General updates

Now Amsterdam is Connected by Rail to China’s East Coast

March 9, 2018by Jason Ross in General, New Silk Road / BRI updates

Mar 8 – On March 7, a block train departed from the Port of Amsterdam on its 11,000-kilometer journey to Yiwu on China’s east coast. It will travel through through Germany, Poland, Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan, and will reach its destination on March 23, Rail Freight.com reported today. Thanks to this new train connection, the Netherlands is now connected to the One Belt, One Road project.

“We are proud to add Amsterdam to our Chinese railway network, in addition to our existing connections between China, Russia and Germany. Amsterdam is the largest European port after Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg, which makes it an important hub. The new connection will make it even easier for operators, retailers and brand manufacturers in the Netherlands to do business with and from China,” Erwin Cootjans, CEO of Nunner Logistics told Rail Freight.com. The Belt and Road’s international cross-border rail network has so far connected 35 Chinese cities with 34 European destinations over the past six years.

“The new train connection is an initiative of Nunner Logistics. This logistics service provider noticed the increasing demand for goods transportation from and to China. The need for this new kind of transportation increases now that cargo ships sail slower in order to save fuel. Transport by train is a faster alternative compared to sea transportation, and the costs are much lower compared to transport by airplane,” wrote Netherland’s Hong Kong Business Association in its website.

GBTimes Interviews Helga Zepp-LaRouche on China’s New Silk Road and Europe

February 18, 2018by Jason Ross in Europe SI activity, Helga media coverage or interview, Helga statement, article, transcript, New Silk Road / BRI updates

Feb. 16 – GBTimes is a multimedia news site, based in Finland where it was founded by Chinese entrepreneur Zhao Yinong, and which refers to itself as a “bridge between China and the rest of the world.” It published the following interview with Helga Zepp-LaRouche on Feb. 16:

China’s ambitious plan to link itself with Europe and Africa through new Silk Road trade routes has so far received a mixed welcome in Europe. The Belt and Road initiative, the brainchild of Chinese President Xi Jinping, proposes to boost trade and economic integration across Eurasia through over $1 trillion worth of investments in railways, ports, power plants and other infrastructure links. The initiative has been officially endorsed by Central and Eastern European countries, many of which are hoping that Chinese investment could create jobs and improve infrastructure.

But Western European countries have been more cautious, with British Prime Minister Theresa May declining to sign up to the initiative during her recent trip to Beijing and French President Emmanuel Macron warning during his trip to China that the New Silk Road cannot be “one-way.” There are also concerns in Brussels about a lack of reciprocity in trade with China and increasing Chinese investment in critical infrastructure in Europe.

The German-based Schiller Institute, however, has for the past several years been campaigning for the Belt and Road initiative in Europe by organizing hundreds of conferences on the topic. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the institute’s founder and president, talked to gbtimes.com about the initiative and why she believes Europe should embrace it.

Q: What is the Schiller Institute?

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: The Schiller Institute was founded in 1984 as a think tank, with the main idea behind it being that peace and order in the world would only function if each nation would relate to the best cultural tradition of the others and vice versa. One of the focuses was to fight for a just new world economic order, something like in the tradition of the Nonaligned Movement, especially inspired by the ideas of my husband, Mr. Lyndon LaRouche, and secondly to fight for a renaissance of classical culture. I gave it the name of [German philosopher] Friedrich Schiller because his image of man was the most noble and beautiful one and I thought such a conception was urgently needed in the political realm.

Q: How did you first get to know China?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I went to China for the first time in 1971 on a cargo ship, which was repaired in Shanghai. So, I had plenty of occasions to visit many factories, children’s palaces, and the countryside. I also went to Shenzhen, Qingdao and Beijing, and that left a very lasting impression on me because this was in the middle of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and China was very much different then. But it started a deep interest on my side in Chinese philosophy and culture. And then I was also inspired by the changes which took place in China after the reforms of Deng Xiaoping, and I visited China many times in the 1990s and the 2000s, and especially after Xi Jinping announced the new Silk Road. And I could see the dramatic changes and the economic miracle which China has undergone. I feel very privileged that I have sort of personally witnessed the unbelievable transformation of China over almost 50 years.

