What You Are Seeing in Afghanistan Is All Geopolitical Stagecraft - Fulfillment of the Bunting Map - Pentagon Counterinsurgency Against the American People - Afghanistan Is the Beginning of the End - Bottom Up COINTELPRO - Who Wants to Win a War?
________
Source: The Cradle
A Eurasian jigsaw: BRI and INSTC interconnectivity will complete the puzzle
Shrugging off western obstacles, Eurasia's ambitious connectivity projects helmed by China and Russia are now progressing deep into Asia's Heartland
By Pepe Escobar | August 17 2022
Photo Credit: The Cradle
SAMARKAND – Interconnecting Inner Eurasia is an exercise in Taoist equilibrium: adding piece by piece, patiently, to a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. It takes time, skill, vision, and of course major breakthroughs.
A key piece was added to the puzzle recently in Uzbekistan, bolstering the links between the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC).
The Mirzoyoyev government in Tashkent is deeply engaged in turbo-driving yet another Central Asian transportation corridor: a China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan-Afghanistan railway.
That was at the center of a meeting between the chairman of the board of Temir Yullari – the Uzbek national railways – and his counterparts in Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan, as well as managers of the Chinese Wakhan Corridor logistics company.
In terms of the complex intersection of Xinjiang with Central and South Asia, this is as groundbreaking as it gets, as part of what I call the War of Economic Corridors.
The Uzbeks have pragmatically spun the new corridor as essential to cargo transport under low tariffs – but that goes way beyond mere trade calculations.
Imagine, in practice, cargo containers coming by train from Kashgar in Xinjiang to Osh in Kyrgyzstan and then to Hairatan in Afghanistan. Annual volume is planned to reach 60,000 containers in the first year alone.
That would be crucial to develop Afghanistan's productive trade – away from the "aid" obsession of the US occupation. Afghan products will finally be able to be easily exported to Central Asian neighbors and also China, for instance to the bustling Kashgar market.
And that stabilizing factor would bolster the Taliban's coffers, now that the leadership in Kabul is very much interested in buying Russian oil, gas and wheat under vastly attractive discounts.
How to get Afghanistan back in the game
There's also the possibility of spinning off a road project from this railway that would cross the ultra-strategic Wakhan corridor – something that Beijing has already been contemplating for a few years.
The Wakhan is shared by northern Afghanistan and the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan: a long, barren, spectacular geological strip, advancing all the way to Xinjiang.
By now it's clear not only to Kabul, but also to members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), that the humiliated Americans will not restitute the billions of dollars 'confiscated' from the Afghan Central Bank's reserves – something that would at least mitigate Afghanistan's current, dire economic crisis and imminent mass famine.
So Plan B is to bolster the – for the moment devastated – Afghan supply and trade chains. Russia will be in charge of security for the whole Central-South Asian crossroads. China will provide the bulk of the financing. And that's where the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan-Afghanistan railway fits in.
China sees a road across the Wakhan – a very complicated proposition – as an extra BRI corridor, linking to the China-repaved Pamir highway in Tajikistan and China-rebuilt Kyrgyzstan roads.
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) has already built an 80 km access road from the Chinese stretch of the Karakoram Highway – before it reaches the Pakistan border – to a mountain pass in the Wakhan, currently only available for cars and jeeps.
The next Chinese move would be to proceed further on down that road by 450 km, all the way to Fayzabad, the provincial capital of Afghan Badakhshan. That would constitute the roadside back-up corridor to the China-Central Asia-Afghanistan railway.
The key point is that the Chinese, as much as the Uzbeks, fully understand the extremely strategic location of Afghanistan: not only as a Central/South Asian crossroads, connecting to key ocean ports in Pakistan and Iran (Karachi, Gwadar, Chabahar) and to the Caspian Sea via Turkmenistan, but also helping landlocked Uzbekistan to connect to markets in South Asia.
That's all part of the BRI corridor maze; and at the same time interlocks with the INSTC because of the key role of Iran (itself increasingly linked with Russia).
Tehran is already engaged in building a railway to Herat, in western Afghanistan (it already rebuilt the road). Then we will have Afghanistan inbuilt in both BRI (as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, CPEC) and the INSTC, giving momentum to yet another project: a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan (TAT) railway, to be linked to Iran and thus the INSTC.
Please go to The Cradle to read more.
A key piece was added to the puzzle recently in Uzbekistan, bolstering the links between the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC).
The Mirzoyoyev government in Tashkent is deeply engaged in turbo-driving yet another Central Asian transportation corridor: a China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan-Afghanistan railway.
That was at the center of a meeting between the chairman of the board of Temir Yullari – the Uzbek national railways – and his counterparts in Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan, as well as managers of the Chinese Wakhan Corridor logistics company.
