China Working to Boost Role in Middle East

China’s President Xi Jinping gives a speech during the 8th Ministerial Meeting of China-Arab States Cooperation Forum at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on July, 10, 2018. (WANG ZHAO/AFP/Getty Images)

 

Growing influence in the region helps China accelerate its Belt and Road Initiative.

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered remarks in Beijing on July 10 at the eighth ministerial meeting of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum. Xi’s basic message to the representatives from 21 Arab nations and to the secretary general of the Arab League was that China seeks to become more involved in the Middle East.

He stressed the importance of Sino-Arab relations, saying, “Arab states and China are natural partners.”

India, Pakistan join China and Russia-led security bloc

 

Asian rivals India and Pakistan on Friday formally joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a security bloc spearheaded by China and Russia, despite bilateral tensions bubbling over Kashmir.

Leaders of the largely symbolic body — including Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping — formally signed off on the sub-continent duo’s accession at the annual SCO summit in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana.

China eyes global economic leadership as U.S. turns inward

In this photo taken Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2016, Kenyan laborers and a Chinese foreman work to finish the construction of an existing bridge that goes across a corner of Nairobi National Park in Nairobi, Kenya. A controversial Chinese-built railway project involving an even larger 6km bridge that would go all the way over the beloved protected area in Kenya’s capital has divided conservationists in this East African country. (Photo: Ben Curtis, AP)

 

This year, a 300-mile railway will begin slicing through Kenya, cutting travel time between the capital, Nairobi, and one of East Africa’s largest ports, Mombasa, from 12 to four hours and breeding hopes of an economic and tourism revival in the region.

The country’s most significant transportation project since its independence in 1963 is being built courtesy of China.  China Road and Bridge, a state-owned enterprise, leads construction of the $13.8 billion project, which is financed nearly 100% by the Export-Import Bank of China.

The railroad is one of a host of infrastructure projects China spearheads around the world in an ambitious quest to reinforce its emergence as the world’s next economic superpower while President Trump turns his back on globalization.

China launches freight train to Britain

The train is part of an initiative by Chinese leader Xi Jinping

 

China launched its first freight train to London on Sunday, according to the China Railway Corporation.

The train will travel from Yiwu West Railway Station in Zhejiang Province, Eastern China to Barking, London, taking 18 days to travel over 7,400 miles. 

China-backed AIIB ‘on track to meet 2016 lending targets’

The China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is “on track” to meet its big first-year targets, including lending US$1.2 billion by the end of 2016, bank president Jin Liqun said on Friday.

After bringing many US allies on board and a high-profile launch in January, the multilateral lender moved onto the business of raising funds, gaining expertise, and recruiting experienced executives.

The bank, part of Beijing’s push to expand its regional clout, has lent US$829 million to six projects in Pakistan, Tajikistan, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

China Launches New Freight Train Link to Moscow

The railway authorities in Xinjiang said the additional cargo train service linking the region’s capital Urumqi with Moscow would contribute to the economic development of the autonomous region, which is seen as a “core area” of the Silk Road economic belt, Xinhua news agency reported.

Since March 2014, Xinjiang has opened cargo train service to Kazakhstan, Georgia, Iran, Turkey and also Chelyabinsk in Russia.

By the second half of the year, more than three cargo trains will run between Xinjiang and the destinations in Russia and also central and western Asia per week.

How China Is Building the Biggest Commercial-Military Empire in History

 

China’s outsized latticework of global infrastructure is said to be rooted in a fierce sense of competitiveness which they claim they learned from 19th century America.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the sun famously never set on the British empire. A commanding navy enforced its will, yet all would have been lost if it were not for ports, roads, and railroads. The infrastructure that the British built everywhere they went embedded and enabled their power like bones and veins in a body.

Great nations have done this since Rome paved 55,000 miles (89,000 km) of roads and aqueducts in Europe. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Russia and the United States established their own imprint, skewering and taming nearby territories with projects like the Trans-Siberian and the Trans-Continental railways.

Now it’s the turn of the Chinese. Much has been made of Beijing’s “resource grab” in Africa and elsewhere, its construction of militarized artificial islands in the South China Sea and, most recently, its new strategy to project naval power broadly in the open seas.

China sets up “largest” gold fund for nations along Silk Road

BEIJING: China, the world’s biggest gold producer, has set up a gold sector fund involving countries along the ancient Silk Road which is expected to raise $16.1 billion.

The fund, led by Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), is expected to raise an estimated 100 billion yuan ($16.1 billion) in three phases, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. It is said to be the “largest fund” set up by China.

AIIB a means for China to achieve ‘Belt and Road’

China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) initiative is a means to achieve its goal of bolstering regional integration and connectivity through its “Belt and Road” strategy, Lu Chung-ta, director of investments and marketing at Shin Kong Investment Trust Co.

The establishment of the AIIB is widely regarded as an effort by China to create an international financial institution that rivals the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Asia Development Bank and curb the US’s leading position in global financial decision-making bodies in the post-World War II era.

China plans Maritime Silk Road with ASEAN nations: Report

China is the 10-member ASEAN group’s largest trading partner, with the two-way trade exceeding $400 billion last year

China proposes to build a Maritime Silk Road with Southeast Asia countries where it is locked in a vexed dispute over the South China Sea to boost its foreign trade, state media here reported today.

The Maritime Silk Road (MSR) formed the basis the plans to enhance trade between China and ASEAN countries during the current visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Indonesia and Malaysia where he stated the MSR would help turn the “Golden Decade” between China and the region into “Diamond Decade”.