China's Westward One Belt One Road Strategy

tidalwave

Senior Member
Registered Member
Booyah.. LOL
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Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
CPEC officially open with the first good from Xinjiang reached Gwadar port. Click the link there is video file

CPEC: Pakistan and China strengthen economic ties
China invest $46bn in CPEC project, hoping link to Gwadar port will lead to easier trade with Middle East and Africa.
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Parts of a multi-billion-dollar trade route between China and Pakistan have opened, with the first Chinese trade caravan reaching Pakistan's port city of Gwadar.

The 3,000km trade route, called theChina Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), links China's Xinjiang province with Gwadar in Pakistan's Balochistan province.

China is investing $46bn in CPEC and hopes it will lead to easier trade with the Middle East and Africa.

The route cuts across the high road over Khunjerab Pass, situated more than 5,000 metres above sea level.

Once a part of the ancient Silk Route, this road will become a vital link for China to Gwadar. It is being built with Chinese help to become part of a new maritime Silk Route.

"This investment will help to turn around not Pakistan's economy but also it will enable Pakistan to become self-sufficient in energy and improve its infrastructure," Ahsan Iqbal, minister for planning and development of Pakistan, told Al Jazeera.

However, local Pakistani manufacturers, under the Organisation for Advancement and Safeguard of Industrial Sector (OASIS), say the CPEC poses new challenges for the domestic industrial sector.

"The Chinese industry has achieved economies of scale over the years, primarily due to their huge domestic market, industry-friendly policies and multiple incentives by the government," Atif Iqbal, OASIS executive director, told local Pakistani media on Friday.

Supporters of the CPEC say it is a one-time opportunity for Pakistan to resolve its crippling power-supply shortfalls, and for the first time to establish a nationwide network of logistical infrastructure.

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Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
Pakistan suffer from acute electricity shortage. Plan is afoot to build more power plant along the CPEC but it will take sometime. ON the other hand Xinjiang experience power surplus because they overbuild power plant and Xinjiang is the center of renewable energy production and their supporting industry . Goldwind the largest producer of wind energy in the world is headquarter in Urumqi and so is their competitor and there is large Solar industry present as well.
So a transmission line is currently built between Lahore and and Xinjiang
This CPEC is a lot more than road and port.The question is can Pakistan manage such large influx of money efficiently


 
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advill

Junior Member
China's Westward One Belt looks very encouraging, and barring any unforeseen circumstances it will succeed. BTW, I need to remember and hopefully follow: (1) Chinese proverb "Where wisdom is Perfect, there the words are Few....". (2) William Shakespeare 1564-1616, English dramatist's wrote: "Brevity is the soul of the wit". The Asians, in particular the Chinese do not believe in unnecessary rhetoric.
 

Equation

Lieutenant General
Looks like China will continue to win the favors of many African nations for years to come.

Donald Trump may push African countries away from America and closer to China


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Forging friendships.
A Donald Trump presidency might push Africa in the direction of China.

While China is a newer partner to Africa than the United States, it plays a powerful role as a counterexample. Many African governments see China as an model of a country that managed to develop without adopting American-style political systems. Until China came along, African countries were, (and still are,) prodded to follow Western ideas of democracy and civil society, as a gateway to modernity and development.


Chinese development presents a different narrative, one that some African governments interested in building centralized power, have eagerly embraced. The idea of the United States as the guardian of liberal values against powers like China, a story with echoes in the Cold War, might now be upended by the election of Trump to the US presidency. China’s counter-narrative of booming development guided by a strong centralized state is likely to become that much more appealing to politicians who want to believe in state power anyway.

The idea of the US as the guardian of liberal values against powers like China might now be upended.We still don’t know what a Trump presidency will actually look like, especially as it relates to Africa. However, the president elect’s outspoken antipathy to traditional human rights principles—including his threats to prosecute his opponent Hillary Clinton after the election, his plan to build a wall between the US and Mexico, and his gleeful promises to ‘
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’— don’t fit the picture US public diplomacy has so far liked to present in Africa.

In this sense, the Trump presidency could herald the end of the binary pull between the US and China that we have seen in Africa over the last 15 years. The traditional narrative about the US and China’s role in Africa, presented by the US government, has been a choice between US-style development via liberal human rights and China-style authoritarianism.


In 2011, Clinton warned the continent against “
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” in a not-so-veiled jab at China.
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last year, President Obama said, “Economic relationships can’t simply be about building countries’ infrastructure with foreign labor or extracting Africa’s natural resources.” These coded statements weren’t only aimed at throwing shade at China. They were also meant to position the US as Africa’s only trustworthy partner.

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U.S. President Barack Obama applauds the assembly at the end of his remarks to the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia July 28, 2015. Obama toured a U.S.-supported food factory in Ethiopia on Tuesday on the last leg of an Africa trip, before winding up his visit at the African Union where he will become the first U.S. president to address the 54-nation body.
Obama after remarks to the African Union in Addis Ababa in 2015.

Yet, America’s model of development and democracy has already suffered some setbacks on the continent, even before the election. When the US government talks about the US as a human rights champion in Africa, officials only seem to take into account official diplomatic messaging. Other realities, like the rapid militarization of the US presence in Africa, go unmentioned.

