities and systems.
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China’s belt and road plan aims to revive and extend trading routes connecting China with Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe via networks of upgraded or new railways, ports, pipelines, power grids and motorways. Photo: Bloomberg
Major projects include a US$5 billion China-Belarus industrial estate, a US$3.1 billion bridge and railway project in Bangladesh and a US$5.8 billion China-Laos railway.
Other China-funded work in the initiative includes building a US$10 billion refinery in Saudi Arabia; a new city next to the Port of Colombo, the largest and busiest port in Sri Lanka with a total investment of US$13 billion over the next 25 years; and a freight route linking China’s eastern coast with London.
But Beijing has many barriers to overcome at home and abroad before it can realise its belt and road ambitions.
At home, doubt has been voiced publicly about whether the belt and road can tangibly improve China’s domestic welfare system. Outside the country, the initiative has been portrayed as Beijing’s attempt to lay a debt trap for smaller nations to increase their reliance on China.
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The Multan-Sukkur motorway in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province is the largest transport infrastructure project under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Photo: Xinhua
“When the Belt and Road Initiative was launched five years ago, it mainly targeted the Eurasia region,” said Wang Yiwei, an international affairs professor at Renmin University in Beijing. “There was no expectation that it would expand to wider regions that also cover Africa.”
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The Luang Prabang railway bridge being built by the China Railway No 8 Engineering Group on the Mekong in Laos. Photo: Xinhua
As the initiative grows in scope, Chinese companies and even some local Chinese governments have increasingly branded their projects as part of the belt and road strategy. This trend has sometimes hurt the stature of the overall endeavour.
“The reputation of the initiative is damaged as some people and organisations are trying to export bad assets outside China, and said they are doing it for the initiative,” Wang said.
In its effort to advance a development strategy focused on connectivity and cooperation, China also now faces competition from the United States and the European Union, both of which have been pursuing their own plans to counter China’s expanding influence.
Easier to build a wall than a road. :eek:Quote:
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The proposed Beilun River Bridge at the Sino-Vietnamese border is part of the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’. Photo: He Huifeng
In late July, the US expanded its infrastructure drive in the Asia-Pacific region with new investment programmes that doubled the global spending cap for a proposed merged agency, the US International Development Finance Corporation, to US$60 billion.
The European Union also put forward its own connectivity programme with Asia last month. The EU programme emphasises sustainability and transparency – two features that the belt and road strategy has been accused of lacking.
Critics have warned that poor countries could be mired in huge debt by failing to resist the lure of Chinese money.
“It is obvious for all concerned that sustainable borrowing ratios have far exceeded the norm,” said Abourahman Boreh, a former head of the Djibouti Ports and Free Zones Authority.
“My view is that a diversified portfolio of foreign investors, as well as the continued development and sharing of benefit for the local population, is the only sustainable pathway for developing countries such as Djibouti.”
Sri Lanka borrowed heavily from China to build the seaport of Hambantota, which is still struggling to attract ships. In December, Sri Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena handed over control of the port and 15,000 acres around it to Beijing on a 99-year lease.
Developing countries along the belt and road are often vulnerable because of uncertainties in their legal, political and commercial systems. Problems are likely after any transition of power.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, for example, cancelled two China-financed mega projects in late August: the US$20 billion East Coast Rail Link and two gas pipeline projects worth US$2.3 billion. Mahathir said his country could not afford those projects and they were not needed.
The recent change in leadership in Pakistan could also see a potential pullback on agreements for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a flagship, multibillion-dollar belt and road project.
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Sri Lanka's government agreed to lease a 70 per cent stake in the port facilities at Hambantota to China for 99 years. Photo: AFP
But China will not give up the initiative. In a speech that opened the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing in September, Xi said China would offer US$60 billion in financial support for Africa, and would cancel unpaid debts for some poor African nations.
Earlier this year, in a seminar to mark the initiative’s anniversary, Xi said China was not seeking a geopolitical and military alliance through the belt and road. He also said Beijing needed to fine-tune the initiative to focus on high-quality projects that would benefit local people.
Analysts said China would adjust the initiatives, with its foreign and commerce ministries offering policy guidance and the National Development and Reform Commission focusing on risk assessment.
Authorities have already been boosting risk assessment and creating a set of data against which to evaluate the projects’ effectiveness. In 2016, a group of Peking University academics began to publish a “Five Connectivity Index” to evaluate China’s overseas investment under the initiative. The effort was sponsored by the National Social Science Fund.
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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US would expand its infrastructure drive in the Asia-Pacific region with new investment programmes. Photo: AFP
Feng Zhongping, vice-president of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations and one of co-creators of the index, said it could offer “a scientific way to better understand progress in the connectivity process”.