Q: You mentioned President Xi Jinping who proposed the Belt and Road initiative in 2013. The Schiller Institute has been very supportive of this initiative. Why is this?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: First, the Belt and Road initiative is presently the most important strategic initiative on the planet because it proposes what Xi Jinping calls a community for shared future of humanity. The idea of one humanity is a perfect conception for overcoming geopolitics, which was the reason for two world wars and, in the age of nuclear weapons, can lead to a terrible catastrophe just as big. If you look at the incredible progress this initiative has made in the five years since it was announced, you already see a tremendous transformation where the developing countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia, for the first time, have legitimate hope to overcome poverty and under-development. It just happens that the Belt and Road initiative is very much in accordance with proposals my husband and myself have made during the last decades. After the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991 we proposed something that we called the Eurasian land bridge, which was the idea to connect the Eurasian peoples and industries through development corridors. The Chinese government picked up on the proposal to organize an international conference in Beijing in 1996, in which I participated as speaker. Already at that point China considered the development of the Eurasian land bridge a strategic initiative, but this was put on hold due to the Asian financial crisis of 1997. We were then extremely happy when Xi Jinping announced this policy in 2013 — with China’s economic power all these plans can now be realized. Why do you think the Chinese are interested in this idea of bridging the Eurasian continent? China has developed its own economic model of lifting its population out of poverty and it also wants to contribute to eliminating poverty on the world scale. I think that is a very different approach to many other countries. There are now only 30 million poor people left in China. In comparison, there are 90 million poor people in the European Union and more than 50 million people who are officially poor in the United States, but no clear plans to eliminate poverty in totality. So, you are saying China is currently the only major country that has a global vision? Yes. I participated in the Belt and Road forum in Beijing last year and everyone who participated in this conference had a distinct impression that we were witnessing the beginning of a new era of mankind. At the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi promoted the goal of having a fully developed, modern, culturally advanced, happy country by 2050 — not only happiness for the Chinese people, but for all the people in the world. Normally politicians in the West think at best until the next election, and I have not heard from any Western leader a plan on how to uplift the entire human species in the next 30, 40, 50 years. The idea to create happiness for the people as a policy goal was last heard during the American revolution when it was set in the American Declaration of Independence that it is a fundamental right to have life, freedom and happiness. This is a notion coming from Latin [sic — she said Leibniz] and it means the ability of people to develop their full potential. I have seen in China on many occasions that people really think that way. They have the idea that there is no limit to their ability to self-perfect to improve society and relations between nations, and it’s a completely different spirit to what you find anywhere in the West.
Q: All Central and Eastern European countries have officially joined the Belt and Road Initiative, but many Western countries including the U.K., France and Germany have been more cautious about it. Why do you think this is the case? ZEPP-LAROUCHE: When certain politicians in these countries say they want to insist on standards and rules, and that they don’t want the spreading of Chinese investment in Europe, I think it’s a question of geopolitical control. The EU for example could have developed Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, but they didn’t. When China then comes and starts to build the kind of infrastructure that the EU did not build, these countries are happy and want to go with the new Silk Road. And that causes some people who believe in geopolitics to see it as a threat. The present Western system is based not on the common good as a primary orientation, but on monetarist profit-making. This system benefits those who speculate and those who run the banking system. But it leads to such things like the 2008 financial crisis, which was a systemic crisis, and nothing has been done since other than quantitative easing and pumping money.

Q: But do you think China itself has overcome geopolitics?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I know that that is not the view of many politicians in the West, but I think assumptions about China are just people’s projections of what they themselves think. I am not a naive person — I have studied this in depth and looked at it closely — and I do think that China does not plan to dominate the world with its system. The Chinese model is more attractive, and many countries want to repeat what it has been doing, but I don’t think China wants to impose its values. My explanation for this is China’s Confucian tradition. For example, Christians are supposed to win other people over to Christianity, but Confucianism does not do that. Confucianism is perfectly happy to live in coexistence. And if you look at the entire history of China, you never had religious war. You had Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and Christianity all living in a perfect ecumenical harmony. So, I think in Chinese history, you don’t find anything which would give credibility to the claim that China is not doing what they say. I think they are doing exactly what they say they are doing and they mean it.

