Resumen: La Ruta de la Seda
Para facilitar su comercio con Europa (hasta Alemania), China está desarrollando, con inversiones de un valor de cientos de miles de millones de dólares, una extensa red ferroviaria que pasa por Asia Central —Irán y Turquía—, con una ruta alterna por Rusia, que termina en Crimea, de cuyos puertos continúa la carga en barcos. Por su interés en Crimea, los chinos van a construir un puente y túnel en el estrecho de Kerch, que une Rusia con Crimea.
By Monish Gulati*
The Silk Road as a concept is a network of trade routes which sought to connect China and Europe. Its alignment from a geostrategic standpoint has been influenced by geopolitics, security considerations and the availability and viability of transportation routes. Over the last few years various proposals on regional integration of Eurasia (China-Central Asia-Europe) have been put forth.
US proposed its “New Silk Road Initiative” in 2011; Russia promoted the eco-political Eurasian Economic Union. Beijing’s initiative, the “Silk Road Economic Belt” was announced by President Xi Jinping in the fall of 2013. Of the three proposals, the Chinese proposal is considered closest to the ancient version of the Silk Road and most pragmatic vision for Eurasia’s 18 Central Asian and European countries along the route, including Russia. Consequently it has resulted in tangible infrastructure projects, and “Silk Road Economic Belt” agreements have been signed with 24 cities from eight countries along the Silk Road till November 2013.
This article looks at the impact of the Ukraine crisis on the Chinese Silk road initiative and China-Russia relations.
Silk Road Economic Belt
The Chinese land-based new Silk Road (as distinct from the maritime silk road) is planned to run from Xi’an in central China before stretching west through Lanzhou (Gansu province), Urumqi (Xinjiang), and Khorgos (Xinjiang), which is near the border with Kazakhstan. The Silk Road then runs southwest from Central Asia to northern Iran before swinging west through Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. From Istanbul, the Silk Road crosses the Bosporus Strait and heads northwest through Europe, including Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Germany. Reaching Duisburg in Germany, it swings north to Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The transportation backbone of this Silk Road is the “New Eurasian Land (or Continental) Bridge”, a rail link between the port city of Lianyungang in Jiangsu province to Rotterdam, a distance of 11,870 km through Iran and Turkey.
The Chinese project as compared to the US and Russian does not focus much on ideology or geopolitics, rather looks to use economic benefits to drive integration with its regional partners. The US instead had sought to use Afghanistan as the bridge between Central and South Asia. China is also quick to commit financial resources to related infrastructure projects in Central Asia, in contrast with the US’ Silk Road initiative. In 2011, then US ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, said Washington was ready to invest $100 million to revive the Great Silk Road — but this sum is not even comparable to the $1 billion that Kazakhstan alone spent in 2013 to build a 293-km section of railway from the Almaty region to Khorgos.
For China, the Silk Road Economic Belt also has important domestic implications: Beijing sees it as a way to smoothen out the regional imbalances inside the country as well as keep the situation in Xinjiang, with its restive Uighur population, more focused on trade and development issues.
Crimean Connection
There exists another rail link in operation, established in March–April 2011, from Chongqing to Duisburg (Germany) via the Alashankou crossing, Kazakhstan, which traverses north of the Caspian Sea through Russia, Belarus and Poland, covering 10,300 km. China since late last year has looked to develop an alternate trade route to Europe, through Ukraine/Crimea from the Sevastopol deep water port and connect with the Maritime Silk Road in Greece. Accordingly, even as Ukraine embroiled itself deeper in political crisis, the Beijing Interoceanic Canal Investment Management (BICIM) unveiled a project to invest US$10 billion in the construction of a port and economic zone in Sevastopol, Ukraine’s second largest port.
The Sevastopol port would improve China’s shipping access to Europe, cutting thousands of kilometres off the Asia-Europe journey and at the same time insulate it from the ups and downs of the Russia-Europe relations. The first US$3 billion phase of the project would include an economic development zone with high-tech logistics and industrial parks. Phase two will need another US$7 billion for the construction of a refinery, liquefied natural gas production plant, an airport and a shipyard. BICIM’s partner in the project is a Ukrainian company called Kievgidroinvest. BICIM will hold a larger share than its Ukrainian partner.
