The modern silk road and how it passes. New Silk Road: Modern Projects. Background - The Great Silk Road

The idea of ​​creating a new Silk Road sounded promising: to invest trillions of dollars in infrastructure projects in the barren desert that is most of Central Asia, and trade will flourish, the economy will grow and peace will reign. However, most experts believe that problems in real world lead to the fact that this idea will remain a pipe dream.

This concept is called "One Belt, One Road" and was put forward by Chinese leader Xi Jinping in March 2015. It has two elements: one is a land route from China to Europe through Asia - the Silk Road Economic Belt, and the other is a sea route from China to Europe through India and Africa, called the Maritime Silk Road.

While estimates vary, China has called for up to $5 trillion in infrastructure investment over the next five years in 65 countries along these routes. Ports in Sri Lanka, railways in Thailand and roads and power plants in Pakistan are just a few examples of planned investments.

Speaking at a forum in Beijing in May this year, Xi said: “Under the Belt and Road Initiative, we must focus on the fundamental issue of development, develop the potential for growth various countries and achieve economic integration, interconnected development and benefits for all”.

He talks about the desired results, but the details are extremely vague. The project aims to improve intergovernmental communication, coordinate plans, develop soft infrastructure, and strengthen tourism and trade, but details are glossed over.

“There are no concrete actions in the Chinese government’s plan, which has become one of Xi’s most notable political initiatives. The document contains a number of general proposals interspersed with platitudes about cooperation and mutual understanding,” according to a July report by research firm Geopolitical Futures.

But despite the lack of specific programs, the huge sums show that the Silk Road has received the support of many countries. The Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank pledged $269 billion for the project. Even Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed support at the recent G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany.

Goals don't match reality

China's goals, explicit and implicit, must be balanced against reality. Based on this, most experts consider the project to be economically inexpedient. But it will allow China to gain political influence.

Context

The Great Silk Road and the Great Game

EurasiaNet 27.07.2017

India creates its own Silk Road

Forbes 01.07.2017

US attempts to interfere with the Silk Road project

Star gazete 06.06.2017

Will the Silk Road be smooth?

Latvijas Avize 22.05.2017
Economically, it mainly concerns investments and exports. “China has excess capital and excess manufacturing capacity, which motivates this set of initiatives. Given China's high savings rate and slowing industrial investment, they are looking for overseas projects that can be financed and a new outlet for Chinese exports,” said James Nolte, professor of international relations at New York University.

The result is this project, in which China will team up with countries along the routes to raise money to build the infrastructure needed to facilitate trade. And the Chinese companies will build everything.

The holding company China Overseas Ports has expanded Gwadar port in Pakistan and leased it until 2059. This is just the first small step to connect the Silk Road Economic Belt with the Maritime Silk Road. For the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, car roads, pipelines, power plants, optical connections and railways with a total investment of $62 billion.

Of course, local and international companies are going to bid on these projects, but if China provides most of the funds, Chinese state-owned enterprises will receive most of the contracts.

Can't fund

Then there is the issue of financing these investments. The countries where investments will be made, such as Pakistan and Cambodia, are not rich enough to spend trillions. This forces China to come up with a way to get hard currency funding to achieve its economic goals.

When the project was launched, China had almost $4 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, and they wanted to invest them. Reserves fell to $3 trillion in 2017, a threshold that central planners in Beijing have made clear they will not cross.

“They have to use international bond markets or deplete their foreign exchange reserves and then borrow. Even by global bond market standards, a $5 trillion bond sale program over several years is a huge undertaking. They are not going to take on that repayment risk and are not going to deplete their reserves,” Balding said.

A study by investment bank Natixis found that such borrowing would increase China's external debt from 12% to 50% of GDP. This would expose the country to exchange rate risks and put it in the same vulnerable position as the Four Asian Tigers ( South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan) during the 1998 financial crisis.

RMB loans from China are not a good option for two reasons. This “poses risks for overstretched Chinese banks' balance sheets. In fact, their bad loans have only increased over the past few years, making it difficult to lend further,” especially for risky projects, Natixis Asia Pacific chief economist Alicia Garcia-Herrero wrote in a blog post.

In addition, the recipient countries could only repay the loan in yuan by selling goods and services to China, thus purchasing Chinese currency. This has been counterproductive for facilitating exports from China and ultimately for trade infrastructure.

“How will Pakistan repay the yuan loan? They're going to create a surplus trade balance in yuan. Thus, China has to face a trade deficit in all the countries to which it provides loans. Pakistan will have to generate some trade surplus with another country in order to have enough capital to pay China,” Balding said.

Given that much of the infrastructure will be built to facilitate trade with China, this is unlikely. Thus, in the end, China will finance the supplier of these projects. The only way for China to achieve its economic goals is through hard currency loans that are fully repaid and profitable, but China does not currently have the funds to do so.

Bad Risks

All economic indicators of the most prominent Silk Road projects point to this repayment scenario.

There are reasons why countries like Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Pakistan and Mongolia don't have good infrastructure. They have a generally poor macroeconomic framework, underdeveloped institutions, and a high degree of corruption. The construction of roads and railways will not change this.

In addition, “Central Asia, a patchwork of states whose borders were drawn to make them easier to manage from Moscow during the Soviet era, is hardly a promising market for Chinese goods,” the Geopolitical Futures report says.

“People say that China is giving away money. In almost every case, a Chinese credit company lends money to a despotic dictator, such as in Sri Lanka or Venezuela. None of this ended well,” Balding said.

Economically stable countries like Malaysia and Vietnam need less investment than troubled states like the Kyrgyz Republic and Ukraine, torn apart by civil war. According to the Oxford Economics rankings, these countries have an economic stability rating of 44 and 38.2, respectively, compared to 66.8 for Malaysia.

“In cases where the financial development of countries is relatively weak and governments are heavily indebted, financing will be critical,” Oxford Economics said in a report. It is these countries that have the lowest chance of repayment.

“While a new airport or railroad can be built in just a few years, building up the human and institutional capital needed to operate it effectively and promote economic and social progress is a slower process,” research firm TS Lombard said in a report. .

small coverage

Given the limitations in viable economic projects and funding, the scale of the Belt and Road project is likely to be small, while China can still focus on its political goals to provide greater influence to the participating countries.

