The New Silk Road is China’s latest and most ambitious attempt to foster economic relations. It is two proposed trade routes, one land based and one sea based, that seeks to integrate Central and South Asian economies with China and Europe. The Maritime Silk Road makes stops in South Asia before it circles over to Nairobi and then throughout Europe. The land based Road makes stops throughout Central Asia, which will allow countries in the region to exploit their significant energy repositories at a time when there is increasing demand for it in South Asia. The land based Road then continues to Europe through several countries including Iran and Turkey. So there are two separate pathways, linking three continents and billions of people in developing countries with hundreds of millions in more advanced ones.
Within China, the land based Road crosses the underdeveloped and unstable Xinjiang region. This area of China is one that has missed out on the prosperity and economic development that the coastal regions have enjoyed in recent history. Moreover, the people of this region, known as Uyghurs, are majority Muslim and have traditionally been oppressed by the Chinese government and denied the freedom to exercise religion. The New Silk Road is an opportunity for the Chinese government to appease the Uyghurs with increased wealth and development and perhaps quell the civil unrest in the region, even if it still denies the people the right to exercise religion freely. President Xi Jinping’s recent trip to Pakistan to sell the idea of the Silk Road also serves to remove the incentive of Pakistani funding of Islamist rebel groups in the Xinjiang region. In turn, China is already promising massive investment that would have practical benefits for Pakistani society. Now this is where the United States and China have significantly differed in development aid: China often directs its foreign investment towards projects that benefit the society of the nation in question, whereas the United States has historically spent its foreign investment on military and security purposes. The Pakistani military is awash with American investment dollars that corrupt officials often rob and send back to the very terrorist groups that the U.S. military fights in Afghanistan. The Chinese government, on the other hand, is promising investments in power plants, renewable energy, and infrastructure, as it has already done so in numerous African countries. The Unites States’ idea of aid is outdated and counterproductive compared to the refreshing take by the Chinese government. Such investment could also buy China greater influence in Pakistan, a country that the United States considers a necessary ally on the war on terror. Introducing Pakistan into the New Silk Road would therefore be a success for China.
The mechanism for financing this massive project is indicative of another geopolitical success for China. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is a proposed financial institution that would provide the funds for the New Silk Road, along with other infrastructure projects in Asia. The financial institutions that already exist, like the World Bank, are geared toward Western nations because they were developed by those same Western nations. The AIIB is China’s latest attempt to counteract those institutions’ favoritism, although the Chinese government denies that the AIIB is a rival. Scheduled to come into force by the end of 2015, the AIIB already has 57 member countries, many of which are in Asia and some in Europe and other regions. China, as a founding member, is apparently prepared to dole out tens of billions of dollars to build all kinds of infrastructure for a 21st century Silk Road: high speed railroads, bridges, roads, pipelines, fleets of ships, and more.
Of course, the economic potential of the New Silk Road is huge, but the creation and sustainability of the AIIB could be one of the major geopolitical events of the century, especially if it actually delivers on its promise of development in Asia. China, however, could just as easily overplay its hand as the primary founding member and allow corruption to take root, just as it has allowed so in the various levels of its own domestic government. It could also foster an attitude of favoritism among its members, only granting funds to member countries that please China and ignoring others, the same attitude that Western based financial institutions have. With regards to this possibility, small countries in South and Southeast Asia, like Bangladesh and Laos, would be vulnerable to an abusive China. Still, China has set the situation up so that both the AIIB and the New Silk Road are mutually reinforcing and that other countries can join in and still benefit.
The United States has not joined the AIIB, even though several of its allies throughout Asia and Europe have. It has expressed support for the New Silk Road, but it only seems to be concerned with how the project can benefit Afghanistan; in fact, the State Department does not make even a single mention of China’s role in the New Silk Road or how it would be relevant to other areas beyond South and Central Asia. This irrational focus on Afghanistan makes sense considering America’s commitment to the war torn country, but the scope of the Silk Road is much bigger and focusing too much on a single thing makes one oblivious. The U.S. should focus on the broader picture and tie Afghanistan into that picture, rather than the other way around. It should, for example, offer aid in the development of the energy production industry in Central Asia, which has great potential. It could also use the Silk Road to promote the supremacy of regulations and the rule of law with good governance and reward anti-corruption measures.
While the U.S. does not have to be a member of the AIIB—although that should be considered—it should get involved in the New Silk Road, especially to combat Chinese influence in regions that the U.S. deems strategic. The trade routes of the New Silk Road introduce the greater likelihood of growth of Chinese soft power, which is the appeal and sway that one culture has over others. The universality of things like iPhones and Coca-Cola and Taylor Swift are examples of American soft power; this is the kind of power China desperately wants to have but currently lacks. If the New Silk Road were to facilitate trade of ideas and innovation from China, it could more easily grow that kind of power. If the U.S. gets involved with the New Silk Road, it could at least contain and balance that influence.
The development and economic rise of Asia is fated to be one of the significant events of the century; the New Silk Road and AIIB could very well be a culmination of that event, or at least a way to it. Either way, it could majorly reshape the geopolitics of the world and benefit millions of people with investment, trade, and more opportunities. It’s a vision that deserves to be pursued.
