The New Silk Roads

by Peter Frankopan

  What this assistance means can be deduced from an audio recording reportedly made by the Communist Party Youth League at the end of 2017. “Members of the public who have been chosen for re-education have been infected by an ideological illness,” said the speaker. Although many “who have been indoctrinated with extremist ideology have not committed any crimes, they are already infected by the disease….That is why they must be admitted to a re-education hospital in time to treat and cleanse the virus from their brain and restore their normal mind.” Those being sent “for treatment” were not being “forcibly arrested” or detained; they were being rescued.66

  Editorials in China urged would-be “terrorists” in some cities to turn themselves in. Anyone, said the Global Times, who had recently purchased “maps, GPS, compasses, telescopes, ropes, tents or other training materials,” or had used a VPN to access overseas websites.67 Perhaps not surprisingly, the size of detention centres has risen dramatically, with one report estimating that the footprints of thirty-nine detention centres in the region had trebled between April 2017 and August 2018.68

  The crackdown on the Uighurs follows a rash of bombings and knife attacks in Xinjiang, most notably a series of violent attacks that took place in 2009, which rattled the Chinese government into taking action. It was essential, said President Xi in 2014, to “make terrorists become like rats scurrying across a street, with everybody shouting ‘beat them!’ ”69 It was not long before this was being put into practice, with one senior official in the province telling a mass anti-terror rally in Urumqi that terrorists would be destroyed, whether with loaded guns, unsheathed knives or with bare fists if necessary.70

  That the security of Xinjiang is a policy priority is clear from the appointment of Chen Quanguo as party secretary of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (effectively the province’s governor). Chen is a rising star whose uncompromising tactics in Tibet brought him to Xi’s attention and helped gain his admiration and confidence. In the space of a year after his arrival in Xinjiang in August 2016, Chen advertised for more than 90,000 new police and security-related positions—an astonishing rise and an emphatic statement of intent.71 While the Uighurs bore the brunt of the persecution, other minorities have also been targeted. Tajiks studying in Xinjiang have been formally obliged not to fast during Ramadan—although the same restrictions have apparently not been applied in other regions of the country.72 But some Kazakhs living in western China claim far worse, with reports including spells in re-education camps and being kept in deep wells filled with ice. “It was like hell,” said one.73

  These measures are all part of what the Chinese leadership has called a “great wall of iron” being placed around the western provinces; this was essential, said President Xi, so that “people of all ethnic groups feel the Party’s care and the warmth of the motherland.”74 Others have called it “the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today.”75

  Concern about Afghanistan’s instability has also played a role in Chinese efforts to reinforce the frontier, both through initiatives such as the Quadrilateral Cooperation and Coordination Mechanism, a joint project between China, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan, and with support and training for border troops in neighbouring countries. It appears that the Chinese military have also begun to play a role on both sides of the borders, as part of an effort to prevent unauthorised movement of people, goods—and ideas.76 Perhaps not surprisingly, getting precise details about what is going on in this region is not entirely straightforward.77

  It is noteworthy too that Beijing has begun to play a more active role in Afghanistan itself, opening lines of communication with the Taliban and inviting leading members to the Chinese capital for discussions. According to some reports, China has not only become closely involved in trying to plan for a post-conflict future of Afghanistan, but has made better progress than others (notably the US) in trying to provide conditions for settlements to be reached that might restore stability to the war-torn country.78

  If this points to a region becoming more closely knitted together, then so too do more practical steps taken to ensure peaceful conditions necessary for enabling and deepening ties. Providing security for personnel and investments that are part of the Belt and Road Initiative has also evolved in countries like Pakistan, where high-profile cases such as the kidnapping and murder of two schoolteachers in Balochistan in 2017 have led to the creation of a new 15,000-strong force Pakistani soldiers that will protect the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and safeguard Chinese nationals working as contractors on projects that range from roads to rail to power-plant construction.79

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  The expansion of China’s perception of its national security interests has played an important part in the development of locations in the South China Sea and beyond. In 2013, dredgers began creating a series of new, man-made islands that can serve as military bases. These steps prompted considerable concern from other countries in this region. Following an appeal by the Philippines that China’s actions violated the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in 2016 that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights, while also finding that there had been several breaches of the obligations set out in the Convention. It also found that the fact that China’s refusal to accept or participate in the Philippines’ action did not prevent the court reaching its decisions, on the basis that Annex VII of the Convention states that the “[a]bsence of a party or failure of a party to defend its case shall not constitute a bar to the proceedings.”80

  China’s refusal to accept the court’s ruling has raised tensions across the region, not least because of the continued militarisation of the artificial islands and construction of landing strips, aircraft hangars, underground fuel reservoirs, barracks—and the installation of radar-jamming equipment and underwater sensors, which was followed by the deployment of anti-ship cruise missiles and long-range surface-to-air missiles in the spring of 2018. This has gone a long way to turning the South China Sea into a zone of anti-access/area denial (A2/AD), in which military competitors (particularly the US Navy) are either seriously impeded in their freedom of action inside the region—or kept out of it altogether.81

