CHINA’S SILK ROAD IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS: FIRST TRAIN FROM CHINA ...
Catherine Austin Fitts shares this one, and it's worth passing along, for it is huge with economic and, more importantly, geopolitical significance. As you read this, compare China's approach in the region, to the USAs:
The ancient ‘Silk Road’ is back in business as new train connects China to Tehran
Now if you've been following this story, and China's ambitious plans (and let's not forget, Russia's as well), to expand the rail networks in central Asia, Siberia, and (in Russia's case), across the northern reaches of Eurasia in the Arctic, this will posisbly come as a surprise, for the links are being built, and now, used. And the usage is huge with geopolitical significance.
With that in mind, there's a significant statement in this article:
The first train connecting Iran and China loaded with Chinese goods arrived in Tehran Monday, reviving the ancient Silk Road trade route and highlighting the economic possibilities for Iran since the lifting of international sanctions, AFP reports. The 5,900-mile trip from eastern Zhejiang province took 14 days, or 30 days less than a typical sea voyage between Shanghai and the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, according to the head of the Iranian railway company, Mohsen Pourseyed Aqayi. (Emphasis added)
The key here is the relative quickness and ease, not to mention cost effectiveness, of moving goods by rail(and one may assume, eventually a linked road and highway network as well), between China and Europe. Effectively, this is a huge offset to American sea power and its ability to interdict trade if necessary; it's an end run around that power, and a direct challenge to the principal feature of Anglo-American geopolitics for more than a century, which has been to prevent precisely the formation of such a huge trade zone circumventing its naval power and the trade and empire built from it. Think George Orwell's "Oceania" here.
China's approach is a long term "soft power" approach, one in almost direct contrast to the American destablization efforts in the region. China builds railroads, ships goods, and America drops bombs and drones. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out which approach will win friends and influence people in the long run.
But this also means that Chinese military power can also be swiftly projected into the region, if need be. Of course, rail lines are as subject to interdiction as sea lanes, but the problem here for the strategists of "Oceania" is that the land powers of the region, China and Russia, are not the same thing as the smaller nations the American military is used to bullying. And this means, inevitably, that China will play a role in the Middle East, if only to ensure the stability of its investments. In the light of last Thursday's News and Views on F. William Engdahl's assessments of American strategy in the region, That strategy, as he outlined it, was to create massive instability in the region, and indeed, perhaps it is a strategy designed to upset the plans of China. Indeed, if Middle eastern oil is jeopardized by regional conflict, this will only hurt CHina, and fuel American domestic production once again, which has been hurt by the recent low oil prices. China, conversely, will seek stability in the region, and to project its power eastward into the Pacific, and to develop Russian energy resources even more.
The "grand chessboard" just became very interesting. What's the next step for Russia and China? Watch the "stans" of Central Asia...
See you on the flip side...
23 Comments
Help the Community Grow
Please understand a donation is a gift and does not confer membership or license to audiobooks. To become a paid member, visit member registration.
This is going to get interesting, there will definetly be clashing of the superpowers one way or another
Some vital background
Storm Over Asia- from 1999….Very Prescient!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-695NtUNSII
Thanks for the link but I finally got to watch the 1928 Russian film instead.
I finally watch the video Gaia two hours and thirty eight minutes but worth every second no dead wood in this presentation.
First Engdahl comes out of the LaRouche organization, the Schiller Institute, which is where the whole “Silk Road” revival idea
originates back in the 1990’s as the historical strategic flank against the British Empire with a “Eurasian Land Bridge” for development between China and western Europe.
quoting-
In her address to the symposium, Mrs. LaRouche explained her role in the germination of the idea known in China as the “One Belt, One Road.”. She explained how she and her husband, economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche, had, with the break-up of the Soviet Union, expanded on the series of development programs they had worked on for decades, to elaborate a program for linking the entire Eurasian continent.
This would be done with a system of high-speed rail lines that would help bring the land-locked and newly independent nations of Central Asia, and vast underpopulated and underdeveloped regions of Central Russia, into the mainstream of international commerce and trade, thereby creating a land corridor for trade and economic development between Europe and Asia. The LaRouches dubbed this “The Eurasian Land-Bridge.”