Q: What would it mean for Western European countries to join the Belt and Road Initiative?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: It would mean that there would be a shift towards the real economy. Right now, you have this money-makes-money philosophy, but if you look at even an advanced country like Germany, there’s a tremendous backlog in infrastructure. There are warnings by some of the logistic organizations that Germany is about to lose its standard as a location for industrial development because of the collapse of the infrastructure. So, if European countries would join the new Silk Road it would mean that they could basically renew their infrastructure like China has done, and to build fast trains among all major cities. With the policy of the Troika [European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund], the industries and the economies of the Southern European countries were destroyed. Now you see that with the advantages that come from Chinese investment in the Piraeus port and other projects in Greece, it’s going upwards. And with the EU, it went downwards. The same is true for Italy, Spain and Portugal. Europe could also participate with China in the reconstruction of Southwest Asia, of Syria, of Iraq, because you must bring economic development to these countries if terrorism is supposed to be eliminated. You have to give young people a future which they don’t have right now. It would mean you could solve the refugee problem in a human way.

Q: But do you think that some Europeans might be cautious about the growing Chinese influence because they think they might have to someday accept the same kind of restrictions on freedoms that China has at home?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes, but if people are worried that they may lose some of their hedonistic impulses — well, that might not be altogether such a bad thing. Because what we are seeing right now is a decadent society with all the violence, pornography and drug addiction. You have an opium epidemic in the United States, which is contributing to the fact that life expectancy is going down for the first time. If there is any parameter for the functioning of an economy, it is the life expectancy. If an economy is doing well, it’s increasing and obviously it’s an indicator that there is something fundamentally wrong if it’s going down because of suicide, alcoholism and drug addiction. On the other hand, there was just a poll made in Germany among 42 firms which were taken over by Chinese investors. In all cases, the management and the employees said that it was a positive thing that the Chinese took over, instead of speculators or hedge funds. I think some of these changes that come with more Chinese investment and influence would be beneficial. I would even go so far to agree with Leibniz, who said already in the 17th century that because of the superior morality of the Chinese, one should import Chinese missionaries to teach morality to the Europeans.

Q: So, you are optimistic that the acceptance of the Belt and Road initiative is growing in Europe eventually?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: We have found that all people who do business in China or who have travelled to China or who are married with a Chinese person, are all positive, and they know that what China is doing is a historic transformation of humanity. The Belt and Road initiative is not just about economics; it’s not just about infrastructure from A to B, but it is really a new paradigm. And what I mean by new paradigm is a new way of understanding what is the role of humanity. We are the only creative species who can invent new technologies and sciences and change the mode of our existence. It’s not the nature of man to be greedy, to chase for stock market gains and try to exploit and dominate others. It’s the nature of man to develop our own potential to the fullest so that we can contribute to the development of the human species. And the new paradigm will be that more and more people, as time goes by, will be able to realize their true potential as human beings.

https://gbtimes.com/interview-with-helga-zepp-larouche-on-chinas-new-silk-road-and-europe

Possible Reestablishment of Vatican-China Relations

February 10, 2018by Jason Ross in General updates

Vatican Bishops’ Praise of China Foreshadows Possible Reestablishment of Vatican-China Relations

Feb. 9, 2018 –The statements by Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, the chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, who, speaking to {Vatican Insider} after a visit to China, characterized the country as extraordinary, raised some hackles from anti-China circles in the Catholic Church. “You do not have shantytowns, you do not have drugs, young people do not take drugs,” Sanchez Sorondo had said after visiting China. “Instead there is a positive national consciousness.” “Right now, those who are best implementing the social doctrine of the Church are the Chinese,” he said.

While he praised China for upholding the Paris climate agreements, he also obviously, during the course of his visit to China, received more of an insight into what China is doing to advance the lives of their people. Sanchez Sorondo’s visit to China was part of an ongoing round of diplomacy between the Vatican and China, which is aimed at resolving the key issue of the appointment of Catholic bishops, a major point of dispute between the Vatican and China. Sanchez Sorondo’s statements has been heavily criticized by some conservative Catholic circles, including Hong Kong’s retired cardinal, Joseph Zen. But it is strongly supported by Pope Francis, who would like the Vatican to assume full legal responsibility for China’s estimated 13 million Catholics. Zen has also said that if the Pope comes to some arrangement with the Chinese government, he will also fall in step with the arrangement.

