The new Asian fusion
- By Li Xin
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E-mail Beijing Review, May 4, 2014
The Maritime Silk Road is based on the opening up of China's southeast coastal region toward the Asia-Pacific. It includes trade facilitation measures such as conducting FTA talks between China, Japan and South Korea, deepening trade, finance and investment cooperation between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, creating an upgraded version of the China-ASEAN FTA as well as launching FTA negotiations between China and Australia. The Maritime Silk Road could even extend northward, connecting with Russia's Arctic sea routes and strengthening cooperation on the construction of infrastructure such as ports between China and Russia.
China's drive to rejuvenate its northeastern industrial bases tallies favorably with Russia's Far East development strategy. The Vladivostok APEC Summit in 2012 marked the start of Russia's new Asia-Pacific strategy. The current Western sanctioning triggered by the Ukrainian crisis has further forced Moscow to shift its strategic focus eastward, urging Russia's eastern region to join the Asia-Pacific's political and economic integration process. The further development of the region—including the reconstruction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, energy resource exploitation, infrastructure construction as well as agricultural development—calls for in-depth international financial and technological collaboration. Against this backdrop, China and Russia need to renew their regional development cooperation plan for China's northeast and Russia's Far East reached in 2009 to further facilitate their cooperation.
Global impact
The two silk roads will boost regional connectivity with railways, highways, airways, sea lanes, oil and gas pipelines, power transmission lines and communication networks. They will connect the Asia-Pacific with the EU, providing new opportunities for the development of Eurasia. Extensive interaction among Eurasian countries via policy communication, traffic connection, free trade and free flow of currency will vigorously promote regional economic development as well as peace, harmony and stability of the region. Across-the-board cooperation among these countries in terms of capital, human resources, technology and information can help unleash new economic growth potential and finally shape a huge Eurasian market.
Compared with the Russia-led Eurasian integration process and the New Silk Road initiated by the United States, the most important features of the two silk roads of China are openness and inclusiveness. The Eurasian integration process is to reintegrate former Soviet Union countries through a customs union and the Eurasian Economic Union, which excludes the participation of China. The U.S. New Silk Road, aimed at help Central Asian countries to get rid of dependence on Russia and China, plans to open up a passageway from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean through Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Similarly, the EU-backed Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia is to free Central Asian countries from Russian dependence.
China's two silk roads are not exclusive; instead they are open to all countries and regions, allowing them to share development outcomes. The two silk roads, together with Russia's Trans-Eurasian Development Belt, can promote Eurasian economic integration and build the Eurasian market. The participation of countries from the Asia-Pacific region and Europe will form a new pattern of economic integration, which will have a major impact on the current world economic landscape and help usher in a new political and economic order worldwide.
The author is director of the Center for Russian and Central Asian Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies
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