US diplomats also don’t seem to realize that Africans have access to the internet. When presenting itself as a human rights paragon, they don’t completely grasp how images of black Americans being targeted by the police play in Africa. Africans are keen consumers of African-American media, and they are well aware of debates about racism and what it means to be black in America.

While Trump might alienate Africans, American citizens’ reaction to his actions might draw them back in.As part of a recent class on national image, I asked my students, all young black women, where they would take an all-expenses paid vacation. Not one out of the group of 10 said the US. When I asked why no one wanted to go to New York or Los Angeles, they all said that when they imagine themselves in the United States, they think of being hassled by racist American cops. “America just isn’t for us,” one said.

If president Trump follows through on some of the promises made during his campaign, Africans will find the ideal of American democracy a lot harder to share. This would further muddy the idea that in terms of both an ally and a development model, Africa has to choose between a democratic superpower and an authoritarian one. If both superpowers come to seem equally iffy on human rights, governance and civil society, then Africa’s choice of a development model will be more driven by these powers’ recent track records on economic development.

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Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
It will be too costly to transport oil from Gwadar to China Xinjiang province . It doesn't make economical sense . But the road will be beneficial to Xinjiang export providing shorter distance to sea and reduce export cost . Here is Global times take on the official opening of Gwadar Port
Gwadar Port benefits to China limited
By Li Xuanmin Source:Global Times Published: 2016/11/23 23:18:39
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The CPEC terminal will provide development opportunities for Pakistan
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The COSCO Wellington cargo vessel is seen during the opening of a trade project in Gwadar Port, west of Karachi on November 13. Photo: CFP

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The benefits of Pakistani Gwadar Port to the Chinese economy may be limited, as the port's capacity cannot satisfy China's oil import demand and a proposed pipeline from Gwadar to western China would be both economically and geographically infeasible and would raise crude transport costs by as much as 16 times, experts said.

However, the port is a bonanza for Pakistan, experts said, noting that it will bring a string of opportunities for the country, including revitalizing its lackluster economy and attracting more foreign capital.


Following the first trade cargo ships that departed from Gwadar on November 13, the National Business Daily (NBD) suggested China would benefit a lot from the port because of its strategic location.

The port "is located on the Arabian Sea and occupies a strategic location," Bloomberg reported, giving China access to the Persian Gulf region and the Middle East.

This will allow China to transport oil and gas from the Gulf countries through a much shorter route instead of the existing arrangement through the Malacca Straits, the NBD said.

However, based on the port's size and current cargo throughput, benefits to China may be limited, experts noted.

Gwadar's inner port is currently dredged to 11.5 meters, a depth that is eclipsed by "major international ports, like the Shanghai Port, which generally have a water depth of 14 to 15 meters and are compatible with heavy loaded ships that carry hundreds of thousands of tons of goods," Wu Minghua, a Shanghai-based independent shipping industry analyst, told the Global Times on Wednesday, noting that the vessels docked in the Gwadar Port are only able to carry cargo weighing less than 100,000 tons.

With an expected handling capacity of 1 million tons in 2017, it is better to describe the port as "medium-sized," Wu noted. Traffic at large ports generally averages 600 million tons per year.

Additionally, the port would not be able to handle China's demand for petroleum imports. In 2015, the country's total crude oil imports stood at 335.5 million tons, according to China's General Administration of Customs, 310 times the handling capacity of Gwadar Port.

Against this backdrop, "Gwadar will not become China's main trade hub with Persian Gulf countries, not to mention serve as an alternative route to the Malacca Straits," Wu said.

Oil pipeline

In addition to the port, China also plans to build pipelines from Gwadar to Kashi, Northwest China's
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Uyghur Autonomous Region, for the export of crude, the Nation reported.

The proposed construction hasn't started yet, and "will not likely take place" due to the high cost and complicated geographic conditions, Mei Xinyu, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the
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, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Such pipelines would need to climb the Karakorum mountain range with an altitude of 5,000 to 6,000 meters, where temperature fall as low as -30 C and earthquakes also happen frequently, Mei said, noting "the pipelines need extra heating and insulating equipment as well as high-power pumping stations."

But those expenses will drive up the cost. Mei estimates that the cost of delivering oil through the Gwadar-Kashi pipeline is about 16.6 times more than shipping from Saudi Arabia to a port in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang Province.

"For the same amount of investment, it's more economically viable to build very large crude carriers than oil pipelines," Mei said.


Benefits to Pakistan

As the south terminal of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a $46 billion mega cooperation project between the two countries, the Gwadar Port is likely to bring significant development opportunities for Pakistan by feeding its energy-starved economy and becoming, what the former Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz called, a "game changer" for the country, experts said.

"The port is a boon for the country, helping it to embark on a Shenzhen-liked development model," Mei said.

Balochistan Province where the port is located, is one of the most isolated and underprivileged regions in the country. As soon as the port goes into use, it will open a new route to Northeast Asian countries like Japan, South Korea and Russia, and gradually evolve to become an international transit point, Wu said.

The Chinese government has also pledged to build support infrastructure for the port, including roads and highways, a move which experts forecast will open up the country more, attract foreign investment, increase tax revenues and offer job opportunities in the long term.
 

BoggedDown

New Member
Registered Member
Current depth may not be spectacular but what limits to dredge more depth. It is planned to dredge to 18m depth.
 
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