The Emperor’s New Road: China and the Project of the Century

by Jonathan E. Hillman

  42. Raffaello Pantucci and Sarah Lain, China’s Eurasian Pivot: The Silk Road Economic Belt (New York: Routledge, 2017); Nadège Rolland, “Securing the Belt and Road: Prospects for Chinese Military Engagement along the Silk Roads” (NBR Special Report 80, National Bureau of Asian Research, Seattle, WA, September 3, 2019), https://www.nbr.org/publication/securing-the-belt-and-road-prospects-for-chinese-military-engagement-along-the-silk-roads/.

  43. Craig Nelson and Thomas Grove, “Russia and China Vie for Influence in Central Asia as U.S. Plans Afghan Exit,” Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-china-vie-for-influence-in-central-asia-as-u-s-plans-afghan-exit-11560850203.

  44. Sebastian Peyrouse, “The Evolution of Russia’s Views on the Belt and Road Initiative,” Asia Policy 24, no. 1 (2017): 96–102; Safovudin Jaborov, “Chinese Loans in Central Asia: Development Assistance or ‘Predatory Lending’?,” in China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Its Impact in Central Asia, ed. Marlène Laruelle (Washington, DC: George Washington University, Central Asia Program, 2018), 34–40.

  45. Harinder S. Koli, Johannes Lynn, and Leo Zucker, China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Potential Transformation of Central Asia and the South Caucus (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2019).

  46. Until Kyrgyzstan joined the Eurasian Economic Union, it played the role of a trade entrepôt for China, leveraging its World Trade Organization status to then reexport goods into the Commonwealth of Independent States. Almazbek Atambayev, quoted in “Kyrgyzstan in the Project ‘One Belt, One Road’: Perspectives and Opportunities” (in Russian), CA-portal, May 19, 2017, http://www.ca-portal.ru/article:35040.

  47. “Interview of President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon to the Newspaper Renmin Ribao [The People’s Daily]” (in Russian), Press Service of President of Republic of Tajikistan, September 4, 2017, http://www.president.tj/ru/node/16094; “Meetings and Negotiations of the Highest Level between Tajikistan and China” (in Russian), Press Service of President of Republic of Tajikistan, August 31, 2017, http://www.prezident.tj/ru/node/16060.

  48. “Shavkat Mirziyoyev: Our Peoples Must in Reality Feel the Effects of Our Joint Efforts,” official website of the president of Uzbekistan, April 27, 2019, https://president.uz/en/lists/view/2533.

  49. Government of Turkmenistan, “‘Turkmenistan Is the Heart of the Great Silk Road’: The New Book of President of Turkmenistan,” accessed June 25, 2019, http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/911041512488377918/TURKMENISTAN-IS-THE-HEART-OF-THE-GREAT-SILK-ROAD.pdf.

  50. Center for Insights in Survey Research, “Public Opinion Survey Residents of Kyrgyzstan,” February 5, 2018 (data was collected from November 19 to December 2, 2017), http://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/2018-2-5_iri_poll_presentation_kyrgyzstan.pdf.

  51. Steve LeVine, The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea (New York: Random House, 2007).

  52. “Kazakhstan Inaugurates Automobile Ferry Terminal on Caspian Sea,” Agencia EFE, December 7, 2017, https://www.efe.com/efe/english/business/kazakhstan-inaugurates-automobile-ferry-terminal-on-caspian-sea/50000265-3460021.

  53. For more detailed accounts of these dynamics around the Caspian region, see work by Natalie Koch, especially “Urban Boosterism in Closed Contexts: Spectacular Urbanization and Second-Tier Mega-Events in Three Caspian Capitals,” Eurasian Geography and Economics 56, no. 5 (2015): 575–598.

  54. Transparency International, “Global Corruption Report 2005: Corruption in Construction and Post-Conflict Reconstruction,” March 16, 2005, https://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/publication/global_corruption_report_2005_corruption_in_construction_and_post_conflict.

  55. “Tajik President’s Son-in-Law Denies Ties to Company,” Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, July 12, 2010, https://www.rferl.org/a/Tajik_Presidents_SonInLaw_Denies_Ties_To_Company/2097815.html.

  56. Konrad Mathesius, “Tajik Toll Road Raises Public Ire, Stokes Corruption Concerns,” Eurasianet, September 17, 2010, https://eurasianet.org/tajik-toll-road-raises-public-ire-stokes-corruption-concerns.

