A blue dot barely visible from New Silk Roads — Pepe Escobar

More background on Eurasian integration as the US announces its plan (Blue Dot Network) to compete with China's New Silk Road Economic Belt (BRI).

The Vineyard of the Saker
A blue dot barely visible from New Silk Roads
Pepe Escobar

Pepe Escobar — Get over it: Asia rules

The greatest merit of Parag Khanna’s new book, The Future is Asian, is to accessibly tell the story of a historical inevitability – with the extra bonus of an Asian point of view. This is not only a very good public service, it also blows out of the water countless tomes by Western “experts” pontificating about Asia from an air-con cubicle in Washington....

Good backgrounder.

Asia Times
Get over it: Asia rules

Pepe Escobar

See also

The American Conservative
Beltway Warriors Target China as the Next Global ThreatLeon Hadar

Pepe Escobar — The new Great Game on the Roof of the World

Backgrounder focusing especially on Pakistan. The potential is enormous, but so are the challenges. But it's happening, in spite of obstacles thrown in the way by the US and UK (an area where the British Empire was actively engaged in the 19th century).

Asia Times
The new Great Game on the Roof of the World

Pepe Escobar

Pepe Escobar — How the New Silk Roads are merging into Greater Eurasia

The concept of Greater Eurasia has been discussed at the highest levels of Russian academia and policy-making for some time. This week the policy was presented at the Council of Ministers and looks set to be enshrined, without fanfare, as the main guideline of Russian foreign policy for the foreseeable future.

President Putin is unconditionally engaged to make it a success. Already at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in 2016, Putin referred to an emerging “Eurasian partnership”.

I was privileged over the past week to engage in excellent discussions in Moscow with some of the top Russian analysts and policymakers involved in advancing Greater Eurasia.…

Important.

Asia Times

How the New Silk Roads are merging into Greater Eurasia

Pepe Escobar

Bruno Maçães — Eurasia, the supercontinent that will define our century

World Economic Forum | Agenda
Eurasia, the supercontinent that will define our century
Bruno Maçães | Senior Advisor, Flint Global

Pepe Escobar — How Turkey, Iran, Russia and India are playing the New Silk Roads

Big doings underway you won't read about in Western corporate media. 

The only way the Global North can stop this surge of the Global South now is through hybrid warfare.

Asia Times
How Turkey, Iran, Russia and India are playing the New Silk Roads

Pepe Escobar

Ken Moak — Western critics should not be so skeptical of Belt and Road

Western critics continue to pour cold water on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an ambitious and well-planned architecture connecting the massive Eurasian landmass through a system of roads, railways and ports. They complain that it lacks transparency, erodes trade standards set up by the West, is financially too huge for China to handle, is self-serving, and is a deceptive vehicle for China to dominate the world, just to name a few.

The reality is that the West has to destroy this initiative or face watching its dominance fake into oblivion. This could involve war if that is the last resort of a dying empire. This is obvious to anyone with a passing interest in geopolitics, geostrategy and history.

The window for the West to preserve its domination is closing. These are parlous times.

Asia Times
Western critics should not be so skeptical of Belt and Road

Ken Moak

Nicolas Rapp, Matthew Heimer — This Map Shows How China Is Building its Global Trade Empire

About $900 billion worth of infrastructure developments are now either underway or in detailed planning stages, according to the China Development Bank; this map highlights some of the signature projects.

Fortune
This Map Shows How China Is Building its Global Trade Empire
Nicolas Rapp, Matthew Heimer

Xinhua — 5,000 China-Europe cargo trains expected by 2020

There will be a safe, convenient and efficient system of China-Europe direct cargo trains by 2020, the country's top economic planning body has said.

It is estimated that there will be around 5,000 cargo trains running between China and Europe annually by 2020, according to a development plan issued by the National Development and Reform Commission.

As a key component of the Belt and Road initiative, direct cargo trains will connect a growing number of cities in China and Europe.

Demand for rail cargo service between China and Europe has exploded in recent years because it offers an alternative to slower and riskier sea freight and much costlier air cargo.…

The European Union has been China's largest trading partner for more than a decade, while China is one of the EU's biggest sources of imports. Bilateral trade amounted to 3.51 trillion U.S. dollars in 2015.

ECNS

5,000 China-Europe cargo trains expected by 2020

Xinhua — Editor: Xu Shanshan

yurasumy — Building the New Silk Road and New Eurasia

The New Silk Road likely corresponds in economic and geopolitical importance to the building of the continental railways in the 19th century in Europe and the United States. Before that, most shipping was by continental waterways. Most intercontinental shipping still uses waterways, and the New Silk Road is a combination of sea routes-ports and high speed rail.

The New Silk Road promises to do for Asia and Eurasia, and eventually Europe also what earlier development of sea and rail did for the West. (NATO in an acronym for North Atlantic Treaty Organization.)

Fort Russ
Building the New Silk Road and New Eurasia: Part 1 - China and the South
yurasumy, PolitRussia -
Translated for Fort Russ by J. Arnoldski

Building the New Silk Road and New Eurasia: Part 2 - Russia and the North
yurasumy, PolitRussia -
Translated for Fort Russ by J. Arnoldski

Building the New Silk Road and New Eurasia: Part 3 - Pipelines, railways, and highways from Europe to China
yurasumy, PolitRussia -
Translated for Fort Russ by J. Arnoldski

Asia Unhedged — PBOC injects $31 billion into 2 Silk Road-related policy banks

The People’s Bank of China injected a combined $31 billion into two policy banks linked to the New Silk Road project, said inside sources.

The central bank converted $16 billion worth of foreign exchange loans to China Development Bank (CDB) into equity shares in the bank, according to sources with knowledge of the matter, reported Chinese news site Caixin. It did the same with $15 billion worth of forex loans to Export-Import Bank of China (Exim). This follows a similar trade in April, when the PBOC invested $32 billion in CDB and $30 billion in China Exim.

The central bank is now the biggest shareholder in China Exim and the third-largest shareholder in CDB, after the Ministry of Finance and Central Huijin Investment.
Both banks have been given the job of supporting the central government’s New Silk Road Economic Belt initiative.

China realizes that the cost of capital is zero.

Meanwhile, the EZ "institutions" are strangling Greece, while the US and UK are "running out of money."

Who do you think is going to win this great game?

Asia Times Online
PBOC injects $31 billion into 2 Silk Road-related policy banks

Asia Unhedged