Discussions with representatives of the Chinese government in the early 1990s led to a conference in Beijing organized under the auspices of the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology in 1996, Mrs. LaRouche explained. This conference with leading experts from China and 34 other Eurasian countries, included an address by Mrs. LaRouche devoted to the implementation of this project.
The Asian financial crisis of 1997 and the ruble crisis of 1998 prevented the further movement of this project. And it was only in September 2013 that Chinese President Xi Jinping revived the notion in his famous speech at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan, calling for the creation of a Silk Road Economic Belt to unite Europe and Asia.
The concept of the New Silk Road points in the direction of a new paradigm of mankind, Zepp-LaRouche told her audience, and away from the “geopolitics” which caused two world wars in the last century, to replace it with the idea of the common aims of mankind, which is reflected in Xi Jinping’s “win-win policy.” While the “One Belt, One Road” has become the going term for the Chinese project, Mrs. LaRouche underlined the importance of the Silk Road precedent. “We should keep the term the New Silk Road,” she said, “as it clearly expresses this cultural vision of cooperation manifested by the ancient Silk Road.”
She then went into the crisis in the Middle East and the massive flow of refugees into Europe from the war-torn areas created by U.S. policy under Bush and Obama. There is a very recent recognition by many European nations, that there must be a change in policy and the root causes of the refugee crisis must be adressed, she said. It is not enough to fight the Islamic extremists militarily; there must also be a real economic reconstruction of the entire region, which is now completely destroyed by war, to create a future for the young people now being attracted to violent jihad.
“We can extend the Silk Road to the Middle East,” she said, “creating centers of development. We can make the deserts bloom and create new cities. The New Silk Road can become a peace order for the Twenty-First Century,” she said. “If successful, it will create a new age of civilization, and if it fails, we will enter a new dark age.”
Reversing 40 Years of Disaster
EIR‘s Washington Bureau Chief Bill Jones then outlined the tremendous possibilities opened for the world, including the United States, with the implementation of the Silk Road project. He noted how Lyndon LaRouche, in 1975, proposed the creation of an International Development Bank for financing the development of the Third World, and how the Foreign Minister of Guyana Fred Wills, had, in collaboration with LaRouche, issued at the UN General Assembly in 1976 a call for a New World Economic Order and a debt moratorium for the developing nations.
EIR’s Bill Jones speaking at the September 2015 Beijing press conference.
EIR’s Bill Jones speaking at the September 2015 Beijing press conference.
“But there would be no new world economic order nor any debt moratorium,” Jones said. And the world then entered into a new phase of inflationary expansion of the world financial system which now encompasses over $2 quadrillion of accumulated—and unpayable—debt. “President Xi’s project of a land and maritime Silk Road Initiative offers now the possibility of reversing that dangerous trajectory,” Jones said.
“The world stands in amazement over China’s development in the last few decades,” Jones said, “and now China is offering a similar development for the rest of the world.”
Jones also noted that, while the U.S. Administration has been less than enthusiastic about the project, there was a growing understanding in the United States, particularly at the state and local levels, which are greatly suffering the effects of the financial crisis, as well as among industrial layers, that what China is doing—and is offering the world—represents a ray of hope in an otherwise disastrous economic situation.
The Appreciation by Experts
These two presentations were followed by comments from eight leading Chinese scholars, who had read the report. Their reaction to the report was absolutely electric. Professor Bao Shixiu, formerly a Professor of Military Strategy at the PLA Academy of Military Sciences, said that bringing together the countries of the region around the New Silk Road initiative in a process of regional development was the task of the day.
“It is also related to the notion of good governance,” Professor Bao said, “and everyone has good feelings about this concept. We will thereby create a good neighborhood and begin to build a European common destiny.”
This was also the idea behind the notion of the Eurasian Land-Bridge put forward by the Schiller Institute in the 1990s, he said.
Ding Yifan, the former deputy director of the World Development Institute of the Development Research Center of the State Council of the P.R.C., underlined the importance of the economic concepts of Lyndon LaRouche, laying at the basis of the report.
“I have known the Schiller Institute for a long time,” he said, “and I have learned much from them. They have very specific ideas about the world economy. The concept underlying LaRouche’s view of the economy is that of the physical economy. LaRouche used the term negentropy to characterize the underlying laws of a healthy functioning economy,” Ding Yifan said.
