{"id":80987,"date":"2016-10-10T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2016-10-10T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=80987"},"modified":"2016-10-09T14:35:26","modified_gmt":"2016-10-09T13:35:26","slug":"why-the-new-silk-roads-terrify-washington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/10\/why-the-new-silk-roads-terrify-washington\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the New Silk Roads Terrify Washington"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"pepeescobar\"<\/a>7 Oct 2016 – <\/em>Almost six years ago, President Putin proposed to Germany ‘the creation of a harmonious economic community stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok.’<\/p>\n

This idea represented an immense trade emporium uniting Russia and the EU, or, in Putin\u2019s words, \u201ca unified continental market with a capacity worth trillions of dollars.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

In a nutshell: Eurasia integration<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Washington panicked. The record shows how Putin\u2019s vision \u2013 although extremely seductive to German industrialists – was eventually derailed by Washington\u2019s controlled demolition of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Three years ago, in Kazakhstan and then Indonesia, President Xi Jinping expanded on Putin\u2019s vision, proposing One Belt, One Road (OBOR), a.k.a. the New Silk Roads, enhancing the geoeconomic integration of Asia-Pacific via a vast network of highways, high-speed rail, pipelines, ports and fiber-optic cables.<\/p>\n

In a nutshell: an even more ambitious version of Eurasia integration, benefiting two-thirds of the world population, economy and trade. The difference is that it now comes with immense financial muscle backing it up, via a Silk Road Fund, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the BRICS\u2019s New Development Bank (NDB), and an all-out commercial offensive all across Eurasia, and the official entry of the yuan in the IMF\u2019s Special Drawing Rights; that is, the christening of the yuan as a key currency worth holding by every single emerging market central bank.<\/p>\n

At the recent G20 in Huangzhou, President Xi clearly demonstrated how OBOR is absolutely central to the Chinese vision of how globalization should proceed. Beijing is betting that the overwhelming majority of nations across Eurasia would rather invest in, and profit from, a \u201cwin-win\u201d economic development project than be bogged down in a lose-lose strategic game between the US and China.<\/p>\n

And that, for the Empire of Chaos, is absolute anathema. How to possibly accept that China is\u00a0winning<\/a> the 21st century \/ New Great Game in Eurasia by building the New Silk Roads?<\/p>\n

\"Russian<\/a>

Russian President Vladimir Putin (C) looks back at U.S. President Barack Obama (L) as they arrive with Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit plenary session. File photo. \u00a9 Pablo Martinez Monsivais \/ Reuters<\/p><\/div>\n

And don’t forget the Silk Road in Syria<\/strong><\/p>\n

Few in the West have noticed, as reported<\/a>\u00a0by RT, that the G20 was preceded by an Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. Essentially, that was yet another de facto celebration of Eurasia integration, featuring Russia, China, Japan and South Korea.<\/p>\n

And that integration plank will soon merge with the Russia-led Eurasia Economic Union \u2013 which in itself is a sort of Russian New Silk Road.<\/p>\n

All these roads lead to total connectivity. Take for instance cargo trains that are now regularly linking <\/a>Guangzhou, the key hub in southeast China, to the logistics center in\u00a0 Vorsino industrial park near Kaluga. The trip now takes just two weeks \u2013 saving no less than a full month if compared with shipping, and around 80 percent of the cost if compared with air cargo.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s yet another New Silk Road-style connection between China and Europe via Russia. Still another, vastly more ambitious, will be the high-speed rail expansion of the Transiberian; the Siberian Silk Road.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/RT_com\/status\/677060858892042240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/p>\n

Then take the closer integration of China and Kazakhstan \u2013 which is also a member of the EEU. The duty-free Trans-Eurasia railway is already in effect, from Chongqing in Sichuan across Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus and Poland all the way to Duisburg in Germany. Beijing and Astana are developing a joint free trade zone at Horgos. And in parallel, a $135 million China-Mongolia Cross-Border Economic Cooperation Zone started to be built last month.<\/p>\n

Kazakhstan is even flirting with the ambitious idea of a Eurasian Canal from the Caspian to the Black Sea and then further on to the Mediterranean. Sooner or later Chinese construction companies will come up with a feasibility study.<\/p>\n

A virtually invisible Washington agenda in Syria \u2013 inbuilt in the Pentagon obsession to not allow any ceasefire to work, or to prevent the fall of its \u201cmoderate rebels\u201d<\/em> in Aleppo \u2013 is to break up yet another New Silk Road hub. China has been commercially connected to Syria since the original Silk Road, which snaked through Palmyra and Damascus. Before the Syrian \u201cArab Spring\u201d, Syrian businessmen were a\u00a0vital presence<\/a> in Yiwu, south of Shanghai, the largest wholesale center for small-sized consumer goods in the world, where they would go to buy all sorts of products in bulk to resell in the Levant.<\/p>\n