The diplomatic activity of Pope Francis has been receiving regular coverage in the Chinese press, including the more conservative {Global Times}, to whom Archbishop Sanchez Sorondo had also spoken. Just recently Pope Francis made the unusual decision to retire two bishops in China who had not previously received the approval of the Chinese government, which has also raised an outcry by church conservatives, covered extensively in Breitbart News. The Breitbart coverage was attacked today in a {Global Times} editorial by Ai Jun, who called Sanchez Sorondo’s statements “the perspective of an authoritative religious figure” which were helpful “in contradicting misunderstandings of China.” “The overwhelming majority of Catholics in China have full access to freedom of religion while abiding by Catholic doctrine and China’s rule of law,” Ai Jun writes. “Chinese Catholics are no different from Catholics in other countries simply because they live in a socialist nation, which reflects the fact that the Chinese government respects their religious freedom and provides them with enough room for religious activities.” Most of the Catholic bishops now in China have been accepted by the Chinese government and the Vatican, but there are still many exceptions in the “underground church”.

Negotiations are ongoing as to the procedure of the appointment of bishops. But a resolution of the issue could lead to the re-establishment of relations between Beijing and Rome which have been broken for the last 70 years.

China Is Preparing for Manned Missions to the Moon

February 2, 2018by Jason Ross in General, Space updates

Jan. 27 -In 1971, the Apollo 15 crew left a retro-reflector on the Moon. It is a passive instrument, and just reflects laser pulses from Earth back to Earth. The time–very precisely measured–of he return pulse, indicates the distance between Earth and its nearest neighbor. In all, three reflectors were left on the lunar surface during the Apollo missions, and one by the Soviet Lunokhod 2 over. They are still used by scientists for research in astrodynamics, Earth-Moon system dynamics (the Moon is slowly moving away from the Earth), and lunar physics. The technique is called Lunar aser Ranging (LLR), and now Chinese scientists are using the Apollo 15 reflector for LLR experiments, in preparation for their future missions to land astronauts on the Moon.

On Jan. 22, Xinhua reported yesterday, an applied astronomy group at the Yunnan Observatories in Kunming carried out China’s first Lunar Laser Ranging experiment, to obtain precise measurments of he distance between the Earth and the Moon.

While it was an interesting scientific experiment, the technique also has important practical applications. Landing an unmanned vehicle on the Moon requires using detailed orbital photographs to define a safe and interesting general landing region, where the engineers aim the lander. For a robotic spacecraft, the landing ellipse can be a relatively wide area to aim for. But or a manned mission, a more precise targetting is preferable. China can now use the laser ranging technique for its manned lunar program.

Until now, only the U.S., France, and Italy have successfully deployed laser ranging technology. It is reported that on a future mission, China will place its own retro-reflector on the Moon.

Chinese scientists are also studying the human factor itself, and technology to support crew on the Moon. Chinese student volunteers have just completed 200 days in Beihang University’s “Lunar Palace.” The two men and two women are biomedicine students and are the second group to work in the simulated space lab. A main capability needed to live off Earth is regenerative life-support ystems, where waste is recycled, and in the advanced phase, virtaully no materials have to be suppplied from the outside. The “mission” also entailed study of the social interactions and sychological condtion of the crew.

Chief designer Liu Hong said that her team would apply to have a mini-life support system on a lunar or Martian probe, with another system as a ground control. NASA and its partners have used the International Space Station to test closed-cycle life support systems, and the station itself recycles various waste products to reduce the amount of material that has to be delivered from the ground.

Let Us Celebrate The Future Spirit of Humanity

May 6, 2018by Jason Ross in General, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, World war danger updates

Helga Zepp-LaRouche Victory Day Message

– Let Us Celebrate The Future Spirit of Humanity –

Only 73 years after the Second World War when people
responded to that horrible catastrophe with the solemn commitment
“Never Again,” we find ourselves again on the verge of a possible
hot war.

With one provocation after another, each more transparently
false than the previous one, the war faction of the City of
London imperial oligarchs and their Wall Street neo-con/neo-lib
partners continue their efforts to sabotage the potential of the
New Paradigm, which is emerging in Eurasia to be a worldwide
movement with breathtaking speed. Even though Russiagate, the
Skripal poisoning, and the Douma chemical weapons “false flag”
hoax all have been exposed as originating in the diseased minds
of British intelligence circles, still they are at it again, this
time with Netanyahu claiming he has “proof” that Iran never ended
its nuclear program, attempting to trap the United States into
yet another disastrous war in the Middle East and a possible
nuclear confrontation with Russia. Many in the governments of the
West have stepped on that slippery slope again, which was warned
about in the Nuremburg Tribunal, by violating international law
and the principles laid down in the United Nations Charter.