  57. “Tajik President Sacks Official Who Criticized Toll Road,” Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, January 24, 2011, https://www.rferl.org/a/tajik_ashur_sacking_toll_road/2285206.html; “Tajik Court Frees Journalist, Reduces Sentence to Fine and Community Service,” Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, August 22, 2018, https://www.rferl.org/a/tajik-court-frees-journalist-mirsaidov-reduces-sentence-fine-community-service/29447571.html.

  58. Hélène Thibault, Transforming Tajikistan: State-Building and Islam in Post-Soviet Central Asia (New York: Bloomsbury, 2018).

  59. Elnura Alkanova, “Abuse of Power? On the Trail of China’s Mystery Millions in Kyrgyzstan,” Open Democracy, October 24, 2018, https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/elnura-alkanova/what-happened-at-bishkek-power-plant.

  60. Alexander Cooley, “The Emerging Political Economy of OBOR: The Challenges of Promoting Connectivity in Central Asia and Beyond” (report of the SCIS Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, October 2016), https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/161021_Cooley_OBOR_Web.pdf; Alexander Cooley and John Heathershaw, Dictators without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017).

  61. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), Quarterly Report to the United States Congress (Washington, DC: SIGAR, 2018), https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2018-07-30qr.pdf.

  62. Transparency International, “Transparency in Corporate Reporting: Assessing Emerging Market Multinationals,” July 11, 2016, https://issuu.com/transparencyinternational/docs/2016_transparencyincorporatereporti?e=2496456/37122985.

  63. Kevin P. Gallagher, Rohini Kamal, Junda Jin, Yanning Chen, and Xinyue Ma, “Energizing Development Finance? The Benefits and Risks of China’s Development Finance in the Global Energy Sector,” Energy Policy 122 (November 2018), 313–321, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421518303975; Geoff Dyer and Jamil Anderlini, “China’s Lending Hits New Heights,” Financial Times, January 17, 2011, https://www.ft.com/content/488c60f4-2281-11e0-b6a2-00144feab49a.

  64. Christopher Balding, “Why Democracies Are Turning against Belt and Road: Corruption, Debt, and Backlash,” Foreign Affairs, October 24, 2018, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2018-10-24/why-democracies-are-turning-against-belt-and-road.

  Chapter Four. The Gatekeeper: Russia

  1. James Forsyth, A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia’s North Asian Colony, 1581–1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 222.

  2. U.S. State Department, “Comments of Soviet Embassy Officer on China and Vietnam,” memorandum of conversation, June 13, 1969, National Archives, SN 67-69, Pol Chicom-US, http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB49/sino.sov.5.pdf.

  3. “Work Starts on First China-Russia Highway Bridge,” Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, December 25, 2016, https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-china-amur-river-highway-bridge-border-trade/28195627.html.

  4. Tim Marshall, “Russia and the Curse of Geography,” Atlantic, October 31, 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/russia-geography-ukraine-syria/413248/.

  5. National Security Archive, George Washington University, “The Charge in the Soviet Union (Kennan) to the Secretary of State,” February 22, 1946, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//coldwar/documents/episode-1/kennan.htm.

  6. Quoted in Benn Steil, The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 251.

  7. George F. Kennan, “A Fateful Error,” New York Times, February 5, 1997, https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/05/opinion/a-fateful-error.html/.

  8. Yevgeny Primakov, Russian Crossroads: Toward the New Millennium (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 135.

  9. Sergey Lavrov and Yang Jiechi, “Transcript of Remarks and Response to Media Questions by Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov at Press Conference Following Talks with PRC Minister of Foreign Affairs
Yang Jiechi,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, July 21, 2008, http://www.mid.ru/en/vistupleniya_ministra/-/asset_publisher/MCZ7HQuMdqBY/content/id/330178.

  10. Christopher Miller, “The New Cold War’s Warm Friends,” Foreign Policy, March 1, 2019, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/01/the-new-cold-wars-warm-friends/.

  11. Kremlin: President of Russia, “Presenting the Order of St Andrew the Apostle to President of China Xi Jinping,” July 4, 2017, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/54973.

  12. Cheang Ming, “‘Best Time in History’ for China-Russia Relationship: Xi and Putin Boost Ties,” CNBC, July 5, 2017, http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/04/china-russia-ties-reaffirmed-after-xi-jinping-and-vladimir-putin-meet.html.

  13. Cao Desheng, “Xi Presents Friendship Medal to Putin,” China Daily, June 8, 2018, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201806/09/WS5b1af610a31001b82571f0c6.html.