“What remains is a much more modest $15 billion to $30 billion a year program,” Balding said. “This is commensurate with the $269 billion already pledged by Chinese banks. I don't mean to say it doesn't matter, but it doesn't of great importance. The United States spends $300 billion a year on foreign direct investment."

One initiative that makes sense but needs little infrastructure and investment is protecting ships from pirates. “Cooperation with Singapore to secure sea lanes is promising and should be pursued anyway,” Nolte said.

Thanks to advances in shipping technology, it is much easier and cheaper to transport goods on ships rather than on land. This is why most Chinese and world trade (80%) is carried out by sea.

After all, defending against pirates and building a few ports in Pakistan and East Africa is a worthwhile undertaking, but it's far from building trillions worth of landlocked infrastructure.

“The Silk Road was an ever-evolving market that moved goods across a vast continent where they could be exchanged for other goods. And unlike today, Eurasia was the center of world civilization, home to the most important economies,” the Geopolitical Futures report says.

Today, the most important economy, and for China too, is the United States, and it is best reached by sea across the Pacific Ocean, which is far from the Maritime Silk Road and the Silk Road Economic Belt.

Chinese infrastructure projects in Asia

The Chinese company China Overseas Ports Holding is leasing the port of Gwadar in Pakistan until 2059 and has already begun to expand it. China seeks to secure maritime trade routes along the so-called Maritime Silk Road, and the Pakistani port is an important piece of infrastructure.

Thailand will borrow a total of $69.5 billion to fund high-speed rail and other major mega-transport projects, with most of the money coming from China and Chinese construction companies. Thailand's railways will become part of the Kunming-Singapore railway system. However, Thailand will repay the loans by exporting rice and rubber, thus using its trade surplus with China.

The $3.6 billion Mitsone Dam project in Burma, although not officially part of the Belt and Road Initiative, is an example of a Chinese infrastructure project in a very poor country that did not go as planned. Construction was put on hold for six years as the two countries failed to agree on how to proceed.

The materials of InoSMI contain only assessments of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the editors of InoSMI.

New Silk Road to be paved with big money

The topic of the New Silk Road from the Middle Kingdom to Asia, Africa and Western Europe is now probably more of a concern not for journalists, but for economists. Although for Russia and a number of other countries the idea of ​​becoming a global Chinese transit country warms the ear, it burns the pocket sensitively. So far, the intercontinental super-construction only promises boundless prospects, but it already requires almost cosmic expenses. At the same time, the project has quite enough risks. First of all, these are the risks of globalization and the question - will China remain the same "world factory" a decade later, or will production be distributed in some other way, which, for example, is already observed in America, when Trump demands the return of jobs, technologies and power back home. That is, it may turn out that there will suddenly be nothing special to carry along this “road”. Especially for FederalPress, the financial and economic aspects of this project were analyzed by the CEO of the holding AsstrA-Associated Traffic AG Dmitry Lagun:

“The cost of Russian investments, as well as the forecast of their return, is currently impossible due to the fact that information on the volume of investments in this project by the Russian Federation is not published in the media. China is the main initiator and investor of the New Silk Road project. Some publications mention information that by 2030 the project will be invested three trillion US dollars. The Silk Road Fund is the main funding platform, with an estimated investment of $40 billion, with a focus on infrastructure investment. The fund operates in accordance with Chinese law, and foreign investors can participate in its projects. The capital of the Asian Bank and the BRICS Bank can also be attracted to finance projects, the infrastructure investments of each of them will potentially amount to 100 billion US dollars.

Beijing says the project will build or network roads, railroads, ports, oil and gas pipelines and power plants along routes that will link China with countries in the Asia-Pacific region, the Persian Gulf, Central Asia, Africa and Europe. Along with the establishment of a rail link between China and Russia, a project of a high-speed highway connecting Europe and Western China.

Infographics of the Kommersant newspaper

On the territory of Russia, the project is being implemented by Rosavtodor. The section from St. Petersburg to Moscow (M-11 road) is estimated at 373 billion rubles. A section of the highway from M-11 to the Central Ring Road (TsKAD). The construction of two sections (1st and 5th) of the Central Ring Road is already underway, the rest in October 2017 will be played at concession tenders. The high-speed highway, which should pass between the existing federal roads M-7 "Volga" and M-5 "Ural" through Gus-Khrustalny, Murom, Ardatov, south of Nizhny Novgorod, will cost about 400 billion rubles. Within the territory of Tatarstan a 297-kilometer Shali-Bavly highway is already under construction, and a section with a length of about 40 km. is already functioning. The highway will connect the existing federal highways M-7 and M-5, thus increasing their connectivity. The cost of this project is not called.

In the Republic Bashkortostan are going to build a 282-kilometer section of the international transport corridor (ITC) from the village of Bavly to the city of Kumertau, its cost is estimated at 156 billion rubles. IN Orenburg region, it is planned to build a 172-kilometer section bypassing Orenburg, Saraktash and to the borders with Kazakhstan- 84 billion rubles. Thus, the entire Russian section of the ITC from St. Petersburg to the borders with Kazakhstan should be ready by 2023, some of its sections will be launched by 2018. In addition, by 2020, the reconstruction of the M-1 Belarus highway will be carried out, which should provide a direct exit for goods transported along the corridor to the Republic of Belarus and Western European countries.

The influence of the path on the regional economy

International transport corridors should serve not only the purposes of organizing transit and export traffic, but also become the basis for closer economic consolidation and economic development adjacent regions. Most of the regions along which the route runs are united, first of all, by such a common feature as their inland macrolocation in the depths of the Eurasian continent at a great distance from sea and ocean routes. By optimizing economic relations, it is possible to reduce the average distance of transportation and thereby reduce transport costs. Consequently, cross-border economic cooperation based on a common transport and communication infrastructure can bring very great results.

The direct effects of the implementation of the considered international transport corridors include a sharp reduction in railway tariffs, to the level of freight rates for sea transport and, possibly, lower. This will lead to a reduction in transport costs and the cost of transportation, and ultimately to the economic "approximation" of the inland regions ( Siberia and the Urals of Russia, Xinjiang, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai and Shaanxi of China), as well as countries of Central Asia And Kazakhstan to the leading centers of the world, sea and ocean ports, and thereby removing one of the main brakes on development. There will be a significant increase in the throughput capacity of highways, accompanied by an increase in traffic volumes, freight and passenger turnover, which is necessary for closer economic consolidation and economic recovery of adjacent territories. Russia, China, Kazakhstan and other countries will be guaranteed to receive tangible income from performing the functions of a transport bridge between Western Europe and East Asia.