  The militarisation has caused alarm in Vietnam, for example, which has its own territorial claims on the Paracel Islands, a small archipelago now occupied by China. Landing drills by Chinese bombers have led to the formal demand that “China put an end to these activities immediately, stop militarisation and seriously respect Vietnam’s sovereignty” over the islands.82 This was echoed in Manila, where the government of President Duterte took “appropriate diplomatic action” about the presence of the bombers—but resisted calls of senior politicians to take more direct steps “to inflict, at the very least, a bloody nose on any attacker who is out to harm us.”83

  Seen from the perspective of Beijing, the fortification of the islands is part of a defensive network that is essential to protect rather than enhance China’s position. The South China Sea is so important that in 2014 Chuck Hagel, then US secretary of defense, declared that it was nothing less than “the beating heart of Asia-Pacific and a crossroads of the global economy.”84 That is an understatement. While the assertion by many commentators that half of the world’s merchant fleet (by tonnage) passes through the South China Sea each year may be hyperbolic, the volume is nevertheless immense.85 As well as almost 40 per cent of all China’s trade, the waterway carries nearly a third of India’s trade goods by value, almost a quarter of that of Brazil as well as around 10 per cent of that of the UK, Italy and Germany.86 This is not “a” crossroads of the global economy. It is “the” crossroads of the global economy.

  If that in turn explains why control of the sea is so important to Beijing, then so too does the fact that the overwhelming majority of China’s crude-oil imports reach the country via a sea route through
the Strait of Malacca, the shortest and most economical passageway between the Pacific and Indian Oceans (although there are also entry points via the Sunda Strait and the Lombok Strait).87 China is acutely aware of the strategic vulnerability that stems from its heavy dependence on maritime shipping in general and the pinch points that control access to the South China Sea. “It is no exaggeration to say that whoever controls the Strait of Malacca will also have a stranglehold on the energy route of China,” noted one Chinese newspaper more than a decade ago at a time when anxieties were already being expressed by the leadership that “certain major powers” were determined to control the strait—and thereby control China.88

  From Beijing’s perspective, protecting the South China Sea is not just a question of an expression of newfound military and political power or even an issue of national security. It is far more important than that: China’s present and future depends on being able to ensure that it can get what it needs, safely, securely and without interruption—and ensuring that those who are keen to manage or curtail economic growth are prevented from being able to threaten routes to and from markets elsewhere in the world.

  This is why China also finds itself in an increasingly tense standoff over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. Japanese plans to upgrade facilities have resulted in China seeking to challenge Tokyo’s control of the islands. Japan’s plans to build on the previously uninhabited islands were described by an article written in an internal publication of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army as part of a plan “to control its neighbouring ocean and expand its living space.” This could not be compared, wrote the authors, with China’s actions elsewhere, however, since the purpose of the latter was that of “safeguarding our sovereignty and territorial integrity.”89 The fact that the Japanese military is developing supersonic “glide bombs” to be able to protect remote islands—such as the Senkakus—shows how much is at stake in this region.90

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  China’s actions in the South and East China Seas are also part of a wider picture that includes efforts to diversify and open up new transit routes. This explains the heavy investment into freight and high-speed rail lines and roads criss-crossing the new Silk Roads—as well as building new entry and exit points that can offer alternative routes for goods and supplies to move to and from the country. The most obvious example is Gwadar on the coast of Pakistan, which could potentially, in due course, become a major entrepôt, a gateway and a new window on the world. Seventy-five years ago, when it was still a young city, Shanghai was described as the Paris of the East, the New York of the West.91 Gwadar could have the same fate and one day become a new Shanghai, an access point for and gateway linking China to the world beyond.

  The vision is more expansive and ambitious than just creating new connections with neighbours like Pakistan, for the network that China has been building is one that spreads into the Pacific, the Indian Ocean and deep into Africa. Loans, grants and long-term leases have led to a series of ports either under direct Chinese control or heavily indebted to government-controlled companies in the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and Djibouti.

  As we shall see, the overburden of debt in countries whose economies are ill-equipped to deal with large commitments for large-scale projects that are sometimes of dubious long-term benefit has raised alarm as to what precisely Beijing’s motives are behind the assistance that seems to be willingly on offer.

  Perhaps the most striking example comes with the port of Hambantota in Sri Lanka, which defaulted on its repayments almost immediately, leaving the Sri Lankan government with few options regarding redress. The solution, a ninety-nine-year lease to a Chinese company, struck many commentators as an obvious example of a new form of colonialism—and reminded historians of the way that the British had ended up in control of ports like Hong Kong in the nineteenth century.92 The money being offered by Beijing is rarely given as grant, and usually is not offered at a highly competitive rate. From this perspective, therefore, the Belt and Road Initiative looks more like a financial scheme designed to reward shareholders (and the state) than a philanthropic scheme to improve the quality of life in neighbouring countries and breathe new life into the Silk Roads.