  14. Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, “The Defense Ministers of Russia and China Noted the Special Significance of Russian-Chinese Relations for International Security” (in Russian), April 3, 2018, https://function.mil.ru/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12169612@egNews.

  15. Brad Lendon and Steve George, “China’s Navy Expands Reach: Ships in Baltic for Drills with Russia,” CNN, July 21, 2017, http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/20/asia/china-navy-expansion-baltic-russia-drills/index.html; “Russia Launches Biggest War Games since Cold War,” BBC, September 11, 2018, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45470460.

  16. Jon Ostrower, “China and Russia Are Coming for Boeing and Airbus,” CNN, May 23, 2107, http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/23/news/companies/china-russia-airplane-partnership/index.html.

  17. “The Central Bank of Russia Shifts Its Reserves Away from the Dollar,” Economist, January 17, 2019, https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/01/17/the-central-bank-of-russia-shifts-its-reserves-away-from-the-dollar.

  18. Alexander Gabuev, “Crouching Bear, Hidden Dragon: ‘One Belt One Road’ and Chinese-Russian Jostling for Power in Central Asia,” Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies 5, no. 2 (2016): 61–78.

  19. For an inside account of how these sanctions came into place, see Michael McFaul, From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018).

  20. Alexander Gabuev, “Donald Trump’s Plan to Play Russia against China Is a Fool’s Errand,” Carnegie Moscow Center, May 24, 2017, https://carnegie.ru/2017/05/24/donald-trump-s-plan-to-play-russia-against-china-is-fool-s-errand-pub-70067; Gabuev, “A ‘Soft Alliance’? Russia-China Relations after the Ukraine Crisis” (policy brief, European Council on Foreign Relations, Berlin, 2015), https://www.ecfr.eu/page/-/ECFR126_-_A_Soft_Alliance_Russia-China_Relations_After_the_Ukraine_Crisis.pdf.

  21. Sebastien Peyrouse, “The Evolution of Russia’s Views on the Belt and Road Initiative,” Asia Policy 24, no. 1 (2017): 96–102.

  22. Gerry Shih, “In Central Asia’s Forbidding Highlands, a Quiet Newcomer: Chinese Troops,” Washington Post, February 18, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-central-asias-forbidding-highlands-a-quiet-newcomer-chinese-troops/2019/02/18/78d4a8d0-1e62-11e9-a759-2b8541bbbe20_story.html.

  23. Defense Intelligence Agency, Russia Military Power: Building a Military to Support Great Power Aspirations (Washington, DC: Defense Intelligence Agency, 2017), 16, https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=801968.

  24. White House, National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC: White House, December 2017), https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf.

  25. For insight into Putin’s economic policies, including the EAEU, see Christopher Miller, Putinomics: Power and Money in Resurgent Russia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press), 2018.

  26. “A New Integration Project for Eurasia: The Future in the Making,” Izvestia, October 4, 2011, European Parliament, accessed February 4, 2020, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/d-ru/dv/dru_2013_0320_06_/dru_2013_0320_06_en.pdf.

  27. Sean P. Roberts and Arkady Moshes, “The Eurasian Economic Union: A Case of Reproductive Integration?,” Post-Soviet Affairs 32, no. 6 (2016), https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/portal/files/3430174/The_Eurasian_Economic_Union_A_case_of_reproductive_integration.pdf.

  28. Bruno S. Sergi, “Putin’s and Russian-Led Eurasian Economic Union: A Hybrid Half-Economics and Half-Political ‘Janus Bifrons,’ ” Journal of Eurasian Studies 9 (2018): 52–60, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1016/j.euras.2017.12.005.

  29. Despite the name, the New Eurasian Land Bridge is operational largely because it relies heavily on infrastructure that predates the BRI. The Trans-Siberian Railway, opened over a century ago, constitutes the corridor’s longest section. There have been proposals for upgrading that component to high-speed rail, but the astronomical price tag, estimated at $230 billion, is prohibitive.

  30. Xi Jinping, “Full Text of President Xi’s Speech at Opening of Belt and Road Forum,” Xinhuanet, May 14, 2017, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-05/14/c_136282982.htm.

  31. Kremlin: President of Russia, “Belt and Road International Forum,” May 14, 2017, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/54491.

  32. Marlene Laruelle, “The China-Russia Relationship in Central Asia and Afghanistan” (testimony prepared for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Washington, DC, March 21, 2019), https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Laruelle_Testimony.pdf.

  33. Xi Jinping, “President Xi’s Speech to Davos in Full,” World Economic Forum, January 17, 2017, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/full-text-of-xi-jinping-keynote-at-the-world-economic-forum.