The indirect effect of the implementation of these megaprojects is expected to be even more significant, which consists in the strongest multiplicative general economic and social impact of international corridors on the vast areas adjacent to them. Thus, within the zone of influence of the Trans-Siberian Railway, there are the most developed, inhabited and populated regions of Siberia, the conditions and possibilities of which do not fundamentally differ from the average Russian ones. The construction of the superhighway will secure for the southern part of Siberia, which has relatively comfortable natural and climatic conditions, the status of a territory that is a priority for powerful integrated development. The creation of the Great Silk Road on a modern railway basis will be an effective option for including the still lagging deep northwestern and central parts of China into the zone of advanced development. The formation of the Northern Corridor of the Silk Road can bring a particularly noticeable effect to Kazakhstan, since rich resource areas and large urban agglomerations fall into the zone of its stimulating influence ( Astana And Karaganda) in the east and north of the country.

The creation of a highway in a new direction will increase the density of the federal road network and give a tremendous impetus to the development of at least eight Russian regions through which this section of the corridor will pass: Moscow, Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Chuvash Republic, Republic of Mordovia, Ulyanovsk, Samara Region, Republic of Tatarstan . We are talking about the formation of an essentially new zone of investment activity, within which a large number of industrial, logistics, recreational facilities will appear and new jobs will be created.

Project complexity

The main complaint about the project is vagueness of the initiative. It is still unknown how many countries will become participants in the New Silk Road, what targeted projects should be implemented as part of the initiative. Even the geographical scope of the Belt and Road project is not fully defined - all existing maps of transport corridors are unofficial. The project does not contain KPIs (key performance indicators), that is, it is not clear how many roads should be built, how many containers should be sent, and so on.

The main difficulty of this project is its cost. The full implementation of the New Silk Road will require enormous costs, which can only be covered by the investments of all countries whose interests are affected by this project.

Along with large financial costs, the complexity of implementation lies in the long period of project implementation. Thus, the media mentions that the completion date of the project is 2030.

Another issue is economic feasibility. It is much cheaper to transport goods by sea than by rail. In addition, according to the European Chamber of Commerce in China, only 20% of trains from the EU to China are filled with goods, the rest return home. empty. This is explained by the fact that one of the main items of Chinese imports from the EU is engineering products. The Indian authorities criticize the Chinese project for the fact that with its loans, China is dragging the countries participating in the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) into debts that they will not be able to pay. The Chinese themselves have recently begun to invest less in countries where the implementation of the One Belt, One Road project has already begun. In 2016, the volume of foreign direct investment in these 53 countries decreased by 2%. Chinese bankers admit that many projects in which the state asked them to invest are not profitable.

New Silk Road(Eurasian land bridge) - a transport route for the movement of goods and passengers by land from China to European countries. The route includes a transcontinental railway- Trans-Siberian Railway, which passes through Russia and second Eurasian continental bridge passing through Kazakhstan. As of November 2007, about 1% of the $600 billion in goods from Asia to Europe was transported by land each year.

The proposed expansion of the Eurasian land bridge includes the construction of railway lines from transcontinental lines to Iran, India, Myanmar, Thailand, Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan and Malaysia, to other regions of Southeast Asia and the Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Georgia). The route includes the Marmaray tunnel under the Bosphorus, ferry crossings across the Caspian Sea (Azerbaijan-Iran-Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan) and the North-South corridor. 2 variants).

For development infrastructure projects in countries along the New Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road and to promote the marketing of Chinese products, the Silk Road Investment Fund was established in December 2014.

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Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan are building their own "Silk Road"

Subtitles

"New Silk Road" through Kazakhstan and Russia (16 days) compared to the route through the Suez Canal (36 days)

New Silk Road (NSW)- the concept of a new pan-Eurasian (and in the future - intercontinental) transport system, promoted by China in cooperation with Kazakhstan, Russia and other countries. The idea of ​​the New Silk Road is based on historical example the ancient Great Silk Road, which operated from the 2nd century BC. BC e. and was one of the most important trade routes in antiquity and the Middle Ages. The modern NSR is an important part of China's development strategy in the modern world - the New Silk Road should not only build the most convenient and fastest transit routes through the center of Eurasia, but also strengthen the economic development of the interior regions of China and neighboring countries, as well as create new markets for Chinese goods.

China is promoting the New Silk Road project not just as a revival of the ancient Silk Road, a transport route between East and West, but as a large-scale transformation of the entire trade and economic model of Eurasia, and, first of all, Central and Central Asia. According to Vladimir Putin, “we are talking about reaching a new level of partnership in the future, which implies a common economic space throughout the Eurasian continent.”

The Chinese call this concept “one belt, one road”. It includes many infrastructure projects, which should eventually encircle the entire planet. The project of the world system of transport corridors connects Australia and Indonesia, the entire Middle and East Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Africa and through Latin America goes to the USA. Among the projects under the NSR are planned railways and highways, sea and air routes, pipelines and power lines, and all related infrastructure. According to the most modest estimates, the NSR will draw 4.4 billion people into its orbit - more than half of the world's population.

On May 8, 2015, a joint statement was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping on cooperation between Russia and China within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union and the trans-Eurasian trade and infrastructure project of the Silk Road Economic Belt. On June 13, 2015, the world's longest freight rail route Harbin - Hamburg from China to Germany through Russia was launched: trains on this route will run for 15 days, which is 2 times faster than on the sea route through the Suez Canal.

Project background

The Great Silk Road in antiquity

Regular caravan trade between China and Central Asia began no later than the 2nd century BC. e., when China united into a single empire and the endless internal confrontation of individual Chinese kingdoms was replaced by a single foreign policy. In the north, the first Great Wall of China was built to repel the nomadic Huns, maritime trade developed in the southeast, and in the west, Chinese diplomats and merchants went on long journeys, initially in search of allies against the Huns or for the sake of deposits of precious jade in the territory of present-day Xinjiang.

The Great Silk Road went along several routes-branches:

• The southern branch - from China through the Takla-Makan desert, the southern Pamirs, Bactria (Afghanistan), Parthia (Iran), India and the Middle East, from where Chinese goods through the Mediterranean Sea fell into the provinces of the Roman Empire, and later - to Byzantium, Arab and Western European countries.
• The northern branch is from China through the Turfan oasis, between Altai and Tibet, through the Pamirs to the Ferghana Valley, through the Kazakh steppes to Eastern Europe.