The frequency of mutual visits to each other’s countries by leaders of China and belt and road nations, as well as political stability, the legal system, trade figures, currency swaps and tourist numbers are taken into consideration to measure the effectiveness of belt and road investment.
For example, Russia, Singapore and Malaysia, as well as United Arab Emirates and central Asia’s Kazakhstan are listed as destinations that are best connected to the belt and road. Meanwhile, war-torn Yemen in the Middle East and Bhutan were ranked at the bottom, owing to weak policy communications.
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A man walks by a government propaganda billboard promoting Xi Jinping’s signature belt and road plan in Beijing. Photo: AP
Zhixing Zhang, senior East Asia analyst with Stratfor, a US-based intelligence group, said China had to learn to surmount various obstacles to advance its overseas practices via the belt and road.
“The suspicions and strategic competitions as a result [of it] are also part of the strategic realities Beijing will inevitably face,” he said. “How well Beijing works to adjust its approach and to adapt to the changing strategic environment will ultimately shape the initiative in the future.”
Huong Le Thu, a senior analyst from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra, said Beijing needed to address such issues to avoid further damaging China’s reputation as it pursued projects related to the initiative.
“If Beijing doesn’t revise its model of the debt-driven project, it risks the ‘Sri Lanka effect’ – that is, the Hambantota port will become the belt and road’s negative poster child,” Le Thu said.
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: five years on, xi’s massive project faces barriers
;)
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THREADS
The Silk Road
African Martial Arts
Shaolin Rasta - the 37th Chamber
Our intrepid reporter explores Wushu in the Land of Cush. READ The Rainbow Continent Kung Fu Friendship Tour Part 2: Ethiopia by Gregory Brundage
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THREADS
The Silk Road
African Martial Arts
Shaolin Rasta - the 37th Chamber
I need to post this here because this is are 'One Belt, One Road' thread.
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“One Belt, One Road” The Chinese Taiji Culture World Workshop
The Tiger Claw Foundation is supporting the “One Belt, One Road” The Chinese Taiji Culture World Workshop on Friday February 8th, 2019 at the Royal Palace, 6058 Stevenson Blvd., Fremont CA 94538, and Saturday 9th, 2019 at the Redemption Church, 105 Nortech Pkwy, San Jose CA. The “One Belt, One Road” Taiji Ambassadors include Grandmaster Chen Zhenlei, Grandmaster Wang Zhanhai, Grandmaster Yang Jun, Professor Huang Kanhui, Master Wu Dong, and Master Qiu Huifang. Contact Gigi Oh for tuition rates at 408-209-8150 gigitcmedia@hotmail.com.
In cooperation with nccaf.org and KungFuMagazine.com.
In the tradition of Marco Polo, I suppose.
Quote:
Italy joins China's New Silk Road project
23 March 2019
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REUTERS
There was long applause as the two leaders met to witness the signature of the deals
Italy has become the first developed economy to sign up to China's global investment programme which has raised concerns among Italy's Western allies.
A total of 29 deals amounting to €2.5bn ($2.8bn) were signed during Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Rome.
The project is seen as a new Silk Road which, just like the ancient trade route, aims to link China to Europe.
Italy's European Union allies and the United States have expressed concern at China's growing influence.
What is the Chinese project about?
The new Silk Road has another name - the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) - and it involves a wave of Chinese funding for major infrastructure projects around the world, in a bid to speed Chinese goods to markets further afield. Critics see it as also representing a bold bid for geo-political and strategic influence.
It has already funded trains, roads, and ports, with Chinese construction firms given lucrative contracts to connect ports and cities - funded by loans from Chinese banks.
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The levels of debt owed by African and South Asian nations to China have raised concerns in the West and among citizens - but roads and railways have been built that would not exist otherwise:
In Uganda, Chinese millions built a 50km (30 mile) road to the international airport
In Tanzania, a small coastal town may become the continent's largest port
In Europe too, Chinese firms managed to buy 51% of the port authority in Piraeus port near Athens in 2016, after years of economic crisis in Greece
What projects were signed in Rome?
On behalf of Italy, Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio, leader of the populist Five Star Movement, signed the umbrella deal (memorandum of intent) making Italy formally part of the Economic Silk Road and The Initiative for a Maritime Silk Road for the 21st Century.
Ministers then signed deals over energy, finance, and agricultural produce, followed by the heads of big Italian gas and energy, and engineering firms - which will be offered entry into the Chinese market.
China's Communications and Construction Company will be given access to the port of Trieste to enable links to central and eastern Europe. The Chinese will also be involved in developing the port of Genoa.
What's in it for Italy?
Italy is the first member of the G7 group of developed world economies to take money offered by China.
It is one of the world's top 10 largest economies - yet Rome finds itself in a curious situation.
The collapse of the Genoa bridge in August killed dozens of people and made Italy's crumbling infrastructure a major political issue for the first time in decades.