  34. Kremlin: President of Russia, “Belt and Road International Forum.”

  35. See memos by Hilary Appel and Elizabeth Wishnick, prepared for PONARS Policy Conference 2019, Washington, DC, http://www.ponarseurasia.org.

  36. “Matchmakers See Chinese-Russian Intermarriages as More Links on Belt and Road,” Sputnik, March 4, 2018, https://sputniknews.com/society/201803041062200297-china-russian-marriage-booming-business/.

  37. Evgeny Vinokurov, “Eurasian Economic Union: Current State and Preliminary Results,” Russian Journal of Economics 3, no. 1 (March 2017): 54–70, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405473917300041#bib0085.

  38. Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, “Railway Checkpoints,” https://www.rosgranstroy.ru/checkpoints/list.php?bitrix_include_areas=Y&SECTION_ID=188.

  39. Gordon Graham, “Cross-Border Intermodal,” Canadian National Railway Company, http://www.theccib.com/files/4_CN_CrossBorder_GordonGraham.pdf.

  40. Henry Sanderson, “Jay Hambro: Bridge to a Future in Russia,” Financial Times, January 26, 2016, https://www.ft.com/content/033a2f7a-b955-11e5-bf7e-8a339b6f2164.

  41. Wei He, “Program of Cooperation between the Regions of the Far East Siberia of the Russian Federation and the Northeast of the Chinese People’s Republic (2009–2018)” (in Russian), Xin Da Li, May 3, 2010, http://www.chinaruslaw.com/RU/CnRuTreaty/004/201035210624_735729.htm.

  42. A tally of cross-border projects announced between 2009 and 2018 found that only eight out of thirty-two had been completed, slightly better but not very encouraging.

  43. Vita Spivak and Henry Foy, “Russia Struggles to Attract Chinese Capital to Its Far East,” Financial Times, May 5, 2019, https://www.ft.com/content/d4cf3486-681b-11e9-a79d-04f350474d62.

  44. The Kremlin: President of Russia, “Opening Remarks at the Meeting ‘On the Development Prospects of the Far East and Transbaikalia’ ” (in Russian), Blagoveshchensk, July 21, 2000, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/21494.

  45. “Russia Gives Free Land, Incentives to Invest in Asian Far East,” Russia Briefing, June 8, 2017, http://www.russia-briefing.com/news/russia-gives-free-land-incentives-invest-asian-far-east.html/.

  46. Alexander Gabuev and Maria Repnikova, “Why Forecasts of a Chinese Takeover of the Russian Far East Are Jus
t Dramatic Myth,” Carnegie Moscow Center, July 14, 2017, https://carnegie.ru/2017/07/14/why-forecasts-of-chinese-takeover-of-russian-far-east-are-just-dramatic-myth-pub-71550.

  47. “Sberbank Says Average Russian Salary Lower than Chinese,” Moscow Times, May 19, 2016, https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2016/05/19/sberbank-says-average-russian-salary-lower-than-chinese-a52939.

  48. Erica Downs, “China-Russia Energy Relations” (testimony prepared for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission hearing “An Emerging China-Russia Axis,” Washington, DC, March 21, 2019), https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Downs_Testimony...pdf.

  49. Henry Foy, “Russia’s $55bn Pipeline Gamble on China’s Demand for Gas,” Financial Times, April 3, 2018, https://ig.ft.com/gazprom-pipeline-power-of-siberia/.

  50. Lucy Hornby, Jamil Anderlini, and Guy Chazan, “China and Russia Sign $400bn Gas Deal,” Financial Times, May 21, 2014, https://www.ft.com/content/d9a8b800-e09a-11e3-9534-00144feabdc0.

  51. Foy, “Russia’s $55bn Pipeline Gamble.”

  52. On China in the Arctic, see Anne-Marie Brady, China as a Polar Great Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017); Heather Conley, “China’s Arctic Dream,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, February 26, 2018, https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-arctic-dream.

  53. Stephanie Pezard, “The New Geopolitics of the Arctic: Russia’s and China’s Evolving Role in the Region” (testimony presented before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development of the Canadian House of Commons, Toronto, November 26, 2018), 6, https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/testimonies/CT500/CT500/RAND_CT500.pdf.

  54. Gabuev, “Crouching Bear, Hidden Dragon,” 76.

  55. China Ministry of Commerce, “China and Eurasian Economic Union Officially Sign Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement,” May 18, 2019, http://english.mofcom.gov.cn/article/newsrelease/significantnews/201805/20180502746079.shtml.