China's Silk Road Unlikely to Derail India-Japan Relations

Amid speculations that Japan could jump on China’s "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR) bandwagon, Indian experts project a grim possibility of such venture.

New Delhi, July 18:  A meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Hamburg, Germany this weekend triggered speculation that Japan could be joining OBOR ["One Belt, One Road"] — China’s trade and development strategy that focuses on connectivity and cooperation between Eurasian countries via land and sea.

The Japan News quoted Prime Minister Abe as saying “It (OBOR) has potential. We hope the initiative will contribute to regional and global peace and prosperity by adopting ideas held by all in the international community. We want to cooperate in that respect.”
This statement was widely construed as an affirmation of Japan’s desire to participate in the Chinese with the intent of reaping dividends for its domestic companies as well as to gain a voice within a big-ticket project. It was also seen as Japan’s tactical pressure on the US as a key ally joining a Chinese-led initiative could force President Donald Trump to reconsider his stance on withdrawing from the Asia-Pacific region.

Earlier in March this year, China had organized a grand summit in Beijing to showcase its plans to build OBOR – a network of trade routes that will connect Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe. India and Japan were also invited along with 65 other countries. While India flatly refused to participate, Japan, after initial reluctance, had agreed to send a low-key delegation to the summit. Around 60 countries have so far agreed to be part of the project, with a cumulative estimated investment of as much as $8 trillion.

Indian experts say while Japan did attend the OBOR Summit in Beijing, there still remains an open-ended debate within Japan over their level of engagement. “There is no concern for India as we still don’t know what level of engagement Japan is eyeing in the project. There is a significant domestic lobby within Japan, particularly industry people, who want to take part in the project as it makes business sense for them. But, Prime Minister Abe hasn’t committed anything so far and he is coming to India later this year where we will get a very clear idea of what’s going on. Also, even if Japan wants to get involved in the OBOR, we can’t prevent or object to it. What matters is that Japan is also involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership as well as the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor. We have a strategic partnership with them,” K.V. Kesavan, Distinguished Fellow at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation told Sputnik.

India’s key concerns stems from the fact that a 3,000 km stretch of the project passes through the Gilgit-Baltistan region which lies in the Kashmir region over which both India and Pakistan has territorial claims. India is also threatened as it feels that China is encircling it through a web of sea and land route under the garb of commercial projects, which could be used as military facilities as well.

Nevertheless, experts say it would be premature to speculate any impact of Japan’s seemingly changed stance on OBOR on India-Japan strategic partnership which is mainly aimed at containing the military rise of China. The two countries along with the US are currently part of the ongoing annual Malabar naval exercise in the Indian Ocean.

Source: Sputnik

It's well known that abundant opportunities await Chinese businesses along the route of the Belt and Road (B&R) initiative, but it could be highly risky if companies fail to avoid the pitfalls associated with infrastructure investment, particularly with regard to securing land rights.

For there to be more secure investment, Chinese companies seeking a foothold along the route should become adept at using project finance arrangements and hiring fundraising consultants to keep their B&R investments financially viable.

Chinese-made products have grown in popularity worldwide, laying the groundwork for the upcoming Chinese wave to spread across a lot of markets along the route, particularly in the sphere of infrastructure construction. But it's often the case with Chinese companies that they hope to win contracts quickly but are not then ready for the project financing.

As a consequence, they are normally more fast-paced than their international counterparts when it comes to signing project contracts. That's not to say they sign the contracts in a casual way, but they might sometimes be overly confident that what's proven effective in the domestic market would be equally feasible in foreign markets.

It's often the case that technology isn't a problem for Chinese companies while a lack of understanding of local market conditions does pose an impediment for their plans to secure the local market. A common concern for Chinese companies building infrastructure projects beyond their home territory is the securing of land rights, which in many developing countries requires repeated communications and cannot solely rely on lawyers to minimize potential losses.

As such, collateral loans, the conventional method of fundraising, are no longer the best choice for Chinese companies expanding their footprint in more than 60 countries and regions along the B&R route, as the variety of political and economic risks involved in B&R investment could put pressure on their balance sheets.

That said, the use of project financing, which allows shareholders to book debt in an off-balance sheet manner and allows for various risks including the potential risks arising from land rights to be managed financially, is of undoubted importance for Chinese companies looking to capitalize on opportunities in B&R markets.