But their power is diminishing, as they have increasingly
been forced to act in their own name, thereby exposing
themselves. Their ability to keep control has also been
diminishing, due to the challenge from the New Silk Road and the
New Paradigm it represents. In the last weeks, diplomatic and
economic events and summits have greatly advanced the New
Paradigm. The strategic partnership between Russia and China and
the integration of the Belt and Road Initiative with the Eurasian
Economic Union have created hope for especially the developing
countries, who see the chance to overcome poverty and
underdevelopment for the first time.

The best way to commemorate the losses, the suffering, and
the heroism of the individuals who lost their lives in the Great
Patriotic War is by creating a new era of mankind, which puts the
concept of the one humanity first, in that way creating a new
international order, which overcomes geopolitics forever.
Imperialism must be defeated as a relic of a bestial image of
man, and be replaced with the noble image of man as the only
creative species known in the universe so far.

Let us celebrate the future spirit of humanity, which is so
beautifully expressed in the {Ode to Joy}by Friedrich Schiller
and the 9th Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven:

“All men become brethren…
Be embrac’d, ye millions yonder!
Take this kiss throughout the world!
Brothers — o’er the stars unfurl’d
Must reside a loving Father.”

Major Breakthrough in China-Japan-South Korea Relations

January 30, 2018by Jason Ross in General, Geopolitics updates

Jan. 28 -The two-day visit to Beijing by Japan’s Foreign Minister Taro Kono has brought several major developments to the urgent task of uniting the three Asian powers around the concept of peace through development.

At the end of the visit Sunday evening, China and Japan jointly announced that the annual summits among the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean leaders would be revived “as soon as possible,” after having been cancelled since 2015, supposedly over terrritorial issues in the East China Sea. Premier Li Keqiang will represent China at the summit.

In addition, Norio Maruyama, a spokesman for the Japanese delegation, said the summit could set the stage for reciprocal visits by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping — a trip neither leader has made since coming to power in 2012, as Bloomberg pointed out. “What we are envisaging is a visit to China by Prime Minister Abe and after that a visit to Japan by President Xi Jinping,” Maruyama said.

Kono met with Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Premier Li Keqiang, and State Councillor Yang Jiechi. Xinhua reports that the talks were frank, with Li stating that Japan needed to “properly handle sensitive issues related to history and differences between the two sides,” while Wang Yi said: “At present, China-Japan relations are at a crucial stage. There is positive progress, but many disturbances and obstacles remain.”

Kono’s visit came on the 40th anniversary of the signing of the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship.

China’s strained relations with South Korea were lessened with China’s agreement to allow their opposition to the THAAD missile issue to be put aside in order to work together on other issues. The Japan-China relationship has been greatly improved by Prime Minister Abe’s announcement last year that Japan will co-finance projects with China in the Belt and Road Initiative.

“Kono said the government was ready to cement political trust and concrete cooperation with China, enhance high-level exchanges and contacts among various levels to promote the full improvement of ties.” Most importantly, the press release by Kono and Wang Yi addressed the East China Sea dispute: “China and Japan should work together to build the East China Sea into the sea of peace, cooperation and friendship.”

Equally important, in light of the militarist statements coming from the U.S. institutions calling Russia and China “adversaries” and “threats,” Wang Yi asked both sides to build political trust, and urged Japan to treat China as a “partner” instead of “rival,” and view China’s development as an “opportunity rather than a threat.”

Egypt: Fresh Vegetables Grown in the Desert

January 29, 2018by Jason Ross in World Land-Bridge updates

Chinese company, Sinomach Heavy Industry Corp., is building what is described as the world’s largest greenhouse complex in the Egyptian desert. The site is within two hour’s drive from Cairo, CGTN reported yesterday. The complex, which when complete will consist of about 3,000 greenhouses, will grow vegetables and fruit, such as tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, and peppers. This was decided in consultation with Egyptian agricultural experts, Hou Huicong, the deputy project manager explained. The water for the crops will come from a sub-branch of the Nile River, and ditches will be built to divert water to the greenhouses.

Components for the greenhouses have been produced in 80 factories in China that have been working on the project since July. On this ambitious schedule, operation of the greenhouses is expected this year. This accelerated timetable can be met, said Sun Guiding, purchase manager for the project, because, “We mobilized almost all resources producing agricultural appliances in China. Many are working around the clock.”

