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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| China’s Central Asian Plans Are Unnerving Moscow |
| 2019-12-27 |
| [FP] KHORGOS, Kazakhstan—On the China-Kazakhstan border, flanked by snowcapped peaks, a highway cuts through a barren landscape to reach this terminal at Khorgos. Here, amid a collection of cranes, rail tracks, and warehouses, a growing town is poised to become a bustling inland transport hub and a vital link in China’s vast and battered Belt and Road Initiative. Khorgos is roughly 1,550 miles from the nearest coastline, but developers have dubbed the site a “dry port,” a terminal designed to process overland cargo. It began operating in 2015 and has seen steady growth. But it is also a launching pad for Beijing’s ambitions to connect Europe to Asia through new trade and transport routes under what Chinese President Xi Jinping has called “the project of the century.” A nearby special economic zone is already home to a few factories and boasts lofty ambitions for future investment and industry. On the Chinese side of the border, the scope and scale of the project is already visible, with a sister city of high-rises and shopping malls, also called Khorgos, home to a population of more than 100,000 people after the town was officially opened in 2014. Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s largest economy, has fully embraced its partnership with China, branding itself as the “buckle” of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and looking to profit from the new economic opportunities provided by Beijing. “Four or five years ago, there was nothing here,” said Nurlan Toganbayev, the director of the commercial department at the Khorgos Gateway, motioning toward railway tracks and cargo containers behind his office. “Right now, we are a terminal, but in the future we will grow into something far larger.” China’s push into Central Asia through Belt and Road-linked investment projects has made Central Asia into a geopolitical laboratory—and a new frontier for global trade. Russia has traditionally seen the former Soviet Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan as its own sphere of influence, but Beijing’s rise as the dominant economic force has changed the dynamics in the region, opening up a new era of recalibration. Beijing and Moscow aren’t the only players, either. In addition to advances from India, Japan, and the European Union, the Trump administration plans to publish a new strategy for Central Asia ahead of an expected trip by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to the region in January. “Central Asia is an interesting case where China is moving carefully in a hostile environment,” said Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center. “[Beijing] has taken a pragmatic, and at times accommodating, approach to Russia in order to leverage its position into becoming the region’s major economic power.” |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #7 A Chinese takeover of the Russian Far East + most of Siberia is not "nothing," Herb. Geopolitically, that would make them a global rival to us. We need a strong Russia to contain China. |
| Posted by: Lex 2019-12-27 14:56 |
| #6 Germans, Poles, French and Germans did not occupy Russia...not for very long anyway. You can invade it but to occupy Russia for any length of time you must have massive numbers of troops, the kind of numbers that only Asians can bring. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2019-12-27 14:41 |
| #5 #2 Germans, Poles, French, Germans again |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2019-12-27 13:38 |
| #4 A couple hundred thousand Chinamen on my border would have me concerned. You know they're up to no good. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2019-12-27 13:35 |
| #3 Who cares? There are no customers here. It's the middle of nowhere. It's amazing how China can get people to panic over nothing. |
| Posted by: Herb McCoy 2019-12-27 09:49 |
| #2 Ah, go embrace that dragon Putie. NB - the only people who invaded and occupied Russia* were the Mongols from the east. *after the Nordic Rus put roots in. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2019-12-27 08:04 |
| #1 Play the Russia card against China. |
| Posted by: Lex 2019-12-27 02:07 |