In terms of the complex intersection of Xinjiang with Central and South Asia, this is as groundbreaking as it gets, as part of what I call the War of Economic Corridors.
The Uzbeks have pragmatically spun the new corridor as essential to cargo transport under low tariffs – but that goes way beyond mere trade calculations.
Imagine, in practice, cargo containers coming by train from Kashgar in Xinjiang to Osh in Kyrgyzstan and then to Hairatan in Afghanistan. Annual volume is planned to reach 60,000 containers in the first year alone.
That would be crucial to develop Afghanistan's productive trade – away from the "aid" obsession of the US occupation. Afghan products will finally be able to be easily exported to Central Asian neighbors and also China, for instance to the bustling Kashgar market.
And that stabilizing factor would bolster the Taliban's coffers, now that the leadership in Kabul is very much interested in buying Russian oil, gas and wheat under vastly attractive discounts.
How to get Afghanistan back in the game
There's also the possibility of spinning off a road project from this railway that would cross the ultra-strategic Wakhan corridor – something that Beijing has already been contemplating for a few years.
The Wakhan is shared by northern Afghanistan and the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan: a long, barren, spectacular geological strip, advancing all the way to Xinjiang.
By now it's clear not only to Kabul, but also to members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), that the humiliated Americans will not restitute the billions of dollars 'confiscated' from the Afghan Central Bank's reserves – something that would at least mitigate Afghanistan's current, dire economic crisis and imminent mass famine.
So Plan B is to bolster the – for the moment devastated – Afghan supply and trade chains. Russia will be in charge of security for the whole Central-South Asian crossroads. China will provide the bulk of the financing. And that's where the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan-Afghanistan railway fits in.
China sees a road across the Wakhan – a very complicated proposition – as an extra BRI corridor, linking to the China-repaved Pamir highway in Tajikistan and China-rebuilt Kyrgyzstan roads.
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) has already built an 80 km access road from the Chinese stretch of the Karakoram Highway – before it reaches the Pakistan border – to a mountain pass in the Wakhan, currently only available for cars and jeeps.
The next Chinese move would be to proceed further on down that road by 450 km, all the way to Fayzabad, the provincial capital of Afghan Badakhshan. That would constitute the roadside back-up corridor to the China-Central Asia-Afghanistan railway.
The key point is that the Chinese, as much as the Uzbeks, fully understand the extremely strategic location of Afghanistan: not only as a Central/South Asian crossroads, connecting to key ocean ports in Pakistan and Iran (Karachi, Gwadar, Chabahar) and to the Caspian Sea via Turkmenistan, but also helping landlocked Uzbekistan to connect to markets in South Asia.
That's all part of the BRI corridor maze; and at the same time interlocks with the INSTC because of the key role of Iran (itself increasingly linked with Russia).
Tehran is already engaged in building a railway to Herat, in western Afghanistan (it already rebuilt the road). Then we will have Afghanistan inbuilt in both BRI (as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, CPEC) and the INSTC, giving momentum to yet another project: a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan (TAT) railway, to be linked to Iran and thus the INSTC.
Please go to The Cradle to read more.
Israel is just as much a part of China's Belt & Road Initiative and probably more so than any other country in the entire region. Israel has relationships with all of these countries while the US is booted out. In fact, Israel is forging close relationships with every country mentioned in Pepe Escobar's article above while a construction company from China begins construction of a new port in Haifa.
Israel tightens ties with Uzbekistan
From Tehran to Jerusalem, Uzbekistan bridges Israeli-Muslim divide
Ambassador of Kyrgyzstan to Israel with residence in Ankara Kubanychbek Omuraliev has presented presented Credentials to the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog
Turkmenistan Interested in Strengthening Cooperation With Israel: President Berdimuhamedov
Turkey and Israel restore full diplomatic relations
Microprocessor shortages? No problem. Turn to Israel:
Israel tightens ties with Uzbekistan
From Tehran to Jerusalem, Uzbekistan bridges Israeli-Muslim divide
Ambassador of Kyrgyzstan to Israel with residence in Ankara Kubanychbek Omuraliev has presented presented Credentials to the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog
Turkmenistan Interested in Strengthening Cooperation With Israel: President Berdimuhamedov
Turkey and Israel restore full diplomatic relations
Microprocessor shortages? No problem. Turn to Israel:
Israel fulfilling the Bunting map strategy. Here are a few background reading and analysis links:
Afghanistan: To be Integrated into China's "Belt and Road"
Why is Israel so silent during the downfall of America and standing on the sidelines as we fall to our knees to CCP communism?
Bunting's map and Israel on China's new silk road
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.