As Beijing Becomes a Supercity, the Rapid Growth Brings Pains

For decades, China’s government has tried to limit the size of Beijing, the capital, through draconian residency permits. Now, the government has embarked on an ambitious plan to make Beijing the center of a new supercity of 130 million people.

The planned megalopolis, a metropolitan area that would be about six times the size of New York’s, is meant to revamp northern China’s economy and become a laboratory for modern urban growth.

China Looking to Secure Access to Africa Via Mega Infrastructure Projects

Rulers in Africa are either very desperate, ruthless or very blind to what China has created on their continent. Either way, China is swiping away any resource opportunities away in the continent from the United States.

 

MOSCOW, February 2 (Sputnik) — The African Union and China have recently agreed to on an ambitious transport infrastructure blueprint, aiming to link the capitals of all 54 states of the African continent via motorways, rail and air links. Promoting the development of a mature system of transport infrastructure in Africa will be extremely beneficial to China, guaranteeing it access to natural resources and markets on the continent, Chatham House Asia Program Associate Fellow James Edward Hoare told Sputnik on Monday.

China’s New Silk Road Must Pass Through Middle East

JERUSALEM — Three hundred kilometers by high-speed rail between the cities of Eilat and Ashdod, connecting the Red Sea coast to the Mediterranean: They call it the “Red-Med” Project.

Financed by Beijing and launched from Jerusalem, China has revealed its strategy for “West Asia” — the term that the China Shipping Container Lines company uses to delineate the area of operations between Hormuz, Suez and Haifa.

The use of the term West Asia rather than Middle East is no accident — this gives precedence to the size of the economic link with China rather than the ever troublesome geopolitics of the region.