“Helga Zepp-LaRouche put forward the concept of the Eurasian Land-Bridge as a war avoidance concept,” Ding added. “The new concept of the Belt and Road has received great attention from the whole world. … We cannot allow capital to control everything. Instead, we must control capital.”
Shi Ze from the China Institute of International Studies explained how the problem in the world today is caused by geopolitical thinking.
“Geopolitics has led to the dangerous situation we have today. The aim of the report is to develop a concept to replace geopolitics. And I found such a concept in this book,” Shi said. “On the other hand, is the economic aspect of the report, which places the stress on creating infrastructure. We have to look at the infrastructure needs of the other countries,” he said. “I am confident about the development of the Land-Bridge and I believe Mrs. LaRouche has made great progress in her idea.”
Tao Qingmei of the Beijing Long Way Foundation noted that the report also mooted the question of a new order and a new relationship between nations.
“This book reflects the views of U.S. experts and I really respect them. We should rethink the world on the basis of the new relationship between nations.”
Wang Xiangsui, the director for the Center for Strategic Studies at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, called the report “a road to the future.”
“Today we have to proceed from a regional perspective, one which involves economics, politics, and culture. China is learning from other countries. And this book is very important in that respect,” he said.
Zhang Jianping, the Director of the Department of International Economic Cooperation at the National Development and Reform Commission, underlined the collaborative nature of the Silk Road Initiative and its openness to all countries. While noting skepticism from the U.S. side about the Silk Road project, he saw a certain shift in policy with regard to the U.S. view of the AIIB. Europe, on the other hand, was becoming absolutely enthusiastic about the project. Zhang felt that the EIR report, which he also noted was the result of 20 years’ labor, was an important element in promoting the idea of the New Silk Road in the United States.
Zhao Changhui from the China Export-Import Bank praised Progress Publishing for bringing out this report. He called the Silk Road project a thousand-year initiative. “When reading the report we have to ask ourselves how we can make a difference. It leads us to reflect on our own obligations.” He said that scholars must develop a long-term vision, as it was reflected in the report.
Liu Ying, the Director of the Department of Cooperative Research at Chongyang Institute, noted that the report was written from a global perspective, but from a modern global perspective, including from a space perspective.
“This report is about predicting the future rather than just explaining the past,” Liu Ying said.
All the participants received a copy of the Chinese report. The Chongyang Institute had purchased 1000 copies which they will distribute free of charge to a wide section of the Chinese political and intellectual circles. There was a considerable amount of coverage of the press conference in the economic press stressing the fact that this was the first analysis by “American scholars” of the Chinese project. There was also widespread recognition in the media reports of the role of Mrs. LaRouche and the Schiller Institute as a key initiator of this project in the early 1990s.
The high-level participation in the event by eight Chinese scholars, and the sponsorship by the prestigious Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, underlined the fact that the EIR report has now become an authoritative source for Chinese scholars in pursuing the “One Belt, One Road” project. The economic concepts championed by Lyndon LaRouche over the period of 50-plus years have now become a staple for the intellectual layers in this, the most populous country in the world.
https://worldlandbridge.com/2015/10/06/zepp-larouche-presents-eirs-new-silk-road-report-at-beijing-symposium/
I suspect that there is a connection, lurking beneath this, to the drama that China has instigated in the South China Sea.
Something like $5 trillion in trade passes through those shipping lanes, every year. I wonder if China wants (however futile) to control those lanes, in an attempt to funnel the inter-Asian trade traffic into this rail system.
what exactly does a stronger silk road achieve for asia and the middle east? what exactly are they going to trade?
currently, the idea seems most valuable in artificially supporting china’s ridiculous gdp numbers. kinda like their construction of fifty plus ghost cities?
of course that might splain the whole think. how many of those cities are on the silk road’s path? as i wrote recently in a comment on immigration flooding tactics, mr global will probably try sending less powerful less desirable folk en masse to china’s ghost cities soon enough.
The Ghost cities are part of agenda 21/2030 and they are about to begin the forcible relocation of 250,000 people from rural areas into them. It would seem even the Chinese aren’t immune to this nonsense.
This is also what the BLM land grabs in the US are about.
This geopolitical chessboard presumes two players. Two dialectics, two world viewpoint at crossed swords. Presumably; broad brush strokes are painting this landscapes between National-States, determining their own political/economic infrastructure/protocols against/bordering a Transnational Digital Capitalism where the commanding heights of capital rule politics.