China traded not only silk, but also porcelain, tea, rice, jewelry and other products in exchange for gold, silver, leather, wool, carpets, exotic fruits and other goods from Central Asia. There was an exchange of technology between East and West along the Silk Road - this is how, apparently, gunpowder, paper and other technological achievements of China got to Europe.

The organization of caravan trade required both diplomatic efforts and the creation and support of a complex infrastructure network stretching thousands of kilometers, where it was necessary to dig wells, create places for rest and parking (caravanserais), arrange river crossings, and so on.

Caravan trade along the Great Silk Road was of great historical importance. So, among the many possible factors and reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire, there is a shortage of silver coins for the maintenance of the army, which arose, among other things, due to the exchange of silver by the Romans for luxury goods from the East, including silk from China.

Apparently, the Great Silk Road played a certain role in the emergence in the VIII-X centuries Old Russian state. At that time, due to political instability in the south (Arab conquests), a significant part of the caravan trade along the northern branch of the route went around the Caspian Sea through Khazaria and Rus along the river system of the Russian Plain, which contributed to the growth of Russian trading cities, including Kyiv.

In the 13th century Mongol Empire united the vast expanses of Eurasia, and trade along the Great Silk Road experienced an upswing in the subsequent period. It was then that China was visited by the famous Italian traveler Marco Polo, who described his journey in a famous book that inspired many to search for sea routes to the east. And so, then, in the era of the Great geographical discoveries XVI-XVII centuries, the main volume of trade between East and West began to pass by sea. However, land routes continued to play an important role.

Great Tea Road - Siberian Highway

Russian-Chinese trade, starting from the era of Peter I, was deployed first through Nerchinsk after the conclusion of the Nerchinsk Treaty in 1689, and then through the border town of Kyakhta, specially founded for customs purposes, after the conclusion of the Kyakhta Treaty in 1727. Cloth, manufactured goods, furs, yuft (tanned leather) were exported from Russia to China. Silk, porcelain, precious stones, and mainly tea, which has since become the national drink of not only the Chinese, but also the Russians, were exported from China to Russia.

By the 1740s, the Kyakhta trade ensured the accelerated construction of communication routes between Moscow and Irkutsk - this is how the Great Tea Road arose - the Siberian Highway, which became the longest horse-drawn road in the world and anticipated the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the modern network of federal highways in Russia.

New Silk Road: Modern Projects

Since the 1990s, the prevailing political environment has contributed to increasingly loud statements about plans to recreate the ancient Silk Road, although their implementation continues to hinder negative factors- Basically, this is an unstable and tense situation in some countries of Central Asia, especially in Afghanistan.

Since 2008, the construction of the transcontinental highway " Western Europe- Western China" as one of the first examples of the real implementation of the idea of ​​the "New Silk Road". Sequence lined up in single system of high-speed highways and simply high-class highways passes through the territory of China, Kazakhstan and Russia. In China and Kazakhstan, construction is nearing completion. In Russia, the route will include the Moscow-Petersburg express highway currently under construction, the existing Moscow-Kazan highway, as well as sections of newly built and new roads under construction in the territory of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. In Tatarstan, the road also passes along the longest bridge crossing in Russia - the bridge over the Kama near the village of Sorochi Gory. The first stage of the bridge complex with a total length of 13,967 meters was commissioned in 2002, the construction of the second stage - a parallel bridge as of 2015 is close to completion.

In early January 2008, in Beijing, representatives of Russia, China, Mongolia, Belarus, Poland and Germany signed an agreement on regular freight transportation by the railways of these countries with the coordination of all issues related to the work of customs and border services. Less than a month later, according to this agreement, the movement of trains through the territory of Russia (7 thousand kilometers and 6 days of travel) began. In total, the journey from Beijing to Hamburg takes 9,992 thousand kilometers and 15 days, which is at least twice as fast as the sea route through the Suez Canal. In addition, transport risk insurance is much cheaper for a land route. This was another project that received the name "Silk Road" in the media.

In 2009, a pilot branch of the Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline was launched in transit through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. In its full form, the project is also called the "Silk Road" with the construction of gas transportation infrastructure in the space between China and Iran, that is, almost the entire length of the ancient Silk Road.

One Belt One Road project

Chinese President Xi Jinping in September 2013 put forward the concept of the "New Silk Road" under the slogan "One Belt - One Road". This global strategy, which includes the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road projects, involves the creation of an extensive infrastructure network along the path from the western borders of China through the countries of Central Asia and Iran to Europe.

The implementation of the project for the construction of transport infrastructure (railways and roads, pipelines, ports) should lead to a significant increase in intra-Eurasian trade and to the intensification of the economic development of the vast inland territories of Eurasia, as well as the countries of South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa, where reach the "New Silk Road" (at least in its maritime component). So far, the political, informational and organizational preparation of the project is being carried out.

In the spring of 2015, the Silk Road Company investment fund was created to implement the project, and $40 billion was allocated - an extremely small amount by the standards of China. In the future, a multiple increase in this amount and the participation of Islamic and European countries in financing the project are expected. Earlier, in October 2014, the Chinese established the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), an international investment bank that is called in the media a competitor of the IMF and World Bank. By May 2015, almost 60 countries already belonged to the AIIB - most of the countries of Asia and all the key countries of Europe.

Combining projects from different countries

On April 2, 2015, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi proposed to unite the concepts of transport megaprojects existing in the three countries in a joint Chinese-Mongolian-Russian economic corridor. According to Wang Yi, “building an economic corridor means connecting the Chinese idea of ​​building an economic belt of the Silk Road “one belt - one road”, the Mongolian idea of ​​a “steppe road” and the idea of ​​creating a trans-Eurasian corridor promoted by Russia.”

In the land part of the "New Silk Road" it is planned to build three railway corridors. The northern corridor will pass through the territory of Russia, while the central and southern corridor will pass through the territory of Central and Central Asia, including through Kazakhstan, which, together with Russia, is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union. Subsequently, the railway corridors will be supplemented by road corridors.

The main direction of the "New Silk Road" through Central Asia it is supposed to be about 6,500 kilometers long, of which 4,000 will pass through Chinese territory from the Pacific coast to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Further, the path goes through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, and from there to Europe - through Bulgaria, Romania and the Czech Republic to Germany. Branches from the main route are also planned towards many other neighboring countries.