And Italy's economy is far from booming.
The country slipped into recession at the end of 2018, and its national debt levels are among the highest in the eurozone. Italy's populist government came to power in June 2018 with high-spending plans but had to peg them back after a stand-off with the EU.
Mr Di Maio told a news conference: "Italy has arrived first on the Silk Road and therefore other European countries at this moment have taken a stance on our trade decisions.
"They have taken a critical view and they have the right to this opinion."
"We do not want to override our European partners. We firmly remain in the Euro-Atlantic alliance and we remain allies of the United States in Nato," he added.
There is, however, dissent within the Italian government. Mr Di Maio's coalition partner, the other Deputy Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini, who heads the right-wing League, was conspicuously absent from all official ceremonies.
Mr Salvini has warned that he does not want to see foreign businesses "colonising" Italy.
"Before allowing someone to invest in the ports of Trieste or Genoa, I would think about it not once but a hundred times," Mr Salvini warned.
What's in it for China?
Italy's move is "largely symbolic", according to Peter Frankopan, professor of Global History at Oxford University and a writer on The Silk Roads.
But even Rome admitting the BRI is worth exploring "has a value for Beijing", he said.
What China's One Belt, One Road really means
"It adds gloss to the existing scheme and also shows that China has an important global role."
"The seemingly innocuous move comes at a sensitive time for Europe and the European Union, where there is suddenly a great deal of trepidation not only about China, but about working out how Europe or the EU should adapt and react to a changing world," Prof Frankopan told the BBC.
"But there is more at stake here too," he added. "If investment does not come from China to build ports, refineries, railway lines and so on, then where will it come from?"
Grappling with China's growing power
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OXFORD SCIENCE ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAG
Explorer Marco Polo's travels along the Silk Road were immortalised in the "Book of Marvels"
The "made in Italy" label carries a reputation for quality worldwide, and is legally protected for products items processed "mainly" in Italy.
In recent years, Chinese factories based in Italy using Chinese labour have been challenging that mark of quality.
Better connections for cheap raw materials from China - and the return of finished products from Italy - could exaggerate that practice.
'Predatory' investment
The agreements signed in Rome come amid questions over whether Chinese firm Huawei should be permitted to build essential communications networks - after the United States expressed concern they could help Beijing spy on the West.
That was not part of the negotiations in Italy.
But a little over a week before the deal was due to be signed, the European Commission released a joint statement on "China's growing economic power and political influence" and the need to "review" relations.
As President Xi toured Rome, EU leaders in Brussels considered their approach for relations with China.
"Our aim is to focus on achieving a balanced relation, which ensures fair competition and equal market access," Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, said.
In March, US National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis pointed out that Italy was a major economy and did not need to "lend legitimacy to China's vanity infrastructure project".
I'm not going to even try to pretend that I understand what's happening here. It just amuses me that China is so invested in Godzilla.
THREADSQuote:
MAY 9, 2019 7:29AM PT
China to Remake Classic Balkan Films as Part of Diplomatic Charm Offensive
By REBECCA DAVIS
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CREDIT: COURTESY OF WARNER BROS.
China’s Huahua Media has signed on to remake two classic war films from the Balkans as part of a push to improve diplomatic ties between the Middle Kingdom and countries taking part in its “Belt and Road” global infrastructure project, Chinese reports said. The news follows Huahua’s return to the spotlight as an investor on the upcoming “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” franchise film, though the company was better-known in the past for a short-lived slate financing deal with Paramount in 2017.
The ambassadors to China from Serbia and from Bosnia and Herzegovina were present as Huahua inked a deal with the Sarajevo Film Center and a Serbian production company to remake two Serbo-Croatian-language films: 1969’s “The Bridge,” about the defense of a span against the Nazis in World War II, and 1972’s “Walter Defends Sarajevo,” helmed by the Bosnian director Hajrudin Krvavac.
“The remake is not only a tribute to the classics; it will also further promote deep cultural exchange between the three countries,” the website Sohu Film said. It cited Huahua CEO Wang Kefei as saying that the partnership “responds to the call of the state by bearing the important weight of strengthening ‘Belt and Road’ cultural exchange.”
Last week, China signed a major infrastructure deal and numerous other agreements with Serbia, the most significant of which will see cooperation between the two countries on the construction of a new metro system in Belgrade. Critics of the Belt and Road Initiative in the Balkans cite fears that such projects might create untenable debt.
China-Kazakhstan co-production “The Composer,” the first to be made from a co-production treaty to bring the mainland closer to another Belt and Road nation, was selected as the opening film for the Beijing International Film Festival last month and is set for nationwide theatrical release in China next Friday.