It would appear to be a no-brainer that the U.S. needs brave, determined, and well-supported leaders to demand a restructured system of checks and balances to halt the unethical influence of wealthy power on our democratic representatives. It boils down to a wicked witches debt-trap stew where Wall Street’s capital-flight brooms are sweep-up outrageous fortunes by magically creating-money out of thin-air & claiming it as pure-profit$.
Meaning contrasting this landscape of betrayal where bridges are collapsing, along with road and rail tracks is the China Silk road, where political capital is assuming commanding heights and using money as tools to fashion infrastructures with others who are discarding the black magic of the Wall Street Gods.
The Chinese have are stepping outside capital’s choking smog and dirty waters, wanting to breath more free and determine their own model/destiny; based more on life, than death. More to do with Confucius than Satan.
Confucius/In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.
The Chinese/Russian leadership want to end
the global dollar/oil hegemony.
“Hey, that’s a nice rail line you have there, sure would be a shame if anything were to happen to it.”
-CIA
That has been my reaction, too. I suspect any ‘interdiction’ would be indirect, and veiled as an Act of God. Landslides in steep terrain. Bridges damaged during storms or floods. Tracks misaligned, probably by the earthquake tremors. Those kind of things.
I do expect the Silk Road trade route to be a success, because the ‘hidden’ power controlling the US is angering so many people. This ‘stance’ will, unfortunately, blow back on the US economy. Tehran, for example, just placed orders for 150 Airbus passenger aircraft. No Boeing…
(Anyone still remember Tibet? That ‘issue’ has been so carefully submerged in the media that even I go a while without thinking of it. I am curious what the ‘karma’ of China will be on that ‘land grab’…)
Speaking of Tibet goshawks may I recommend “Tibet: An Unfinished Story” by Lezlee Brown Harper & Stefan Harper publish in 2014.
Thank you, Marcos. I looked it up on Amazon, and it looks interesting. Also interesting was that only one review had been posted there, since the book published in April 2014. Quite a difference with other Amazon listings…
Once, a Tibetan Lama came to a nearby town, so I went to hear him talk. After some time, he said he was going to ‘pray’ for the audience. I was curious about this, so I watched him carefully with my non-visual senses. Well, some part of him rose around ten feet over his head, and then from this area ‘sprayed’ light over the audience. Very interesting! (Also, ‘Someone’ was to his left during his speaking, who was not visible to ordinary sight. Also interesting!)
That would be countered by any number of “accidents” that could affect American infrastructure equally. Think about those snipers shooting up an electrical transformer station and then melting away. Hmmm.
It’s rather shocking that only today is such a rail network being inaugurated, if you were ignorant of ‘beggar thy neighbor’ as an abiding guiding principle of international affairs.
BTW, wasn’t WW I fought in large part to stymie just such an intercontinental rail network?
Basta,
Good point about WW1.
The Western Elites are and have always been educated barbarians. China is pushing the idea of a Eurasian rail network while the CSA has been destroying or letting it’s rail network fall apart since the last century. And destruction and plunder and drug pushing is the real economy of the West for centuries It’s “Burn Baby Burn” and “Chaos Out Of Order” the West mottos.
The game is afoot. Can China, Russia and the BRICSA bring stability faster than the West, the IMF and NATO can bring destabilization and destruction is the question? One has to consider the willingness of the Globalists to burn it all down, if necessary, to achieve their goals. Hence the driving of “refugees” into Europe and the support of “radical Islam” in the Middle East using the farce of “humanitarian” aid and the bringing of “democracy” to the region along with the demonization of China and Russia in the MSM and the privatization and austerity measures in targeted nations.
Their playbook is wearing thin and their propaganda becoming more and more outrageous. The world is tiring of their wars, constant lies and destruction. Will Europe survive the onslaught of “refugees” unscathed? Will the corporations achieve the upper hand with their “trade agreements” over the sovereign nations? Can they force their NWO on an unwilling world or will more reasonable heads prevail?
Tune in next week and see what the authors of this global soap opera have in mind.
Just a thought, remember the wild west and all the train robberies. It’s much easier to sabotage rails than ships. Should these rail lines start suffering breakdowns of questionable origin…
Good succinct posts again today WalkingDead.
Awaiting the Paris-Peking (or Venice-Peking!) rail line…