  The expansion of Chinese interests has not just been through loans, but also through acquisitions that seem to be part of a broad, joined-up strategy. For example, Chinese companies have acquired shipping terminals in Spain, Italy and Belgium, either in full or in part.93 In 2016, the Chinese shipping company Cosco took control of the Greek port of Piraeus, later announcing plans to spend an additional $620m to expand and upgrade the shipyard.94 In the interim, Cosco bought the Orient Overseas Container Line, to become one of the world’s largest container carriers—impressive for a company founded only just over a decade earlier.95

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  The expansion of China’s interests into Europe is mirrored in Africa, where extensive activities date back to well before the announcement of the Belt and Road Initiative. Between 2000 and 2014, some $20bn of financing was invested in the construction of roads and railways across Africa, and almost the same again into power plants, energy grids and pipelines. In the words of one commentator, “Chinese loans are building the continent.”96

  There is a sense in some quarters that Chinese investment in Africa dwarfs that of others—a suggestion Beijing sometimes seems to encourage. In fact, as one recent report put it, “The notion that China has provided an overwhelming amount of finance and is buying up the whole continent is inaccurate.” Nor is it true that Chinese companies operating in Africa only employ Chinese contractors—another common assumption and a much-quoted criticism. Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that this is a new era of substantial and significant Sino-African relations.97

  When it comes to relations with Africa, said President Xi at the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, China follows a “five-no” approach: “No interference in African countries’ internal affairs; no imposition of our will on African countries; no attachment of political strings to assistance to Africa; and no seeking of selfish political gains in investment and financing cooperation with Africa.” China, said Xi, will always be “Africa’s good friend, good partner and good brother.”98

  China’s attentions have been welcomed by figures like Olusegun Obasanjo, President of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007, who has noted that China is a source of inspiration for African nations. “China has been hugely successful in poverty reduction,” he said in a speech at Zhejiang University in 2018. “China has a lesson to teach any developing country who cares to learn.” As well as listening to these lessons, he added, African nations could benefit from “a strategic relationship and partnership.” This would be of great benefit to all concerned. “I have no doubt in my mind,” said Obasanjo, “that Africa needs China, indeed Asia, as they need us.” His personal recommendation about the best next move was that China should provide $100bn of funds for African nations in the next ten years.99

  It is a similar story in the Caribbean and Central and South America, where China has played a major role in an array of projects, again mainly involving infrastructure but also energy. According to some estimates, more than $220bn of loans was issued to governments in Latin America and the Caribbean over the last fifteen years.100 This does not include a recent $5bn loan to cash-strapped, oil-rich and dysfunctional Venezuela, where annual inflation reached over 24,000 per cent in June 2018.101 When Venezuela needs emergency funding to stay afloat, it turns to China for support—partly because there is no one else to turn to.102 Bailing out a failed state says a lot about how keen Beijing is to get what it needs—around 700,000 barrels of oil per day, in the case of Venezuela’s shipments to China.103

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  China has been very active in South America since the publication of a policy paper in 2008 that noted the “abund
ant resources” of the region but also observed that Latin America and the Caribbean were at “a similar stage of development” and shared similar challenges and difficulties. This underpinned a common desire for “win-win results” and for higher levels of economic cooperation that resulted in the doubling of trade in a decade and led to China becoming South America’s leading trade partner in 2015.104

  The countries of this region are also to become part of China’s connected vision. We are living in a period of great change, President Xi told a meeting of the leaders of the thirty-three states that are members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in a message sent from Beijing. It was sensible to try to prepare for the future. In order best to take advantage of the opportunities and challenges, he said, he was delighted to extend an invitation to the member states of CELAC, offering them the chance formally to join the Belt and Road Initiative.105

  In other words, the Silk Roads are everywhere—not just in Central Asia, but across all of Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. Adverts in airports celebrate the Belt and Road Initiative; investment banks produce reports and host conferences about the challenges and opportunities of the New Silk Roads; newspapers and media outlets commission essays on the motivations and consequences of new and old connections being formed and re-formed in the twenty-first century. All roads used to lead to Rome. Today, they lead to Beijing.

  Indeed, it is possible to go further. In today’s world, while we think what matters is what goes on in Washington, London and Brussels, a new world is taking shape—a world that is changing quickly, a world that is commercially vibrant, a world that is being galvanised not only by enormous investment but by the shared belief that tomorrow will be better than today. Talk of the Silk Roads of the past is helpful in providing a common narrative that binds peoples and cultures together; but so too are the practical steps to create the Silk Roads of the future.