![]() More broadly, Chinese leaders are determined to restructure the economy to avoid the so-called middle-income trap. Promoting economic development in the western province of Xinjiang, where separatist violence has been on the upswing, is a major priority, as is securing long-term energy supplies from Central Asia and the Middle East, especially via routes the U.S. ![]() Economy.Īt the same time, China is motivated to boost global economic links to its western regions, which historically have been neglected. “Under Xi, China now actively seeks to shape international norms and institutions and forcefully asserts its presence on the global stage,” writes CFR’s Elizabeth C. “ pivot to Asia,” as well as a way for China to develop new investment opportunities, cultivate export markets, and boost Chinese incomes and domestic consumption. For Xi, the BRI serves as pushback against the much-touted U.S. To accommodate expanding maritime trade traffic, China would invest in port development along the Indian Ocean, from Southeast Asia all the way to East Africa and parts of Europe.Įxperts see the BRI as one of the main planks of a bolder Chinese statecraft under Xi, alongside the Made in China 2025 economic development strategy. Xi subsequently announced plans for the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road at the 2013 summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Indonesia. (The Asian Development Bank estimated that the region faces a yearly infrastructure financing shortfall of nearly $800 billion.) In addition to physical infrastructure, China plans to build fifty special economic zones, modeled after the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, which China launched in 1980 during its economic reforms under leader Deng Xiaoping. Such a network would expand the international use of Chinese currency, the renminbi, and “ break the bottleneck in Asian connectivity,” according to Xi. Xi’s vision included creating a vast network of railways, energy pipelines, highways, and streamlined border crossings, both westward-through the mountainous former Soviet republics-and southward, to Pakistan, India, and the rest of Southeast Asia. By 2018, remittances had dipped from their 2013 highs due to Russia’s economic woes. They are also heavily dependent on Russia, particularly for remittances-they make up one-third of the gross domestic product (GDP) of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Use of the route peaked during the first millennium, under the leadership of first the Roman and then Byzantine Empires, and the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE) in China.īut the Crusades, as well as advances by the Mongols in Central Asia, dampened trade, and today Central Asian countries are economically isolated from each other, with intra-regional trade making up just 6.2 percent of all cross-border commerce. Valuable Chinese silk, spices, jade, and other goods moved west while China received gold and other precious metals, ivory, and glass products. Those routes extended more than four thousand miles to Europe.Ĭentral Asia was thus the epicenter of one of the first waves of globalization, connecting eastern and western markets, spurring immense wealth, and intermixing cultural and religious traditions. The original Silk Road arose during the westward expansion of China’s Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), which forged trade networks throughout what are today the Central Asian countries of Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, as well as modern-day India and Pakistan to the south. Trump, Washington has raised alarm over Beijing’s actions, but it has struggled to offer governments in the region a more appealing economic vision. Meanwhile, the United States shares the concern of some in Asia that the BRI could be a Trojan horse for China-led regional development and military expansion. Some analysts see the project as an unsettling extension of China’s rising power, and as the costs of many of the projects have skyrocketed, opposition has grown in some countries. While Pledging to Defend Taiwan from China, Biden Shifted on Taiwan Independence.
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