Belt & Road Breakthrough : Russia to build a Bridge linking Europe & Western China

The missing link of the “New Silk Highway” is set to finally be completed. Construction has begun on a new highway that will stretch from Russia’s border with Kazakhstan to Belarus, serving as a critical part of the China-Western Europe transport corridor—an infrastructure mega-project that has been described as the “construction of the century.” Authorities in Russia’s Samara Region are ready to begin construction of a 4km-long (2.5 miles) bridge across the Volga; it is the first part of an ambitious international traffic corridor linking Europe with Western China. The bridge will cost $1.8 billion, according to the latest version of the construction agreement. Once completed, the China-Western Europe transport corridor is meant to be the primary nervous system of the Silk Road Economic Belt, the overland portion of China's Belt and Road initiative. The corridor begins at the Chinese port of Lianyungang on the Yellow Sea and stretches along the Lianhuo Expressway, China’s longest road, to the Khorgos dry port on the border of Kazakhstan before moving through Russia en route to Western Europe. The corridor is meant to eventually combine road, rail and air transport hubs into a multi-modal ecosystem which could revolutionize the economic role of the central stretches of Eurasia and alter our paradigms of how goods are shipped between China and Europe. Ideally, this highway would allow trucks to travel between China and Europe in just eleven days, as opposed to 30-50 days by sea and 15 days by rail, making it the fastest overland option of the New Silk Road. In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the launch of both the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, infrastructure development and investment initiatives that would stretch from East Asia to Europe. The project, eventually termed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) but sometimes known as the New Silk Road, is one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects ever conceived. It harkens back to the original Silk Road, which connected Europe to Asia centuries ago, enriching traders from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Beijing’s multibillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been called a Chinese Marshall Plan, a state-backed campaign for global dominance, a stimulus package for a slowing economy, and a massive marketing campaign for something that was already happening – Chinese investment around the world. President Xi announced the initiative during official visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia in 2013. The plan was two-pronged: the overland Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road. The two were collectively referred to first as the One Belt, One Road initiative but eventually became the Belt and Road Initiative. Xi’s vision included creating a vast network of railways, energy pipelines, highways, and streamlined border crossings, both westward—through the mountainous former Soviet republics—and southward, to Pakistan, India, and the rest of Southeast Asia. Such a network would expand the international use of Chinese currency, the renminbi, while new infrastructure could “break the bottleneck in Asian connectivity,” according to Xi. The Asian Development Bank estimates that the region faces a yearly infrastructure financing shortfall of nearly $800 billion.In addition to physical infrastructure, China plans to build fifty special economic zones, modeled after the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, which China launched in 1980 during its economic reforms under leader Deng Xiaoping. Xi subsequently announced plans for the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road at the 2013 summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Indonesia. To accommodate expanding maritime trade traffic, China would invest in port development along the Indian Ocean, from Southeast Asia all the way to East Africa. Not all of the most ambitious Belt and Road projects are about hard infrastructure. China plans to set up international courts, in Shenzhen and Xi’an, the former hub of the original Silk Road, to resolve commercial disputes related to Belt and Road. “It’s a reminder BRI is about more than roads, railways, and other hard infrastructure,” said Jonathan Hillman, director of the Reconnecting Asia project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “It’s also a vehicle for China to write new rules, establish institutions that reflect Chinese interests, and reshape ‘soft’ infrastructure.” Officials have said the courts, to be based on the judiciary, arbitration and mediation agencies of China’s Supreme People’s Court in Beijing, will follow international rules and will invite legal experts from outside China to participate. Legal experts say the courts will likely be modeled on the Dubai International Financial Centre Courts and the International Commercial Court in Singapore, which has already struck an agreement with China to resolve Belt and Road-related disputes. But critics of the independence of the country’s judicial system, which traditionally answers to China’s ruling communist party, worry the courts will favour Chinese parties over foreign firms. China’s One Belt, One Road Will definitely reshape global trade . As it continues to evolve, the BRI has the potential to exacerbate existing tensions between Washington and Beijing. The United States has accused the Chinese of seeking “to shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests” and of forwarding a plan to “target their investments in the developing world to expand influence and gain competitive advantages against the United States.” Vice-President Mike Pence has explicitly criticized China for its alleged “debt diplomacy” and contrasted the Chinese and American foreign investment approaches, stating that “we don’t drown our partners in a sea of debt. We don’t coerce or compromise your independence.” As a response to Chinese lending activities, the U.S. Congress recently authorized the creation of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (IDFC). Beyond the provision of loans, the IDFC can hold ownership stakes in infrastructure assets and offer political risk protection to companies operating in developing countries. Seeking to employ local workers and facilitate greater private sector investment, the IDFC can work to avoid the debt trap problem created by the BRI. Only $60 billion in funding has been allocated to the organization thus far; China committed an equivalent sum to Africa alone at a September 2017 forum. Nevertheless, increased competition between the IDFC and the BRI could thicken the geopolitical climate and contribute to a wider U.S.-China conflict.










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