The sea route, like the land route, will follow the ancient trade route: from Guangzhou in China along the coasts of Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, past India to the Red Sea with branches to the Persian Gulf and Africa, and through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean. As a separate entry point to Europe, prior to the Ukrainian crisis, the Chinese planned to build a deep water port in the western part of Crimea.

In addition, Russia and China are also discussing the Arctic route: the possible inclusion of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) development project in the New Silk Road strategy.

Chinese interests

China's interests in the large-scale strategy of the "New Silk Road" promoted by it are extremely diverse:

• New transport corridors should reduce the time for transporting goods from China to Europe from the current 45-60 days by sea to 10-13 days by land. This will significantly optimize deliveries and reduce the cost of many Chinese goods, strengthen China's position in European and Asian markets, and also occupy new markets in Africa and the Middle East.

• Capturing new markets is critical to growth in a slowing economy. last years Chinese economy. Although there are still hundreds of millions of peasants in China who are not involved in the modern economic and technological way of life, yet China's human resources are not endless. Continued growth and development requires finding more and more large-scale applications Chinese goods, technologies and investments abroad.

• China is very interested in the exit of Chinese railway and construction companies far beyond its borders to keep these industries busy for decades to come. By 2014, China had built about 16,000 km of high-speed rail lines (60% of the entire global high-speed rail network), and by the end of the decade, the total length of the high-speed rail network in China should reach 30,000 km. Enormous resources have been invested in this industry, providing an amazing pace of construction of high-speed highways, and the Chinese leadership understands that quite soon the high-speed network in China will reach the limit of "saturation" and economic profitability, even with the colossal size of the population and territory. Therefore, the Chinese are making significant diplomatic and organizational efforts. Thus, in October 2014, CNR and CSR, the largest Chinese manufacturers of railway equipment, merged to joint output to the global market and competition with foreign companies such as Siemens and Bombardier. The Chinese willingly undertake to build infrastructure even in the underdeveloped and unstable countries of Africa - for example, it is planned to build a railway in East Africa through the territory of Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan, and at the end of 2014 a contract was signed for $ 12 billion with the construction of a railway highways along the coast of Nigeria.

• Moreover, China is interested in building railways in its neighboring countries, in building, as far as possible, an integrated railway network with the internal Chinese one. As it became known in May 2015, China is ready to invest up to 300 billion rubles in the construction of a high-speed railway line (HSR) Moscow - Kazan. The first full-fledged dedicated high-speed line in Russia with a length of 770 km should reduce the travel time between Moscow and Kazan from 11.5 to 3.5 hours. The highway is supposed to be built with the involvement of Chinese technologies and loans from Chinese banks, and Russian companies will mainly supply materials and rolling stock.

Russia's interests

Russia has the following interests in relation to the New Silk Road project:

• It is extremely important for Russia to integrate into the trans-Eurasian transport corridors of the New Silk Road, thereby strengthening its position as a major transit country. Russia should become a full-fledged "Eurasian bridge" between the countries of East and West.
• Russia's participation in the project and the growth of transit through its territory will dramatically increase the return on investment in transport infrastructure and, as a result, more actively develop many regions of the Asian part of Russia, making them more attractive for production and living.
• Against the backdrop of difficult relations with the West at the present time, Russia is interested in strengthening and expanding cooperation with China. Joint major projects are the most reliable way to build a long-term partnership.
• Russia needs to expand cross-border ties with China - without this, full-fledged economic development of the regions of Siberia and the Far East is hardly possible. Border regions need close markets to sell their products and inflows of tourists from China.
• Russia, like China, is very interested in establishing political stability with the countries of Central Asia and the Middle East, as well as in the active economic development of these countries. We are talking about Afghanistan, Pakistan and other troubled states. Both Russia and China are threatened by such phenomena as drug production in Afghanistan and drug trafficking associated with it. Equally dangerous are Islamic fundamentalist militants and the uncontrolled flows of migrants that arise during military conflicts. Ultimately, these threats can be completely eliminated only through the accelerated economic development of all countries in the region - only an increase in living standards can become the basis for strengthening political stability. The New Silk Road project in this regard can play an extremely important role, becoming an incentive and a tool for establishing peace and economic prosperity in Eurasia.
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However, the Trans-Caspian route - from China through Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to Europe is economically unprofitable - after all, between China and the EU, with such a route, you have to cross as many as 5 customs borders and as many as 4 times carry out a ferry crossing or transshipment in ports (you have to cross not only the Caspian , but the Black Sea, since the railway between Georgia and Turkey has not been completed). Meanwhile, the Russian route involves crossing only 3 borders without any sea sections.

The Russian Trans-Siberian Railway is used to the fullest and is overloaded, but it is being successfully reconstructed, which creates a solid prospect for increasing cargo traffic precisely through the territory of Russia.

"Silk Road" through Georgia and Ukraine

On January 15, 2016, Ukraine announced the launch of the first experimental flight from the Ilyichevsk seaport through Georgia, Azerbaijan, through the Caspian Sea and Kazakhstan to China. This PR project is connected with the initiatives of the Odessa Governor Mikheil Saakashvili, the ex-president of Georgia. According to the Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, this route "will become a new direction of the Silk Road and an alternative for the delivery of goods from Ukraine to these markets, bypassing the territory of Russia." In Ukraine, they say that the journey from China to Europe through the Ukrainian port of Ilyichevsk may take "a maximum of 9 days" instead of "30 days through Russia."

In reality, however, the route through Russia is designed for only 14-15 days, while the alternative "Ukrainian" route is unlikely to be as fast as claimed. The profitability of this project is highly doubtful, because, as in the route through Turkey, here again you have to cross as many as 5 customs and 2 seas. However, in connection with the restrictions imposed at the beginning of 2016 on the transit of Ukrainian goods through the FTA of the Eurasian Union, it is possible that Ukraine will be forced to use alternative routes, even at a loss.

As in the case of the route through Turkey, we are actually talking about an attempt to revive the old failed project of the TRACECA transport corridor, attributing to it the name "Silk Road", popular in connection with the new transport and economic strategy of China.