Particularly worth pointing out is that policy banks will likely become increasingly picky about B&R projects that are eligible for their funding, which means projects falling under B&R investments, especially those undertaken by privately run businesses, will primarily be commercially funded. If that is the case, project finance arrangements that do a good job of risk distribution and management could maximize the potential of securing funds for the project, which means the source of financing could be commercial loans or project bonds, among others. In doing so, the losses could also be minimized in the event of a default.

Having said all this, Chinese companies still need the help of fundraising professionals to devise competitive yet commercially viable project finance agreements. It's already a common practice for their international rivals to hire fundraising advisors, as it takes too much time and energy to figure out the best financing arrangement, not to mention the many complicated aspects of the project that need to be evaluated in financial terms and that should be considered when negotiating the terms of the contract. This might initially add to the cost of winning the project, but that's only a small amount of money given that infrastructure projects usually involve hundreds of millions of dollars. It would probably be money well spent.

The article was compiled by Global Times reporter Li Qiaoyi based on an interview in Beijing in late June with Lim Wee Seng, managing director and head of Project Finance at DBS Bank. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

By Li Qiaoyi, Source:Global Times, Published: 2017/7/11

Chinese Entrepreneurs Interested to Invest in Pakistan’s Agriculture Sector to Produce Silk Worms

ISLAMABAD, July 17 : Chinese entrepreneurs Monday showed interest to invest in Pakistan’s agriculture sector to produce silk worms, mulberries and many other agro products.

A delegation of Chinese entrepreneurs led by Lee of Ministry of Commerce, China visited Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI).

Speaking on the occasion, Lee said Chinese entrepreneurs were looking for suitable land to set up an agriculture farm in the first phase and in the second phase they would set up a factory in Pakistan to produce silk.

He said their investment was likely to create 30,000 new jobs in Pakistan.

He was of the opinion that the establishment of silk factory in Pakistan would make it self-sufficient in silk production and it would not have to import silk from China.

The Chinese delegation discussed many possibilities of investment in local agriculture sector as they considered Pakistan a potential country for business and investment in this sector.
Addressing the meeting, President ICCI Khalid Iqbal Malik said Pakistan was an agriculture country and it offered huge investment opportunities to foreign investors in various sectors of agriculture including crops, seeds and tree farming, livestock, dairy farming and milk processing.

He stressed that Chinese investors should bring in latest machinery and technology in agriculture sector that would help in improving Pakistan’s agricultural productivity and enhance its per acre yield.

He said by investing in Pakistan, Chinese investors could export agri products to Middle East, Central Asia, Europe, Afghanistan and many other countries.

He said Potohar Region and Chakwal district were suitable for production of many agro products including silk worms, olive oil, mulberries, grapes and others.

He assured that the ICCI would fully cooperate with Chinese investors in identifying land for agriculture investment in this region.

It's well known that abundant opportunities await Chinese businesses along the route of the Belt and Road (B&R) initiative, but it could be highly risky if companies fail to avoid the pitfalls associated with infrastructure investment, particularly with regard to securing land rights.

For there to be more secure investment, Chinese companies seeking a foothold along the route should become adept at using project finance arrangements and hiring fundraising consultants to keep their B&R investments financially viable.

Chinese-made products have grown in popularity worldwide, laying the groundwork for the upcoming Chinese wave to spread across a lot of markets along the route, particularly in the sphere of infrastructure construction. But it's often the case with Chinese companies that they hope to win contracts quickly but are not then ready for the project financing.

As a consequence, they are normally more fast-paced than their international counterparts when it comes to signing project contracts. That's not to say they sign the contracts in a casual way, but they might sometimes be overly confident that what's proven effective in the domestic market would be equally feasible in foreign markets.

It's often the case that technology isn't a problem for Chinese companies while a lack of understanding of local market conditions does pose an impediment for their plans to secure the local market. A common concern for Chinese companies building infrastructure projects beyond their home territory is the securing of land rights, which in many developing countries requires repeated communications and cannot solely rely on lawyers to minimize potential losses.

As such, collateral loans, the conventional method of fundraising, are no longer the best choice for Chinese companies expanding their footprint in more than 60 countries and regions along the B&R route, as the variety of political and economic risks involved in B&R investment could put pressure on their balance sheets.

