About some results of the Chinese forum “One Belt, One Road”
On October 18-19, a very significant event took place in Beijing - the third international forum “One Belt, One Road”, dedicated to the tenth anniversary of this Chinese economic, cultural and political initiative.
Considering that, in addition to the leaders of a number of countries, the political and economic establishment of 130 states and another thirty international organizations were represented at this forum, it was logical to expect widespread coverage of this event in the Russian media space. Moreover, one of the largest delegations from Russia was present there, and a lot of time was devoted to Russian-Chinese relations.
In the end, it is the “One Belt, One Road” project that is a real strategic alternative to the Western ultra-liberal project, and the general position of our country depends on the success of the implementation of this alternative. This is not only and not so much “logistics”, but one of the conceptual models of the future.
Unfortunately, even in terms of Russian-Chinese contacts and the results of negotiations, domestic media turned out to be extremely stingy in their coverage, largely limiting themselves to truly remarkable video footage of the Russian leader. Nevertheless, the results of some bilateral negotiations have shown us - grain contracts, activation of pipeline projects and logistics through Mongolia, projects on railway corridors.
Overall results
Regarding the general concept of the forum and the overall results of the event, not to mention the analysis of the policies of China and other players, there is obviously some gap.
Let's try to fill this gap to some extent, relying on the personalities, the situation, the final documents of the forum, as well as a retrospective of the actions of a number of its important participants.
The fact that Beijing would approach the event with all seriousness was clear from the way the Chinese leader ignored both the GXNUMX and the UN General Assembly. Last but not least, the anniversary forum “One Belt, One Road” weighs on the scales against another large-scale event, already under American patronage - the APEC summit, which will be held in November in San Francisco.
In conditions when the United States not only does not hide, but directly declares that it will try to limit China’s ambitions in Europe and Southeast Asia as much as possible, the summit in San Francisco and the forum in Beijing are becoming a kind of “show of forces” of Eastern and Western poles.
It is clear that events in Israel have had a fairly significant impact on the participation of a number of important players. For example, the leaders of Iran, Egypt and Syria are now entirely focused on the Palestinian issue. Although Egypt sent the second person in the state - the prime minister. The Arab countries that traditionally participate (UAE and Kuwait) have also reduced their delegations somewhat. In general, almost all countries in the region signed the Chinese initiative, except Israel and Jordan.
From African countries, the first and second persons were from Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique and Congo, the rest were represented by government delegations. Of those countries on the continent from which it would be logical to expect maximum representation, Algeria can be noted. The last meeting between the leaders of China and Algeria took place in the middle of summer, but the usual delegation came to the forum.
The Chinese initiative has long been presented as a “trade route to Europe.” The current forum clearly shows that the EU has followed and will continue to follow American strategies. From Europe, only the heads of Hungary and Serbia were present. Here everything fits into the logic of the last two years and simply emphasizes once again that “One Belt, One Road” is not so much logistics to Europe, but rather the integration of China with Eurasian, Asian and African markets and resources.
J. Borrell came to discuss EU policy three days before the forum. Discussed and left. It’s not for nothing that Washington organized its event – the US-Europe summit – immediately after the Chinese forum.
And here it is noteworthy that the President of the European Commission, U. von der Leyen, once again confirmed her intention to “bring to fruition” the Global Portal initiative at the European forum in November. The idea of the “portal” is to form a “global transport hub” in place of the European Union, as opposed to the Chinese “One Belt, One Road” project.
These are official goals that appear directly in the documents. It is clear that the EU as a global logistics hub is a political declaration, and the US $322 billion announced for its implementation will be better used in projects like PGII, but it once again emphasizes that in terms of the development of trade between the EU and China, a certain limit has been reached.
It’s just that what was previously implied is now included in program documents. For investors and logisticians, this is an obvious and direct signal: trade between China and the EU will now move strictly within the framework of the natural growth or decline of the EU economy, but not due to additional initiatives.