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JUNE 18, 2020 / 8:53 PM / 4 DAYS AGO
China says one-fifth of Belt and Road projects 'seriously affected' by pandemic
2 MIN READ
BEIJING (Reuters) - About 20% of projects under China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to link Asia, Europe and beyond have been “seriously affected” by the coronavirus pandemic, an official from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday.
According to a survey by the ministry, about 40% of projects have seen little adverse impact, and another 30-40% have been somewhat affected, said Wang Xiaolong, director-general of the ministry’s International Economic Affairs Department, at a news briefing in Beijing.
“About 20% percent of the projects have been seriously affected,” he said. Wang did not give any details.
The results from the survey were better than expected and although some projects had been put on hold, China had not heard of any major projects being cancelled, he added.
Over 100 countries have signed agreements with China to cooperate in BRI projects like railways, ports, highways and other infrastructure. According to a Refinitiv database, over 2,600 projects at a cost of $3.7 trillion are linked to the initiative.
Restrictions on travel and the flow of goods across borders, as well as local measures to combat COVID-19, were the main reasons for the impacts on projects, said Wang.
“As the situation improves we have confidence that the projects will come back and the execution of them will speed up,” he said.
The challenge of the pandemic to BRI projects follows a pushback in 2018, when officials in Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and elsewhere criticized projects there as costly and unnecessary.
China scaled back some plans after several countries sought to review, cancel or scale down commitments, citing concerns over costs, erosion of sovereignty, and corruption.
(This story adds dropped words in lead paragraph)
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G& = Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.Quote:
G-7 wants to rival China’s Belt and Road plan — but it won’t stop Beijing, expert says
PUBLISHED MON, JUN 14 20212:55 AM EDT
Yen Nee Lee
@YENNEE_LEE
KEY POINTS
The Group of Seven wealthy nations have agreed to set up an infrastructure plan to compete with China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative.
The plan is not intended to stop the Belt and Road Initiative, said Matthew Goodman of Washington D.C.-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Still, it could make a “significant contribution” in closing the world’s infrastructure gap by channeling investments into developing countries,” said Goodman.
Wealthy nations in the Group of Seven have agreed to set up an infrastructure plan to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative — but that won’t stop Beijing’s massive program, an expert on global economic governance said Monday.
Leaders from the G-7 nations met at a three-day summit in southwest England that ended Sunday — their first face-to-face meeting in two years. The group’s infrastructure plan is part of a broad collective pushback against China on issues ranging from human rights abuses to non-market practices that undermine fair competition.
“This isn’t really intended to stop Belt and Road. But I think the G-7 is signaling that they want to offer an alternative which really revolves around two big things that these countries offer,” said Matthew Goodman, senior vice president for economics at Washington D.C.-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The Belt and Road Initiative is China’s ambitious program to build physical and digital infrastructure to connect hundreds of countries from Asia to the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Critics consider it Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy to expand his country’s global influence.
Goodman, who’s also the Simon Chair in political economy at CSIS, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” that the G-7 could make a “significant contribution” in closing the world’s infrastructure gap by channeling investments into developing countries.
In addition, the seven rich democracies would bring better safeguards to infrastructure projects — including transparency, accountability as well as environmental and social standards, said Goodman.Quote:
I think the tone was pretty clear about the concern that these seven large, advanced market economies have about China, its economic coercion, its non-market policies, its human rights abuses.
Matthew Goodman
CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
“I think that’s what they’re trying to signal here. Whether they can pull it off or not is another story, it’s a very difficult business,” he added.
The U.S. and many countries have been critical of the Belt and Road plan, accusing Beijing of leaving participating countries laden with untenable debt, while benefiting Chinese companies — many of them state-owned. In addition to the program’s environmental harm, critics also questioned the transparency of the deals.
Confronting China
China featured prominently in a communique released by the G-7 on Sunday. The G-7 countries are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S.
In addition to calling out China’s alleged human rights abuses and non-market policies, the G-7 also asked for more transparency on the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. They stressed the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and expressed concerns about tensions in the East and South China Sea where China has overlapping territorial claims with its regional neighbors.
Beijing responded angrily to the communique on Monday.
The Chinese embassy in the U.K. said it firmly opposed the G-7 statement and was strongly dissatisfied. In a Mandarin-language statement translated by CNBC, the embassy urged the U.S. and other G-7 members to stop slandering China and interfering in Chinese internal affairs.
Before the release of the Chinese embassy’s statement, Goodman said Beijing shouldn’t be surprised of the G-7 pushback. He said the group had wanted to show that democratic nations are working together to address global challenges, in contrast to authoritarian rivals such as China and Russia.
“I think the tone was pretty clear about the concern that these seven large, advanced market economies have about China, its economic coercion, it’s non-market policies, its human rights abuses,” said Goodman.
“And I think that was well telegraphed in the run-up to the summit, so Beijing shouldn’t be surprised.”
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