That said, the use of project financing, which allows shareholders to book debt in an off-balance sheet manner and allows for various risks including the potential risks arising from land rights to be managed financially, is of undoubted importance for Chinese companies looking to capitalize on opportunities in B&R markets.

Particularly worth pointing out is that policy banks will likely become increasingly picky about B&R projects that are eligible for their funding, which means projects falling under B&R investments, especially those undertaken by privately run businesses, will primarily be commercially funded. If that is the case, project finance arrangements that do a good job of risk distribution and management could maximize the potential of securing funds for the project, which means the source of financing could be commercial loans or project bonds, among others. In doing so, the losses could also be minimized in the event of a default.

Having said all this, Chinese companies still need the help of fundraising professionals to devise competitive yet commercially viable project finance agreements. It's already a common practice for their international rivals to hire fundraising advisors, as it takes too much time and energy to figure out the best financing arrangement, not to mention the many complicated aspects of the project that need to be evaluated in financial terms and that should be considered when negotiating the terms of the contract. This might initially add to the cost of winning the project, but that's only a small amount of money given that infrastructure projects usually involve hundreds of millions of dollars. It would probably be money well spent.

The article was compiled by Global Times reporter Li Qiaoyi based on an interview in Beijing in late June with Lim Wee Seng, managing director and head of Project Finance at DBS Bank. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

By Li Qiaoyi, Source:Global Times, Published: 2017/7/11

China Urges ASEAN to Synergize Belt and Road Initiative with ASEAN Vision 2025

JAKARTA, July 14 (APD) – China called on Southeast Asian regional bloc ASEAN to mutually deepen cooperation towards closely-knitted relations so as to attain goals of shared destiny community in the two economies.

The call was conveyed by Chinese Ambassador to ASEAN Xu Bu in his remarks to address a seminar entitled ‘ASEAN at 50: A New Chapter for ASEAN-China Relations’ held here.

China Urges ASEAN to Synergize Belt and Road Initiative with ASEAN Vision 2025

“We should seize the opportunities and waste no time to move our relations onto a higher plane,” the ambassador said in part of events to observe 50th ASEAN Anniversary here on Friday.

The deepening cooperation was highly expected as the two economies would see 15 years of strategic partnership next year, he added.

Xu pointed out that the two economies should combine their strengths and potentialities in a bid to synergize China’s Belt and Road Initiative and ASEAN Vision 2025 in the future.

Based on win-win scheme, it can be manifested by giving more focus on cooperation on connectivity and production capacity sectors, promoting trade and investment, and practicing the upgraded China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA) protocol, Xu said.

“China is also ready to promote and support the growth of sub-regional frameworks such as the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation and the East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) so as to assist the efforts to reduce development gaps among ASEAN countries,” Xu said.

Dialogues to settle regional issues, respecting each other’s concerns and national condition were also part of efforts that need to be prioritized to improve the strategic partnership between the two, the ambassador added.

In other part, Ambassador Xu Bu said that close relations between China and ASEAN communities serves as a key element to address strategic partnership between the two.

“To make our community closely knows each other, China and ASEAN need to enhance cooperation on cultural, science, technology, environmental protection, tourism sectors and intensify the exchanges between youths, media organizations, think tanks and local provinces,” he said.

Praising Ambassador Xu Bu’s remarks ASEAN Deputy Secretary General for Community and Corporate Affairs AKP Mochtan said that enhancing China-ASEAN community contacts was a bright idea as it would create good foundation towards synergizing the goals of Belt and Road Initiative and ASEAN Vision 2025.

“Excellent Community-to-Community contact will would lead to a civilization based on shared destiny community,” Mochtan said in his turn to deliver remarks in the seminar.

ASEAN embraced China as its dialogue partner in 1991 and forged a strategic partnership in 2003 The two economies have settled the upgrade of CAFTA, the largest free trade pact in developing countries, last year.

China has been ASEAN’s biggest trading partner for eight consecutive years while ASEAN was China’s third largest trading partner in six consecutive years.

Two-way trade was recorded at 452.2 billion U.S.

Dollars last year, 56 times higher than in 1991.

Two-way investment in aggregate has grown over 355 times bigger, from 500 million U.S. Dollars in 1991 to 177.9 billion U.S. Dollars in 2016.

 new China-Europe freight train running between eastern China's Jiangxi Province and Uzbekistan has been launched.

