Russian Railways Head Yakunin Renews Proposal for Trans-European Development Belt, to Replace Bankrupt Global System

The March 23 Siberian Times reports on Russian Railways head Vladimir Yakunin’s remarks at a meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in which he elaborated on his standing proposal for a Trans-Eurasian Development Belt. The project, which would link the Atlantic and the Pacific across Eurasia with a new high-speed rail network parallel to the Trans-Siberian Railroad, would also involve major roads, pipelines for oil and gas, electricity and water lines, and the overall high-tech development of 10-15 new industries, as well as new cities.

According to the Siberian Times, Yakunin said the project

“would make Russia the new world center for the creation and development of high-tech industries,” and that he viewed it as an alternative to “Western-style globalization, [which] is no longer seen as an incentive but as a hindrance to the economic, scientific, moral and spiritual development of society.” Yakunin elaborated: “This is an inter-state, inter-civilization project. It should be an alternative to the current (neo-liberal) model, which has caused a systemic crisis. The project should be turned into a world ‘future zone,’ and it must be based on leading, not trailing technologies.”

The proposal, which Yakunin developed with former RAS head Osipov and Moscow State University rector Viktor Sadovnichy, was first floated in 2007, and “on October 29, 2014 RAS President Academician Vladimir Fortov briefed President Putin on the Yakunin plan,” EIR reported in its special report, “The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge” (p. IV:24).

The Siberian Times article also quotes Fortov saying that the project is “very ambitious and expensive,” but that “it will solve many problems in the development of the vast region… The idea is that, based on the new technology of high-speed rail transport, we can build a new railway near the Trans-Siberian Railway with the opportunity to go to Chukotka and the Bering Strait, and then to the American continent.” The latter would be achieved through the construction of a tunnel under the Bering Strait, which the Russian government has adopted as policy, and is also supported by the Chinese government, and by the LaRouche movement and other forces in the United States.