The New Silk road – OBOR – an overview (2)

The new silk road is envisaged to go in five directions:

- From north west and north east China through Central Asia and Russia to the Baltic Sea

- From north west China through Central Asia and the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean

- From south west China through the Indochina peninsula, Malaysia and Singapore to the Indian Ocean

- From the Chinese ports, through the South China Sea and the Straits of Malacca to the Indian Ocean and westwards from there, for example to East Africa;

- And by the same route but then on to the South Pacific from the Straits of Malacca.

Six economic corridors are envisaged:

- From north east China through Mongolia and Russia to the Baltics

- From the coastal provinces through western China to Central Asia and then to Russia and the Baltics

- From north west China through Xinjiang, Central and West Asia to the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean

- From Yunnan and Guangxi Zhuang in south west China through Vietnam. Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia to Singapore

- From China through Pakistan, entering the Indian Ocean through the port of Gwadar;

- And, through Myanmar, Bangladesh and India, entering the Indian Ocean via the Bay of Bengal.

These new silk routes will embrace – and will require major investments in – railways, highways, sea transportation, pipelines and the information superhighway and connectivity.

To translate this grand vision into reality will require trillions of dollars of investment in infrastructure and in all sectors of the economy in the more than 60 countries directly encompassed within the new silk road initiative, as well as further afield. Cumulatively it represents the greatest business opportunity in the contemporary world.

One Belt One Road may be the official name given to this grand project, but personally I prefer The New Silk Roads. Both historically and today there have been many terms coined to describe the great landmass that is generally broken down into the three continents of Asia, Africa and Europe.

One of them dates back to Ancient Greece. Ecumene was held to be synonymous with the known, inhabited and civilised world, entering into general usage in the fourth century. This Ecumene embraced such European civilisations as Greece and Rome, such African civilisations as Egypt and such Asian civilisations as Persia and China. From Ecumene, we derive the word ecumenical, which in the Christian religion denotes the aspiration and search for unity and inclusivity.

But whatever name it may have been given, for centuries the diverse peoples of Africa, Europe and Asia have shared a common home. History has recorded great conflicts and injustices, but over long historical periods, nations and peoples have also traded and mingled peacefully, their interactions facilitating the exchange not only of goods and commodities but also of knowledge, techniques and ideas. The ancient silk route, from China to Rome, was one such great highway. Also worthy of mention are the epic voyages all round Asia and to East Africa by Admiral Zheng He in the fifteenth century.

There is an excellent book that you can get to complement today’s superb talk by Minister Zhang Jiming. It is The Silk Roads by the Oxford academic Peter Frankopan. It will tell you the history and put it in a current and future context.

If you do not know where things come from you cannot know to where they will go. That has always been my personal philosophy and it contains what many very clever people have said many times. I have simply endeavoured to translate into my own shorthand.

But my own study of history has taught me that President Xi’s idea of the new silk roads takes the past and updates it brilliantly, with a view to managing both present and future challenges.

If, for example, you wonder why a road curves and wanders instead of going straight through a valley you can find out the reason easily enough by seeing the obstacles that the road has bypassed. They might be rivers, mountains or a ravine. But it will have its logic and the silk roads have theirs.

We should know the past for this important reason.

However, the progress of science, technology and civilisation will surely sweep away many of the obstacles, and hence the need to make some of the detours that were required in the past. For example, a future high-speed train running from Urumqi to Istanbul will use new technologies, quite likely including magnetic levitation, to shorten the route and create a new way.