The train loaded with steel coils, garments and daily items, valued at 1.8 million U.S. dollars, departed from Ganzhou city Friday and is expected to leave China through Horgos in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, arriving in Tashkent 12 days later.

More than 4,000 freight train journeys have been made between Chinese and European and central Asian cities since August 2011, with the opening of the Chongqing-Duisburg Line, according to China Railway Corporation.

The trains currently operate between 28 Chinese cities and 29 cities in 11 European countries.

Source by: en.people.cn

The Silk Road is an evocative name that, to many, conjures up images of camel caravans and bustling bazaars — an international highway of commerce where people and cultures from the East and West intermingled and traded goods.

But scholars say that this romantic image is only a sliver of what life might have been like on the ancient Eurasian trade routes. UC Berkeley is opening the P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for Silk Road Studies, the first institutionalized center in the U.S. dedicated to the study of the historical trading networks serially known as the Silk Road, thanks to a $5 million gift by two branches of the Tang family — Oscar Tang and his wife, Dr. Agnes Hsu-Tang, who are based in New York City, and Bay Area Berkeley alumni Nadine Tang and Leslie Tang Schilling, with their brother Martin Tang in Hong Kong.

Many of the archaeological, art historical and textual remains left behind on the trade routes are now found at hundreds of remote cave sites scattered throughout far-western China in Xinjiang and Gansu. (UC Berkeley photo by Brittany Hosea-Small)

Chinese American philanthropist Oscar Tang founded the first Tang center for excellence in Chinese Humanities, the P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art at Princeton University in 2003. In 2015, he and his archaeologist wife founded the Tang Center for Early China at Columbia University. The new Tang Center at UC Berkeley is the latest addition for the advancement of the interdisciplinary study of the historical Silk Road.

From left to right: Nadine Tang; Leslie Schilling; Sanjyot Mehendale, the center’s chair; Corinne Debaine-Francfort, of the National Center for Scientific Research in France; Agnes Hsu-Tang and Oscar Tang (UC Berkeley photo by Peg Skorpinski)

Oscar Tang believes that the new Tang Center at Berkeley is “part of my family’s ongoing effort to enhance knowledge and understanding of the great Chinese civilization and its relationship to the rest of the world.”

Chancellor-designate Carol Christ and Oscar Tang (UC Berkeley photo by Peg Skorpinski)

The center, which launched April 29, will promote the research and teaching of the material and visual cultures that flourished along the Silk Road and formed a bridge between the many economic epicenters of Eurasia and China. A better understanding of the Silk Road’s history will also help contextualize its emergent geopolitical significance in the present time.

UC Berkeley is home to a diverse group of scholars who are leading specialists in the languages, history, religions, intellectual and artistic traditions of the ancient civilizations of China, Central Asia and the Near East, making the campus a natural site for a specialized center dedicated to studying the Silk Road.

The center will fund fieldwork and fellowships for faculty and students at excavations, museums and archives; organize conferences and workshops to bring distinguished scholars to campus to share recent discoveries and research; advance teaching on Silk Road topics; foster visiting scholar exchanges; support open-source publications; and promote the training and outreach of K-12 teachers and community college instructors.

Sanjyot Mehendale, the center’s chair and a lecturer of Central Asian art and archaeology, teaches a class on Iranian art. (UC Berkeley photo by Brittany Hosea-Small)

Among the UC Berkeley scholars on the center’s advisory committee are Jacob Dalton, a professor of Tibetan Buddhism; Patricia Berger, a professor of Chinese art; and Sanjyot Mehendale, a lecturer of Central Asian art and archaeology, who will serve as the inaugural chair of the new Tang Center. Renowned cellist and humanitarian Yo-Yo Ma and Francesco Bandarin, UNESCO assistant director general for culture and a Berkeley alumnus, will serve as the center’s honorary advisers.

Mehendale says the center will foster the multidisciplinary collaboration necessary for Silk Road research. “It’s about coming together and poring over material from different sides,” she says. “You can’t just sit in your corner of expertise. You have to look at the art, you have to study the texts, you have to examine the archaeological remains, to build a bigger picture. The more we understand the history of the region, in particular Central Asia, the more it will resonate as a place, as cultures, as people.”

Understanding the ancient civilizations on the Silk Road requires an expertise in Buddhist studies, of which Berkeley is a leader. Established in 1972, Berkeley’s Ph.D. program is the only freestanding doctoral program in Buddhist studies in North America. An important component of this program is the study of Buddhist textual materials in classical languages, many of which have not been spoken for centuries.