The \u201cAmerican lake\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Neocon\/neoliberalcon Washington is totally paralyzed in terms of formulating a response \u2013 or at least a counter-proposal – to Eurasia integration. A few solid IQs at least may understand that China\u2019s \u201cthreat\u201d<\/em> to the US is all about economic might. Take Washington\u2019s deep hostility towards the China-driven\u00a0AIIB<\/a> (Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank). Yet no amount of hardcore US lobbying prevented allies such as Germany, Britain, Australia and South Korea from joining in.<\/p>\n

Then we had the mad dash to approve TPP \u2013 the China-excluding, NATO-on-trade arm of the pivot to Asia that was meant to be the cherry of the mostly flat Obama global economic policy cake. Yet the TPP as it stands is practically dead.<\/p>\n

What the current geopolitical juncture spells out is the US Navy willing to go no holds barred to stop China from strategically dominating the Pacific, while TPP is deployed as a weapon to stop China dominating Asia-Pacific economically.<\/p>\n

With the pivot to Asia configured as a tool to \u201cdeter Chinese aggression\u201d<\/em>, exceptionalists have graphically demonstrated how they are incapable of admitting the whole game is about post-ideological supply chain geopolitics. The US does not need to contain China; what it needs, badly, is key industrial, financial, commercial connection to crucial nodes across Asia to (re)build its economy.<\/p>\n

Those were the days, in March 1949, when MacArthur could gloat, \u201cthe Pacific is now an Anglo-Saxon lake\u201d<\/em>. Even after the end of the Cold War the Pacific was a de facto American lake; the US violated Chinese naval and aerial space at will.<\/p>\n

Now instead we have the US Army War College and the whole Think Tankland losing sleep over sophisticated Chinese missiles capable of denying US Navy access to the South China Sea. An American lake? No more.<\/p>\n

The heart of the matter is that China has made an outstanding bet on infrastructure building \u2013 which translates into first-class connectivity to everyone \u2013 as the real global 21st century commons, way more important than \u201csecurity\u201d.<\/em> After all a large part of global infrastructure still needs to be built. While China turbo-charges its role as the top global infrastructure exporter \u2013 from high-speed rail to low-cost telecom – the \u201cindispensable\u201d<\/em> nation is stuck with a \u201cpivoting\u201d,<\/em> perplexed, bloated military obsessed with containment.<\/p>\n

Divide and rule those \u201chostile\u201d rivals<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, things haven\u2019t changed much since Dr. Zbig \u201cGrand Chessboard\u201d<\/em> Brzezinski dreaming in the late 1990s of a Chinese fragmentation from within, all the way to Obama\u2019s 2015 National Security Strategy, which is no more than futile rhetorical nostalgia about containing Russia, China and Iran.<\/p>\n

Thus the basket of attached myths such as \u201cfreedom of navigation\u201d<\/em> – Washington\u2019s euphemism for perennially controlling the sea lanes that constitute China\u2019s supply chain \u2013 as well as an apotheosis of \u201cChina aggression\u201d<\/em> incessantly merging with \u201cRussia aggression\u201d;<\/em> after all, the Eurasia integration-driven Beijing-Moscow strategic partnership must be severed at all costs.<\/p>\n

Why? Because US global hegemony must always be perceived as an irremovable force of nature, like death and taxes (Apple in Ireland excluded).<\/p>\n

Twenty-four years after the Pentagon\u2019s Defense Planning Guide, the same mindset prevails; \u201cOur first objective is to prevent the reemergence of a new rival\u2026to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union and southwest Asia\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

Oops. Now even Dr. Zbig \u201cGrand Chessboard\u201d<\/em> Brzezinski is terrified. How to contain these bloody silky roads with Pentagon \u201cexistential threats\u201d<\/em> China and Russia right at the heart of the action? Divide and Rule \u2013 what else?<\/p>\n

For a confused Brzezinski, the US\u00a0should<\/a>\u201cfashion a policy in which at least one of the two potentially threatening states becomes a partner in the quest for regional and then wider global stability, and thus in containing the least predictable but potentially the most likely rival to overreach. Currently, the more likely to overreach is Russia, but in the longer run it could be China.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Have a pleasant nightmare.<\/p>\n

_________________________________<\/p>\n

Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian independent geopolitical analyst. He is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for Asia Times Online. He has been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before 9\/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars. He is the author of \u201cGlobalistan<\/a>\u201d (2007), \u201cRed Zone Blues<\/a>\u201d (2007), \u201cObama does Globalistan<\/a>\u201d (2009) and \u201cEmpire of Chaos<\/a>\u201d (2014), all published by Nimble Books. His latest book is \u201c2030<\/a>\u201c, also by Nimble Books, out in December 2015.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 rt.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

7 Oct 2016 – Almost six years ago, President Putin proposed to Germany ‘the creation of a harmonious economic community stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok.’ Washington panicked. The record shows how Putin\u2019s vision \u2013 although extremely seductive to German industrialists – was eventually derailed by Washington\u2019s controlled demolition of Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}