The past two decades of rapid economic growth in China have turned it into a superpower. With the coming to power of a new leadership led by Xi Jinping, the PRC has ceased to hide its foreign policy ambitions. The project to create a New Silk Road is a logical continuation of China's policy in recent years. The first steps to make the dream come true have already been taken: financial resources have been allocated, agreements have been worked out with key countries. The plan also has several opponents from among the major world powers. By implementing the project, China will solve not only a number of internal problems, but also globally affect the economic picture of the world. How will the New Silk Road go?

grand plan

Not so long ago, Foreign Minister Wang Yi defined the concept for foreign policy China's "One Belt - One Dream", according to which it is planned to build a New Silk Road from Asia to Europe. In early 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping presented a plan to create a Silk Road. As part of the project, it is planned to form a giant single economic belt, consisting of infrastructure facilities in many countries. The new Silk Road will pass through Central Asia, Russia, Belarus, Europe. The sea route will follow the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean. A variant with routes through African countries is being considered.

China is going to invest more than $40 billion in the project from a special fund. $50 billion has already been allocated by the Asian Bank. The funds will be directed to the construction of railways, ports and other facilities, to the development of relations between the countries participating in the project. Wantchinatimes estimated China's total investment at $22 trillion.

Attempts to revive the Silk Road have already been made by Europe and the United States. China turned to this idea last but did much more to implement it. Thanks to impressive financial opportunities and “soft economic aggression”, it will be possible to form a safe transit that will be used by many states. Today, China is actively discussing infrastructure construction projects with participating countries. A more specific scheme of the new Silk Road and the results of lengthy negotiations will become known in late March at the Boao Forum (South China's Hainan Province).

Silk Road Concept

Today, China supplies machine tools, equipment, electrical and high-tech products to the world market. In terms of length (16 thousand km), the country ranks first in the world. The ancient Silk Road was exclusively a Chinese transport corridor. Today, China announces the creation of an international economic platform.

The initiative to unite the "Economic Belt" and the "Maritime Silk Road of the 21st century" is carried out within the framework of the "One Belt - One Road" program. The concept of the New Silk Road is to implement the plan through five interrelated elements:

• unified infrastructure;
• political coherence;
• monetary and financial flows;
• trade relations;
• humanitarian communication.

On this basis, full-scale cooperation is being promoted, strengthening mutual trust between countries, developing economic integration and cultural tolerance. The implementation of the project as a whole was planned along three routes:

• "China - Central Asia - Russia - Europe".
• "China - Central and Western Asia".
• "China - Southeast Asia - South Asia".

New Silk Road. Route

The scale of the project is impressive not only in terms of investment, but also in terms of geography. The entire "path" is divided into two routes (by land and by sea). The land line starts in Xi'an (Shaanxi province), passes through the whole of China, follows to the city of Urumqi, crosses such as Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey. Further through the Bosphorus it follows to Eastern Europe, to Russia. The New Silk Road, the route of which will pass through the territory of several European countries, will run from Rotterdam to Italy.

A no less grandiose sea route begins in the city of Quanzhou (Fuzqian province), follows through large southern Chinese cities, through the Strait of Malacca, entering Kuala Lumpur. Crossing the Indian Ocean, stops in Colombo (Sri Lanka), in the Maldives, reaches Nairobi (Kenya). Further, the route passes through the Red Sea through Djibouti, through the Suez Canal it goes to Athens (Greece), to Venice (Italy) and merges with the land Silk Road.

Economic tasks of the "path"

As the largest exporter, China influences the global economy in many ways. According to forecasts, the Silk Road is expected to trade $21 trillion a year, which could increase China's share in world GDP up to 50%.

It is assumed that the New Silk Road, the construction of which is already goes full move, redirect the flow of exports of goods and capital to regions that until recently remained outside international trade. In recent decades, China has been actively cooperating with Asian countries. Investments provided by Chinese state-owned companies are perhaps the only way for many developing countries to maintain independence among the great powers.

From an economic point of view, the benefit of the project for China lies in the reduction of logistics costs. For the countries participating in the Silk Road - in attracting additional funds. An example of such cooperation based on Chinese investment is the iHavan project in the Maldives (in the future, this is one of the important points on the map of the maritime Silk Road).

Regional tasks

China's presence in Central Asia and Africa is not purely economic nature. At the regional level for the PRC priority remains the political and economic stability of the border regions: East, Central and Southeast Asia. The main barrier to the spread of the Chinese economic phenomenon has become the factor of the “Chinese threat”. It is planned to reduce the threat to "no" with the help of the strategy of "soft power", strengthening the cultural influence of the PRC. The number of students in the Asian region studying at universities in China reflects the degree of penetration

The energy security of the Celestial Empire largely depends on its control over the sea and land Silk Road. As the world's largest energy importer, China is 100% dependent on maritime supplies. The threat of an “oil embargo” constantly hangs over the country. This tactic was used by the United States against Japan before the war.

The new Silk Road will unite many countries, including the US opponents (Russia, Pakistan, Iran). The states participating in the path can become a powerful political force. An important task associated with the creation of the Silk Road is the protection of Chinese investments. Through trade points controlled by the PRC, it is possible to implement not only commercial, but also anti-terrorist goals. From time to time, information appears in the media about the creation of a Chinese network of military bases "Pearl String" in the Indian Ocean.

The impact of the project on the domestic policy of the PRC

Major international projects are becoming a top priority and domestic politics China. The new Silk Road will contribute to the resolution of several internal problems.

1. The Pro-Chinese Economic Belt is a profitable investment project with high payback and long-term profitability.
2. Passing through Western China, the belt will contribute to solving the problems of uneven development of the country, cultural and economic integration of the western regions.
3. The construction of infrastructure facilities is a source of new jobs for state-owned companies of the PRC, which have solid human resources.

Central Asia and Russia

The territories of Russia and Central Asia, which combine the West and the East, are significant transit arteries for China. Today, China is the world's factory. They have been considering the idea of ​​using Central Asia for the benefit of the economy since the collapse of the Soviet Union. At the same time, systematic work began in this direction: Shanghai Cooperation Organization, raising the issue of economic cooperation. It was important not only to equalize the internal economic situation, but also to prepare a corridor to Europe through Central Asia and Russia.

It is not so important where the New Silk Road will pass: in any case, it will become a large-scale “shake-up” of the infrastructure of Central Asia and significantly expand cargo flows from China. The success of the tactics of unification and stability, the only possible one on the Silk Road, has been proven historically. Coups, wars between peoples led him to decline, and navigation - to lack of demand. Subsequent attempts to resume the route without merging at the regional level did not lead to anything.