Students in Berkeley’s Buddhist studies department learn to read ancient Chinese manuscripts, among others. (UC Berkeley photo by Brittany Hosea-Small)

Robert Sharf, a professor of Buddhist studies at Berkeley, says that studying these texts helps scholars rediscover the lost Buddhist civilizations that once flourished along the oasis towns of the Silk Road but have become forgotten since the mid-eighth century.

“The civilizations of the ancient Near East, South Asia and East Asia all came together and interacted along the thriving urban centers of the Silk Road, giving rise to marvelously sophisticated and innovative cultural achievements,” says Sharf. “The more you learn about that world, the more humble you are. It puts the cultural hubris of our modern world — the idea that we stand at the very apex of human self-understanding — into context.”

Many of the archaeological, art historical and textual remains left behind on the trade routes are now found at hundreds of remote cave sites scattered throughout far-western China in Xinjiang and Gansu, such as those at Kizil and Bezeklik. The most well-known of these sites, the Mogao grottoes, is located near Dunhuang and contained the world’s largest collection of Buddhist art and manuscripts; its famous “library cave” revealed tens of thousands of invaluable manuscripts written in at least a dozen ancient languages and is considered one of the major archaeological finds of the 20th century.

Berkeley has an extensive collection of copies of manuscripts and studies of the culture, religion and art of the Silk Road, housed in the campus’s East Asian library. (UC Berkeley photo by Brittany Hosea-Small)

While the best-known, Buddhism is only one of many components in the history of the Silk Road. The center seeks to bring to light the rich cultural legacies of the Turkic, Iranian and Islamic civilizations, among others, that made Central Asia a locus of robust cross-cultural, social and political synergy.

The Tang Center for Silk Road Studies will build on and expand current institutional resources to further enhance Berkeley’s leadership role in the scholarship and teaching of the complex past and cultures of the Silk Road, a critical part of our shared humanity.

UC Berkeley’s Tang Center for Silk Road Studies launched April 29. To learn more about the center, visit its website or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

By Anne Brice, Berkeley News | May 3, 2017

 new China-Europe freight train running between eastern China's Jiangxi Province and Uzbekistan has been launched.

The train loaded with steel coils, garments and daily items, valued at 1.8 million U.S. dollars, departed from Ganzhou city Friday and is expected to leave China through Horgos in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, arriving in Tashkent 12 days later.

More than 4,000 freight train journeys have been made between Chinese and European and central Asian cities since August 2011, with the opening of the Chongqing-Duisburg Line, according to China Railway Corporation.

The trains currently operate between 28 Chinese cities and 29 cities in 11 European countries.

Source by: en.people.cn

LISBON, July 11 (Xinhua) -- The first direct flight route between Portugal and China was inaugurated in Lisbon on Tuesday, linking Hangzhou to Lisbon via Beijing.

The first direct flight route starting from Hangzhou, capital city of Zhejiang Province, with a stopover in Beijing before heading for the destination in Lisbon will be carried out by an A330-20 on July 25. There are three flights between Portugal and China per week.

Meanwhile, the new flight route from Beijing to Macao will also be opened by Beijing Capital Airlines.

Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said that the opening of the first direct flight route between Portugal and China is significant for the two countries as it is part of the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by China in 2013.

It will promote tourism and trade between Portugal and China and the cultural communication between the two peoples, he added.

Costa said that the new flight route will also strengthen the role of the bridge Portugal plays in the connection with China and the Portuguese-speaking countries. It will make the travel between China and Brazil and also Africa much easier.

The opening of such a flight route is the result of the efforts made by the two governments and will further promote tourism of the two countries. Some 200,000 Chinese tourist arrivals in Portugal were recorded last year.

 new China-Europe freight train running between eastern China's Jiangxi Province and Uzbekistan has been launched.

The train loaded with steel coils, garments and daily items, valued at 1.8 million U.S. dollars, departed from Ganzhou city Friday and is expected to leave China through Horgos in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, arriving in Tashkent 12 days later.

More than 4,000 freight train journeys have been made between Chinese and European and central Asian cities since August 2011, with the opening of the Chongqing-Duisburg Line, according to China Railway Corporation.

The trains currently operate between 28 Chinese cities and 29 cities in 11 European countries.

Source by: en.people.cn