It is interesting to consider the representation of top officials from Southeast Asia, who traditionally actively participate in Chinese events. The heads of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Pakistan arrived. Malaysia, the Philippines, Myanmar and Bangladesh did not come.
And here it is interesting to look at how American diplomatic steps in this direction have already been implemented. It is clear that Malaysia sharply responded to China's new maritime maps in September by protesting, and quite harshly.
But the same “nine-dash line” that is drawn on the map affects not only Malaysia, but also Indonesia and Vietnam. For Indonesia and Vietnam, this was not a reason for refusal. By the way, on the same series of maps there are also questions on the Russian-Chinese border.
These atlases are published regularly, and it is clear that this is not entirely a matter of cartography. If the Philippines has been strictly moving towards US vassalage for several years now, Washington has been cultivating Vietnam for a long time and diligently this year.
It didn’t work out with Vietnam, but it did succeed in shaking the position in relations between China and Malaysia. And it is still not very clear what is better for China, since Malaysia still controls part of the Strait of Malacca. In general, for China, the situation in Southeast Asia does not look anything critical, given the US’s bet on Vietnam, but it is clear that the Malaysian production site and market are very significant for Beijing, and it will have to do something there.
The configuration looks very interesting from the point of view of representation in Central Asia. The leaders of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan came to the forum, but the heads of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan did not appear at the event.
The heads of customs services and energy came from these states. The absence of the leader of Tajikistan can somehow be connected with the presence in Beijing of a delegation from the Taliban (banned in the Russian Federation), although here it is generally necessary to do a separate material on the politics of Dushanbe in recent years - this is already a special phenomenon.
But Bishkek’s position is most likely due to the relatively low share of Chinese investments. It is also interesting that the leader of Belarus preferred a meeting with the head of Venezuela N. Maduro to the forum (and he is always active in such events). Clearly missing from Beijing was I. Aliyev, who met on Karabakh with the representative of the US State Department for Europe and Asia.
In general, from the point of view of representation in many countries, Beijing clearly failed to paint the world map in such a way as to give the United States an unambiguous forceful response. Even for interested parties in Central Asia.
Value model
Accordingly, the second part of China’s strategic idea – the “Community of Shared Destiny” value model – remained practically unrealized at this forum, although it was previously announced for wide discussion. According to the documents, China was already planning to move to a new stage of construction - to discuss projects for the digitalization of trade and the formation of a “barrier-free” trading environment. But it turned out that even in the first stage there is still no clear answer from many participants. It is clear that the situation in Israel and Karabakh is making adjustments, but everything cannot be attributed to this.
It would seem, does it really matter what is put into the category of “values” in our time? Look, the USA writes whatever they want, and crosses out whatever they want.
No, it doesn't matter. And it’s not for nothing that Beijing devoted approximately 1/3 of the entire program to cultural aspects and cultural exchange. For China, in such a strategic project, it is extremely important to move away from the thesis imposed by politics and the media of the United States and Europe about “Chinese colonization,” “Chinese credit bondage,” and “credit slavery from Beijing.”
The entire Western liberal machine works with these narratives like a jackhammer, including in Russia. We should not forget that China at one time had to harshly discipline its representatives in Africa, who allowed not always correct gestures towards local workers. And every such incident was taken seriously by the liberal media.
Theses about “Chinese expansion” are quite alive in Russia, and in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and even more so in Vietnam, they are generally very stable in historical soil. China has a difficult position in both Malaysia and Indonesia, where the Chinese diaspora and the Muslim population often simply compete in production and trade. The United States is actively using this in Pakistani Balochistan.
That is, Beijing will not be able to simply attribute this to Western propaganda and put the brakes on it - we need to look for approaches. For us, residents of Russia, the thesis that the Russians and Chinese are the “axis of colonial evil” is an outlandish narrative, and it is used today by the West with might and main. And it’s not for nothing that Xi Jinping uses such an expression as: “The Belt and Road Initiative is on the right side of history.”
