BRICS Momentum Builds, Spread to Northeast Asia

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, foreign ministers and then national security advisors from the five BRICS countries met in Moscow, to update plans for the July 8-10 heads- of-state summit in Ufa, Russia. The Tuesday meeting of the security advisors broadened the BRICS collaboration to subsume common security issues, including the fight against terrorism, drugs, organized crime, separatism, and ethnic conflicts. One major topic of discussion was the use of speculative capital to target vulnerable nations for destabilization.

At the same time that the preparations for the July summit were advancing, a leading Chinese specialist in China-Russia cooperation, Dr. Li Xin, was pressing in an interview with dialogi.su for inclusion of Russia’s Trans-Siberian Railroad in the overall New Silk Road development plans. Dr. Li emphasized that the development of Northeast China and adjacent areas of Korea and Russia will mean that the modernization of the Trans-Siberian Railroad will be an instrumental part of the Eurasian development and transportation corridors.

Dr. Li described a letter he wrote last December to Vladimir Yakunin, head of the Russian Rail Corporation, emphasizing that

“for us, the Trans-Siberian Railway is a participant in the ‘Great Silk Road’ project with the added possibility of developing the Northeast of China… I wrote that the Chinese strategic directive for the revival of the North-Eastern territories can equally be considered part of the ‘Silk Road,’ but that this revival is impossible without access to the Trans-Siberian Railway. And more than that, the regeneration of Northeast China dovetails with the task of the broader Russian project to develop their Far East and create the Trans-Eurasian zone of development or TEBD.

Therefore it is possible to cojoin these projects….[the concept is a]…Belt of Development for this huge geographical territory, based on the most modern infrastructure, creating new industrial centres, new employment prospects, even new cities.”

The drive for the New Silk Road was also the front-page theme of Chinawatch, the monthly supplement to the Washington Post, produced by China Daily. Under the banner headline “President Xi turning a new leaf for China,” the full front page was taken up with a report on Xi Jinping’s book Xi Jinping: The Governance of China, a collection of 79 essays, interviews, and directives by the Chinese President. The coverage focused on his New Silk Road initiative. The book, which was released last October at the Frankfurt Book Fair, has already sold 4 million copies, including 400,000 outside of China. The book has been already translated into English, German, French, Russian, Arabic, Spanish, Portugese, and Japanese.

MORE SILK ROAD INSTITUTIONS CREATED

A “University Alliance of the New Silk Road” has been formed this month at an ongoing international conference in Xian, China, which also includes universities from Italy, Britain, and other European countries. Experts from 16 countries attending the Xian event issued a call for creating an internet platform for the exchange of cultural and scientific knowledge, and for the promotion of new research on the ancient Silk Road’s history.

With a Silk Road Gold Fund, another institution has just been created by China and 59 other states. The fund, equipped with $15 billion, is to help member countries to build up gold reserves, and to promote investments in gold mining ventures in Kazakhstan and elsewhere. There is also talk about a Development Bank being considered at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization which works closely with the BRICS and the Eurasian Economic Union.

BRICS Momentum Builds, Spread to Northeast Asia

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