The $400 million project is the product of an agreement signed with the Egyptian government last May.

China to Drive International Rebuilding of Syria

May 4, 2018by Jason Ross in General, World Land-Bridge updates

April 30, 2018 – More than 140 factories have restarted production in Damascus’s Fadlon industrial zone in southern Syria, and another 100 production facilities are being repaired now, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported today. The industrial zone of Fadlon comprises half of the industries of Damascus. Textile, chemical, clothing, medicine, steel, and others have rehabilitated their facilities and begun production. The rehabilitation of water, electricity, sewerage, telephone lines, and other necessary services have assisted this zone in going back to work and its factories to produce again.

Xie Xiaoyan, the Chinese government’s Special Envoy on the Syrian issue, has signalled Beijing’s willingness “to do its best” to contribute to ordinary Syrians returning to a normal life. The envoy estimated that at least $260 billion in aid money is needed to restore the devastated nation, and that this is a task for the entire international community: “Many people have died; millions have lost their homes or become refugees, and they all need humanitarian aid. As a member of the UN Security Council, China has always paid attention to providing humanitarian assisstance both to Syrian citizens and refugees in the form of goods, medicine, food, and money.”

Xie promised that “China is ready to become a driving force in this process and to involve its companies in the restoration work in Syria as soon as the security situation improves there. Apart from China and Russia, the countries of the region should also take part in the process, because only together will we be able restore Syria,” Xie said.

Pakistan PM Abbasi: “BRI More Than Infrastructure”

January 29, 2018by Jason Ross in New Silk Road / BRI updates

Pakistani Prime Minster Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, speaking at the Davos World Economic Forum (WEF) Wednesday, praised the quality and scope of the BRI.

“We strongly recognize the vision of China and President Xi Jinping…. We believe the Belt and Road Initiative is perfectly in sync with the WEF theme of creating `shared future in a fractured world.’ It is much more than just a partnership on infrastructure and it will cause significant improvement in lives of people from different countries.” He said half of humanity lives in the region of the Silk Road. He said the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor has started to show results in Pakistan with a major increase in manufacturing and exports. “The key principles are financial stability and lessening of environmental impact and Pakistan being a more responsible global citizen,”

Afghanistan Looks to India and China To Build Rail

May 4, 2018by Jason Ross in General, New Silk Road / BRI updates

May 1 -Informed sources in New Delhi have told the Indian daily, {The Statesmen} that senior officials from India and China will meet soon to discuss “the broad contours” of their joint cooperation on development projects in Afghanistan which Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping discussed at their two-day informal summit in Wuhan last week. Afghani Ministry of Economy spokesperson Suhrab Bahman gave an idea of the scope of development that could result on Apirl 29, reporting that one of the joint projects will be the construction of a railroad connecting Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Iran and China. That exciting potential was reported by Afghan TOLOnews. Bahman said, in TOLOnews’ report, “that China is interested in giving Afghanistan more share in the ‘Belt and Road’ project connecting China with Central Asia.”

Such joint work will proceed, even though India is not likely to formally endorse the Belt and Road Initiative by name anytime soon, similar stories appearing today in {The Statesman} and {New Indian Express} report.

The {New Indian Express} cited Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou’s statement to reporters after the Wuhan summit, that “when it comes to connectivity, China and India do not have any principled disagreements.” He said that the two leaders “did not talk about the specific wording or expression of the Belt and Road, many things China and India are planning to do are in keeping with what the Belt and Road Initiative stands for.”

Afghanistan signed a Memorandum of Understanding with China on the BRI in May 2016, while India is already helping build a road and rail network to connect the Iranian port of Chandahar with Afghanistan, and then up north into Central Asia.

The other “connectivity” project where India and China are already cooperating cited by both newspapers is the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) economic corridor. China considers the BCIM as an important part of the Belt and Road; Indian diplomats emphasize that the project started before the BRI.

The {New Indian Express} asked a senior Indian diplomat if the joint project in Afghanistan implies that India might take a “softer” stance toward the BRI when Modi attends the June Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in China?

“Most unlikely,” the diplomat said. “Given that we have elections next year, any such move would be seen as a climbdown by the electorate. We will continue to oppose the CPEC [China-Pakistan Economic Corridor]. But does that mean we can’t join other segments of the BRI if they align with our own interests?”

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