New Silk Road / BRI updates

Jan. 2 – The Ethiopia-Djibouti railroad officially began commercial operations yesterday. Built by the China Rail Engineering Corporation (CREC) and China Civil Engineering Construction Corp. (CCECC) with a $4 billion investment, the 750 km electrified rail line connects landlocked Ethiopia to Djibouti and is seen as a crucial contribution to the development of both nations, promoting their economic integration as well, Xinhua reported.During yesterday’s inaugural ceremony in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s Transport Minister Ahmed Shide hailed the project as a milestone of China-Africa cooperation. It will have major positive impact on the efforts to build a new Ethiopia, he proudly stated.

China’s Ambassador to Ethiopia Tan Jian emphasized that the project would contribute to the industrialization and diversification of Ethiopia’s economy. “This is the first trans-border and longest electrified railway on the African continent,” he said. “We, the Chinese, see this an early beneficial product of the Belt and Road Initiative. It is regarded by many as a lifeline project … for Ethiopia and for Djibouti. And we see this as a railway of development; as a railway of cooperation, and as a railway of friendship.”

Djibouti’s Ambassador Mohamed Idriss Farah said that the rail line “is an important corridor … we are working for economic integration between our two countries.”

Jan. 4–Former German Ambassador to China and current head of the Herbert Quandt Foundation (BMW) Michael Schaefer, calls on Europeans to accept China’s offer of partnership in the New Silk Road in an interview with “Deutsche Wirtschaftsnachrichten.”

Schaefer blasts Europe’s reaction to the New Silk Road policy and accuses the Europeans of projecting their own thinking when they accuse China of hegemonic intentions. Even if not in explicit terms, he calls for rejecting the wrong geopolitical approach in favor of a win-win relationship.

“The geostrategic significance of the Silk Road cannot be underestimated. The Middle Kingdom has set itself to deploy its giant material resources for the expansion of the Chinese economy on the world market. China is carrying out this strategy in an intelligent way, not aggressively but by offering participation to all states– an offer that slowly is being accepted by the small Asian and central Asian countries, whereas in Europe we have a mostly negative reaction, if not a rejection. Here they accuse China of hegemonic intentions– a projection of our own behavior in the last century?”

“Many Europeans make the big mistake of looking at the relationship with the USA and China as a zero-sum game. But a close relationship with the USA does not at all exclude an interest-based relationship with China. We should not see China as a rival, but rather as a partner in key sectors. I am convinced that China wants to be a partner of the West. At least, China does not pursue military dominance and a geostrategic hegemonic position, but it will defend what it believes are its legitimate interests, in particular its territorial interests, with energy, if necessary also through a projection of its military power.”

Schaefer has met Xi Jinping several times, and in 2009, he accompanied him on five-day visit in Germany. Xi, Schaefer says, “radiates an impressive interior calm, fitting with his policy. He proceeds calmly, unagitated and strategically, making China fit for the challenges in the future. Don’t expect a rush job from him. He, like many Chinese, thinks in long time-periods. He is driven by the knowledge that China was the largest national economy in the world until the middle of the nineteenth century, and it will be so again in the future. For the Chinese it is not a matter of ten or twenty years. During his visit to Germany, he showed interest in our development, especially in economic-technological but also in social areas, like no one else I have ever seen.”

The Chinese system is one capable of learning, Schaefer says, explaining how it can react more quickly and better than western systems in changing its economic model. Political stability in China will depend on whether the system delivers on its promises. “Basically, we must presume that even a communist single party will be accepted as long as it delivers stability and welfare. Chinese culture is strongly influenced by Confucianism. This is no religion, but a regulatory philosophy. One of its main features is respect. For instance, respect of children for their parents, but also respect for higher entities. They pursue a harmonically functioning society where– differently from us–no excessive significance is attributed to individual self-realization.”

Dec. 27, 2017 – Xinhua reports, today, that the port of Ningbo-Zhoushan, located in the eastern Chinese province of hejiang, has reached the unprecedented rate of 1 billion tons of annual cargo; it will be the first port in the world to exceed such volume by year’s end.

According to Mao Jianhong, chairman of the Ningbo-Zhoushan Port Group, the port has expanded cooperation with major shipping companies and harbors along the Belt and Road, and has added five new sea routes to bring its total to 86. It has also signed cooperation agreements with twenty other ports.

The Ningbo-Zhoushan port is located at the meeting point of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, directly south of Shanghai and southeast of the port of Hangzhou. It is China’s busiest port, with 242 sea routes linking more than 600 harbors around the world, Xinhua reports.

In the course of 2017, Mao explained, Ningbo-Zhoushan handled over 10 million standard containers from countries and regions along the Belt and Road, a 16% year-on-year increase.

Moreover, the port launched sea-rail transport services with 11 trains providing services to 36 cities in 14 Chinese provinces, as well as to countries in central and northern Asia and Eastern Europe. In 2018, container and handling volume of the port’s sea-rail transport is expected to exceed 400,000 standard containers, a 60% increase year on year.

Dec. 23 -Some 86 countries and international organizations have signed 100 cooperation agreements with China under the Belt and Road Initiative. He Lifeng, head of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said the initiative made major headway in 2017, citing progress in key areas including capacity, investment and the Digital Silk Road.

Steady progress was made in the building of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the Mombasa-Nairobi railway has been put into operation, construction has begun on the Belgrade-Stara Pazova section of the Hungary-Serbia railway and the Khalifa Port in the United Arab Emirates, the operation of the Hambantota Port has also been transferred to a Chinese firm, said He. So far, cargo train have made more than 7,000 trips between China and Europe, according to He.

Dec. 26 – In the first-ever trilateral meeting, foreign ministers of China, Pakistan, and Afghanistan reaffirmed their commitment to improving their relations, deepening mutually beneficial cooperation, advancing connectivity under China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, and fighting terrorism in all its forms and manifestation without any distinction, PTI Islamabad reported today.  Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi hosted the first China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Foreign Ministers’

Dialogue in Beijing with Afghanistan and Pakistan Foreign Ministers, respectively Salahuddin Rabbani and Khawaja Muhammad Asif.

In his proposal to extend their $57 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to Afghanistan, Wang, talking to the reporters, pointed to Afghanistan’s urgent need to develop and

improve people’s lives, and his hopes it can join inter-connectivity initiatives. “So China and Pakistan are willing to look at–with Afghanistan, on the basis of win-win– mutually beneficial principles, using an appropriate way,” he said, Afghanistan’s TOLONews reported.

In his bilateral meeting with the Afghan Foreign Minister Rabbani, Wang said China hoped to synergize its development strategy for Afghanistan and expand bilateral cooperation. China expected to see a wide and inclusive political reconciliation process in Afghanistan, led and owned by the Afghan people, he said, Afghanistan’s Pajhwok reported. Rabbani, welcoming the proposal and hailing China as a reliable partner, said his country was ready to actively participate in the Belt and Road Initiative, and enhance cooperation with China in areas of inter-connectivity, infrastructure and energy.