$1tn to be spend  on building infrastructure “ Belt and Road”

The world is changing dramatically and with the advent of Brexit and Trump, the isolation and fragmentation permeating the western world stand in sharp contrast to event along the Silk Roads, which new ties have been strengthened and mutual cooperation established. Peter Frankopan assesses the global reverberations of these constant shifts in the centre of power.

The fall of the Soviet Union appeared to show that authoritarian powers perish through vitiating oppression and the US world view underpinned by liberal democracy and open markets seemed unassailable.

The US-led unipolar world has stumbled and miscarried and gave rise to China which used authoritarianism as a spur to mobilise productive forces. The “Belt and Road initiative”  a grand Chinese powered initiative to finance and build infrastructure in more than 80 countries, end up  by banishing the ideals of European enlightenment.

 

Peter Frankopan, Professor of Global history at Oxford University, explains the history of ancient trading routes that once linked China to the world. The new volume, the New Silk Roads swaps history for an exploration of how China’s commercial and political heft is changing the way the world works. So strong is the thirst for French wine that several vulnerable chateaus have changed their names to appeal to Chinese drinkers. Chateau Senilhac in Medoc has been renamed Chateau Antilope tibetaine (Tibetan Antelope), Chateau La Tour Saint Pierre has become Chateau Lapin d’Or ( Golden Rabbit) and Chateau Clos Bel-Air is now Chateau Grande Antilope ( Big Antelope).

Demand for air travel has far exceeded the supply of pilots that a regional Chinese airline Xiamen is offering salaries of $400, 000 or more for those with the require qualifications.

“These are difficult and dangerous times” Frankopan writes. On one hand US is trying to shape the world to its own interests, using the stick than the carrot. On the other China is raising fears that it may be intent on building an empire by design or by default.

About 1m people from China’s Muslim minorities in the north-western region of Xinjiang.

The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World by Peter Frankopan, Bloomsbury £14.99, 336 pages.