Central Asia has always been a sphere of Russian interests. Rapprochement between China and Russian Federation is a rather difficult question. It is not yet clear how the Silk Road will affect Customs Union and SCO. Much depends on the position of Kazakhstan, regional center

Russia's role in the project

On the ancient Silk Road, China was the only exporter. The modern path differs from its predecessor precisely in the desire for integration. At the talks in Moscow, China for the first time offered Russia to use the infrastructure of the economic corridor for trade purposes. Russia will apparently gain access to ports on the New Silk Road and take part in the transit of goods. Of course, in this way, the PRC solves one of the important tasks - to give an impetus to the development and inclusion in the international economy of the western territories.

Russia on the New Silk Road so far acts only as an accomplice, a supplier of raw materials, a transit country. A holistic strategy is needed to develop within the “path”. Governmental, corporate plans of individual companies are not enough for this, a unified one is required. Thanks to China, we have formed a positive image of this project, but there are not many really positive moments for Russia.

After the collapse of the USSR, we left Central Asia and solved internal problems. China established the Shanghai Cooperation Organization for integration purposes. Small states were afraid of the PRC, so security was on the agenda. China raised economic issues concerning free trade, opening of borders. The SCO would have been a monopoly in the region if not for the formation of the Eurasian economic union which showed that Russia has the will and strategic plans for Central Asia. Today, the SCO and the EAEU are the only projects in Central Asia, and the second has more prospects for development, so China is entering into negotiations.

Xi Jinping voiced several proposals to unite the future economic belt and the EAEU. The idea was supported by V. Putin. The President expressed the opinion that both projects together will become powerful impulse for economic activity on the territory of Eurasia. The projects will be merged on the basis of the SCO, which also puts China in the lead.

Prospects for the project in Russia

The New Silk Road project will help increase trade turnover and develop Russia's own land and sea transport network. To do this, you need to create an associated infrastructure. Today, the Russian government is saving the budget, including cutting funds allocated for construction.

Connecting Russia to the route as a whole depends on the degree of development of the domestic railway infrastructure. It was planned that the New Silk Road through Russia would go along the Middle, Southern Urals and northern regional territories, where the construction of the Northern Latitudinal Railway is underway. The possibility of extending the line through the Polunochnoe-Obskaya line to Kazakhstan and China is being considered. Northern Ural could be integrated into the "way" by sea or by land, but only by fulfilling the conditions for the modernization of the railway network.

Sokolov raised the issue of modernizing the BAM and the Trans-Siberian Railway, which would make it possible to create a high-speed railway line "Moscow - Beijing", but no money is expected. In 2015, according to the plan, the financing of the BAM and the Trans-Siberian Railway was to be at least 21 billion rubles, but in fact, 16 billion were allocated.

One of the options for including Russia in the New Silk Road was rejected along with the termination of the project to build the Crimean port. Crimea could become a strategic trading base and a new point of entry for the trade route to Europe. In any case, the Silk Road by land will go through one of the European countries, where it is easy to provoke a change of power and block transit. For example, stopping the South Stream in Bulgaria. The presence of a trading base in the Crimea will allow redirecting the movement of goods through any of the countries.

New Silk Road bypassing Russia

Ukraine has announced its intention to take part in the Silk Road project as an intermediate link for cargo flow from China to Europe. According to Mikheil Saakashvili, it is more profitable to direct trade flows to the seaport of Ilyichevsk, since logistics through it will take no more than 9 days, and through Russia - 30 days. Saakashvili stressed that work is already underway to build roads in the EU, a large bridge is being built across the Dniester Estuary.

China has already made significant progress in the implementation of the basic version of the path: Kazakhstan - Azerbaijan - Georgia - Turkey. From China, bypassing the territory of Russia, a Nomadexpress test container train left, passing 3,500 km in five days - through Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea to the Kishly station (not far from Baku). The second route of the New Silk Road will pass through Iran, the third one (through the territory of Russia to Moscow and St. Petersburg) is still being discussed. The last route is more profitable: it is shorter than the other two. In addition, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan are members of the EAEU. The issue of Russia's participation in the project took a long time to decide, a declaration of consent was signed in May 2015.

He considers the option with an "independent" PRC quite acceptable. The Chinese ambassador said that Chinese banks are ready to invest $20 billion in Ukraine's infrastructure. Doesn't this mean that there will be a New Silk Road bypassing the territory of the Russian Federation? Wait and see. It is quite obvious that China is considering several route options at once, as in ancient times.

The direction "Kazakhstan - Russia - Belarus" is the most beneficial for China, but Russia has not joined the concept of the "New Silk Road" and defends its own interests related to the EAEU. Ukraine is really convenient for organizing transportation, but it is not suitable for large investments due to its instability. The game of the PRC with the “square” strengthens the Chinese position in negotiations with the Russian Federation. Of course, the route "Kazan - Moscow - Petersburg ..." on the Silk Road will still be discussed.

The Chinese project of the Silk Road Economic Belt is gradually becoming a significant geo-economic phenomenon of Eurasia, with great development prospects

Talgat Mamyrayimov

Potential, Priorities and Activities of the Silk Road Participants

The Chinese project of the Silk Road Economic Belt (hereinafter - SREB) is gradually becoming a significant geo-economic phenomenon of Eurasia, with great development prospects. However, in Kazakhstan, the SREB is considered mainly in a propaganda vein, when its risks and threats are practically not analyzed. Therefore, it will not be superfluous to contribute to some clarification of the mechanisms, priorities and prospects for the functioning of this project.

The first results of the work of the EBSR

In 2016, China-Europe-China traffic through all Russian border crossings, as well as Kazakhstan's Dostyk, grew by 89%, reaching 154,000 TEUs. And excluding the railway border crossing Dostyk - 111 thousand twenty-foot containers. Last year, every fourth container traveled along the Trans-Siberian Railway in the direction of China-Europe-China. During 8 months of 2017, 113,000 transit TEUs were transported along the Trans-Siberian Railway (excluding Dostyk), that is, more by 78% than in the same period last year.