As a part of the project, a new deep water port will be built in Crimea near the village of Frunze in Saki region. Dredging works will be required to provide the new port a draft up to 25 meters deep. The project will entail the construction of several terminals and grain storage facilities with total capacity of 20 million tons. The port’s design capacity is 140 million tons. Since the port infrastructure and port itself will be built on land, the builders will have to destroy the land separating the Bogayly Lake from the sea. The navigable channel for the passage of the largest vessels will stretch for 9 kilometres. The proposal has raised protests from environmentalists and local residents.
China also has plans to develop a raw material, a logistic and, probably, a naval base in Crimea. On Jan 20, 2014 during a visit to Beijing by Crimea’s Deputy Prime Minister, Crimea and China signed a memorandum on implementation of a pilot integration project of an agro-industrial complex. Chinese companies plan to invest in development and modernization of irrigation systems, including drip irrigation, introduce modern agricultural technologies in Ukraine, and develop agricultural storage, grain terminal and logistics complexes. The project will be implemented by the Krymzernoprom Company on the Crimean side and the State Corporation for International Economic Cooperation on the Chinese side.
Russian Black Sea Fleet
Sevastopol hosts the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and will host it at least through the spring of 2017. The fleet currently consists of 40 combat ships (including a Kilo-class submarine), 28 of which are on active duty while the others are undergoing repair or modernization. The flagship is the Slava-class cruiser Moskva. Sevastopol is Ukraine’s only unfrozen port with natural depth of harbour channel not less than 17 meters. It has over 280 Soviet-inherited power-supplied quays with overall length of 20 km. However, its utility is restricted due to the port’s enclosure with city borders and requires about $4.5 billion of direct investments to develop piers and harbour capacity. China is expected to spend $3 billion on reconstruction in Sevastopol. In addition, in 2013 the ship-building factory in the Crimean city of Feodossiia delivered an amphibious military vessel (worth $350 million) to the Chinese, and is in the process of building a second one.
Assessment
The Chinese Silk Road project is not inimical to geopolitical and transportation considerations; hence development of alternate and multi-modal routes is inherent in its design. Reducing dependency on Russian transportation systems and ports had been a consideration, hence an alignment that bypasses Russia by going through Central Asian countries, Iran, Turkey and Romania to the European heartland.
Yet Chinese policy makers realised that incorporating Russian competition in the Silk Road not only made geopolitical sense but also provided alternate routing to Europe. Hence the route from Kazakhstan through Russia and Ukraine to Europe is being invested in. For their multi-modal route across the Black Sea, the Chinese appeared to favour Ukrainian/Crimean ports over Russian Black Sea ports as their logistics and transhipment hubs. However, after the secession of Crimea, Sevastopol and the proposed new port in Crimea will be under Russian control. Therefore, China is now investing in a $1.3 billion transportation corridor from the Krasnoyarsk region of Russia to Crimea over the Kerch Strait. The investment is seen as a demonstration of the developing relationship between Moscow and Beijing in the face of the West’s sanctions against Russia.
While China now needs greater Russian support to sustain its silk route through Crimea, there is an equally strong Russian requirement for China to persist with its investment in Crimea. Ukraine had welcomed Chinese investment in the country, particularly Crimea, as over 27 percent of the Crimea population live below the poverty line. Secondly, Russia’s total expenses on the Black Sea Fleet are estimated to be over $350 million per year, which contributed to the economy of Ukraine and development in Crimea. Russia needs Chinese investment not only to develop Crimea but also compensate for any loss in income to the region.
The Ukraine crisis and the secession of Crimea seems to have strengthened China-Russian cooperation by providing it a geo-economic context.
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* Monish Gulati is a Senior Research Fellow with the Society for Policy Studies. He can be contacted at m_gulati_2001@yahoo.com
South Asia Monitor, 26-05-2014
http://southasiamonitor.org/detail.php?type=sl&nid=8113
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