Therefore, the fact that China has not fully succeeded in moving towards this agenda through promoting the ideas of a “Community of Shared Destiny”, since the interests of all the main participants are not fully aligned at the primary level, is a problem and a serious task for Beijing.
These ideas are based on three theses: non-interference in domestic politics, the principle of everyone’s “honest voice”, equal rules and approaches in trade, production, culture and security. But underneath them there must be a unity of economic interests and benefits, and this issue, as we see, has not been fully resolved.
If we scrutinize the program and documentation of the Chinese forum, we will see that Beijing is generally aware of this problem and is trying to propose solutions that differ from what we have encountered in the past.
Eight steps
The Chinese leader described it as "eight steps to support the initiative."
The first of these is the widest possible logistics network, i.e., not relying on large nodes, but the formation of many flows.
The second step is the maximum digitalization of all processes and, no less important, the postulate of unconditional “investment protection.”
The third step, perhaps the most significant, is channeling multibillion-dollar investments into a "1 small projects" policy rather than focusing on "megaprojects."
The fourth step is “green energy” and the direction of investment in it as a special priority.
The fifth step is promoting innovation and China's willingness to share technology with partners.
The sixth step is investment in cultural and humanitarian ties.
The seventh is the development of a document with a list of rules for “honest cooperation within the framework of the One Belt, One Road strategy.”
The eighth step is the creation of separate international platforms.
All this means that China is ready to take into account the interests of many not very large players who do not yet see themselves within the framework of those very “megaprojects”.
For example, Belarus today is clearly not the most suitable “path to Europe,” although it is the most obvious. How many goods will pass through the logistics of Kyrgyzstan, is Malaysia satisfied with the position of a “production workshop” for an assembly site and a trading agent, which is China, and many similar questions. The Xi'an Declaration for Central Asia in May was grandiose, but it turned out that some countries do not understand how it will work at the so-called everyday level.
In fact, these are the questions that the Chinese in Beijing wanted to give a conceptual answer to. A thousand small projects plus the provision of technology with a set of uniform rules written down in documents and the principle of investment protection. Yes, this is a serious change in the ideas of the Silk Road, which generally reflects the realities of recent European and American politics and the transition to the division of world trade into macroclusters.
Another thing is that so far the current anniversary forum cannot be characterized as a breakthrough. Rather, it is the updating of the Chinese concept in conditions of extremely fierce competition with American ideas and investments, eliminating bottlenecks and misunderstandings on the part of small participating states.
For Russia and Iran, there is essentially no strategic choice, but for many other players there is a choice, and here the Chinese are answering many difficult questions at once.
How is it beneficial for the participants in the Chinese project relative to American ideas?
Breadth of coverage. Everyone knows very well that US policy is always focused on a few key points, i.e. exactly what China did before. But for the rest, all funding comes on a residual basis, through banal bribery of the political elite.
The Chinese concept, at least, declares just the opposite - many things that are small in scale, but extremely practical at the regional level. It will be interesting for businesses in smaller countries if China can institutionally and truly solve the technical issues of lending at the mid-market level. The application for this has been made.
And here China will be faced with a very difficult task - such a strategy for small projects in a number of countries is very difficult to administer, even from the point of view of staffing. China did not yet have experience in such work, and the United States usually failed its initiatives on this, even having personnel reserves and technologies.
This is the general model of the past “One Belt, One Road” forum, and the United States will have to work with these Chinese proposals in response at the upcoming APEC summit.
In this case, Russia cannot be put on the same level as the majority of states that are participating in this Chinese strategy, since Russia here acts as a kind of junior “co-initiator,” although an important and necessary co-initiator.
Without Russian resources and a “strategic rear,” China’s concept cannot be realized; on the other hand, we still need to figure out how adequately we are building a bilateral economic model for our weight and tasks for the future.
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