In 2016, 105,000 TEUs were transported via the Kazakhstani railway crossings Dostyk and Altynkol by the China-Europe-China route, which is 2 times more compared to 2015. And for 5 months of 2017, such container traffic increased by 2.2 times, amounting to 59 thousand TEUs. For 2015 alone, KTZh (Kazakhstan Temir Zholy) formed 100 container trains from the port of Lianyungang to Central Asia (CA). Such volumes of traffic in such a short time have never been in the history of Central Asia - before that they left through the sea. In general, in Kazakhstan from 2012 to the beginning of 2015, they were able to increase the flow of container trains from China to Europe by 15 times.

Thus, taking into account the above data, in the transit of goods from China to Europe, although slightly, the Russian Trans-Siberian Railway continues to lead. At the same time, the growth rate of transit traffic through Kazakhstan, the growth of Chinese investments there (this aspect will be discussed in more detail in the next article) suggest that in the long term, Kazakhstan will be the main operator of the SREB.

SREB routes

The land part of the Silk Road Economic Belt, generally speaking, consists of three railway corridors (northern, central and southern), which can be used in laying the necessary tracks for road and other transport. The northern route of the railway line stretches from Western China to Europe through the territory of Kazakhstan and Russia to the Baltic Sea, from where a branch line will pass through Belarus and Poland to Germany and Holland. The central railway corridor will provide transit from the ports of Central China (Shanghai, Lianyungang) through the countries of Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan), Iran, Turkey, the Balkan Peninsula to the ports of France. This route is considered as the most difficult to implement, given the political situation along it, the lack of appropriate infrastructure. To launch it, it is also necessary to build an additional tunnel under the Bosphorus, since the existing tunnel is overloaded. The southern route will run along two branches: from China to Pakistan, on the one hand, and from China to India, Bangladesh and Myanmar, on the other hand.

At the end of December 2016, Russia and Mongolia agreed to reduce tariffs for transporting containers between themselves and to Europe. The growth of cargo transportation from China through Mongolia will increase the demand for the route through Russia. Be that as it may, apparently, we should expect the development of other SREB routes. China, especially in economic enterprises, is not accustomed to "putting its eggs in one basket" so as not to depend entirely on one source. He also acts in the development of the SREB routes, without giving any of them a clear preference.

Routes under development

The railway corridor through Pakistan and further through Iran is of great importance for Beijing within the framework of the SREB. At present, the issue of joining the Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway with the Islamabad-Tehran-Istanbul railway is being worked out, with the participation of Kazakhstan in a number of transport projects in Pakistan. To develop the SREB through Pakistan, Beijing and Islamabad have started building the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, in which China is investing $46 billion. The project will get a full-fledged launch in 2030, when "it will combine a high-speed railway, a highway, and a power transmission line." The corridor will stretch from the Chinese city of Kashgar to the Pakistani port of Gwadar. That is, in this project, two projects of the One Belt - One Road strategy are combined at once - sea ​​way and the Economic Belt.

The construction project is currently under development railway route SREB from China through Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan. But in these Central Asian countries, unlike in Kazakhstan and Russia, the railway infrastructure is not yet ready to become an important link in the Economic Belt. In these states, there is also a low harmonization of transit tariffs, the absence of an effective legislative framework for accelerated cargo transportation, and bureaucratic obstacles at customs borders.

Geo-economic and geopolitical contexts

The new concept of Russian foreign policy states that Russian state“takes measures to use its unique geographical position to increase transit cargo flows in order to optimally develop trade and economic ties between Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. In short, Russia intends to play its own independent party in Eurasian trade and economic cooperation. A number of Russian experts believe that the activities of the SREB could lead to the emergence of a "large-scale free trade zone - from the northwestern provinces of China and Central Asia to Central and of Eastern Europe”, which plays into the hands of Beijing, but not Moscow and many other post-Soviet countries.

Beijing, the Chinese expert community declare that the SREB is a joint project of a number of Eurasian countries. In China on official level it is customary not to discuss the geopolitical goals of the Silk Road Economic Belt. These omissions may be an indirect confirmation of the expansionist geopolitical ambitions of Beijing in relation to the countries through whose territory the SREB will pass. It is no coincidence that the "Strategic Plan for the Construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road" adopted by the CPC Central Committee and the PRC State Council has not yet been publicly published. Thus, it is possible that India was guided not only by geopolitical tensions with China when it did not send its official delegation to the Chinese forum “One Belt, One Road”, which took place in May of this year.

Russian expert I. Zuenko believes that China, willingly subsidizing the development of rail transport routes in the SREB, which are inferior in terms of profitability to sea deliveries, due to this, seeks to create a block of “countries dependent on the Chinese economy and Chinese capital” in the space up to Europe. He illustrates these words by the fact that almost all rail transportation from China to Europe is unprofitable, but their freight turnover continues to increase, with a constant decrease in tariffs. The Chinese authorities continue to generously fund different regions China overland routes to Europe.

Future prospects for the Silk Road Economic Belt

Now not only between Russia and Kazakhstan, but also between Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltic countries, competition is unfolding for the right to be the main transit corridor of the SREB. All this may result in a conflict of interests of the participants in this project. For example, there is a risk that the clash of ambitions of Russia and Kazakhstan regarding the "Economic Belt", cooperation with China will lead to a deterioration in relations between them. In addition, trusting relations are developing between Beijing and Astana, when Kazakhstan is gradually becoming China's key partner in the SREB, especially since there is access to all routes of this project through Kazakhstan's railways and roads. Astana is increasingly beginning to make decisions in line with Beijing's interests.

However, there is more reasons believe that the development of the SREB in the future will lead to the establishment mutually beneficial relationship its members. Already almost completed preparatory work on conjugation of the EAEU and EPSHP. Russian analyst Pervukhin V.V. believes that "the Silk Road Economic Belt project allows Beijing to advance its interests without confrontation with Russia, making it possible to solve two problems at once - to strengthen China's position in Central Asia and to close the cargo flow from Southeast Asia to Europe, as opposed to the Trans-Siberian Railway" .

A. Knobel, Director of the Center for International Trade Studies of the RANEPA, believes that the Chinese initiative "One Belt - One Road" is primarily subordinated to the logic of not national protectionism, but the protection of existing global chains of international production and exchange of goods, of which China is an important part. Beijing, thanks to this “soft approach”, realizes its geopolitical, geo-economic and geo-cultural interests. In this case, the SREB acts as intercivilizational cooperation instead of conflict relations with other powers, other geopolitical actors. This approach is consistent with the well-known Chinese cultural and philosophical strategy "Who walks softly, he will go far."