The Economist: China’s flagship foreign policy aims to put itself at the centre of the world once ag

[TomSea]

China’s flagship foreign policy aims to put itself at the centre of the world once again
Feb 6th 2020

ON CHINA’S BORDER with Kazakhstan, a new Silk Road city has sprung up with such speed that Google Earth has scarcely begun to record the high-rises that now float on a winter mist above the steppe. What once would have been flattered to be called a hard-scrabble border town is now home to 200,000 people, giant outdoor video screens extolling the glories of a new Silk Road, and restaurants serving sashimi and European wine. Khorgos has become China’s gateway to Central Asia, and all the way to Europe.

A twin town is going up in Kazakhstan. A duty-free mall already straddles the border for Kazakhstanis to get deals on booze, perfume and cut-price Chinese goods. But the key features, just across the border, are the giant gantry cranes more usually seen in the world’s ports. The Khorgos Gateway is a container terminal, a “dry port” built from scratch in 2014. The transport hub is intended as a critical link in what China’s president, Xi Jinping, has called the “Eurasian land bridge”. Among its investors is China’s COSCO, one of the world’s shipping giants. It is run by DP World, Dubai’s port operator. Last year the dry port handled 160,000 TEUs (a unit equivalent to a 20-foot container). Hicham Belmaachi, its Moroccan manager, expects that to rise to 400,000 in 2025.

Khorgos is in the middle of nowhere: Eurasia’s pole of inaccessibility, the point on Earth farthest from any ocean, lies not far away. Now, beyond it, a vast new Eurasian supercontinent is forming. The promise is not just of railways through Central Asia to Europe but of gargantuan plans—some already realised—for pipelines, roads, high-speed rail and fibre-optic cables.

Read more at: https://www.economist.com/special-report/2020/02/06/chinas-flagship-foreign-policy-aims-to-put-itself-at-the-centre-of-the-world-once-again

[Fishrrman]

Map can be seen here:
https://www.economist.com/img/b/1280/985/85/sites/default/files/20200208_SRM968.png

I wonder what impact the coronavirius epidemic is having on all of this?

[skeeter]

They always considered themselves at the center of the world. Central Kingdom is their ancient name.

[Absalom]

There have been many world ranking Empires, Nation/States since the Garden of Eden
and history has ranked/labeled them, not themselves!!!
Consider Egypt, Greece, Rome, Great Britain; among many. China was never in their class. NEVER!

[skeeter]

There have been many world ranking Empires, Nation/States since the Garden of Eden
and history has ranked/labeled them, not themselves!!!
Consider Egypt, Greece, Rome, Great Britain; among many. China was never in their class. NEVER!

Agree. They may have had high culture within their borders at one time but they could never extend it beyond their borders.

[Absalom]

Agree. They may have had high culture within their borders at one time but they could never extend it beyond their borders.

------------------------
Skeeter, permit a opinion/reflection.
Greece and Rome grasped that the creative impulse originated w/the individual; not the group/tribe. As such they fostered that spirit and it resulted in the founding of Western Civilization, our heritage.
China, ruled by Dynasties, much later by Militarists and now by Marxists, has never encouraged the individual and his ideas, perceiving them as a threat to their autocratic governance.
Given China's perception of ideas, is it any wonder they cheat, lie and steal the ideas of others?
Yet forecasters insist that China owns the future of the world. Really?????
 

[skeeter]

------------------------
Skeeter, permit a opinion/reflection.
Greece and Rome grasped that the creative impulse originated w/the individual; not the group/tribe. As such they fostered that spirit and it resulted in the founding of Western Civilization, our heritage.
China, ruled by Dynasties, much later by Militarists and now by Marxists, has never encouraged the individual and his ideas, perceiving them as a threat to their autocratic governance.
Given China's perception of ideas, is it any wonder they cheat, lie and steal the ideas of others?
Yet forecasters insist that China owns the future of the world. Really?????

The Chinese might need that authoritarianism. So I’ve been told by ethnic Chinese when I’ve expounded the advantages of the modern western form of governance.