Our latest ezine offering
The Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour Part 10: Shifu Arteom and the Tashkent Traditional Wushu Association $ State Museum of the History of Uzbekistan By Greg Brundage
Warming up for tomorrow
We’ll drop The Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour Part 11 tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Cloth was found with a gold and silver funerary mask in mountain tombs
The cold dry air in Samdzong, Upper Mustang, had preserved the cloth
Analysis found it contained silk from China and organic dyes from India
It suggests the Silk Road trade route passed far further south than believed
By RICHARD GRAY FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 10:43 EST, 5 April 2016 | UPDATED: 12:48 EST, 5 April 2016
It was the route along which fine cloths, spices and riches flowed between Europe and East Asia for hundreds of years.
But new analysis of textiles and dyes found in a tomb complex in Nepal suggests the Silk Road may have extended further south than previously believed.
Archaeologists found a gold, silver and cloth funerary mask discovered in the Samdzong tomb complex in Nepal had been made with materials from north-east Asia between 400AD and 650AD.
Analysis of cloth found alongside a gold and silver funerary mask (pictured left) found in the cliff-top tombs close to the village of Samdzong in Upper Mustang, Nepal, showed that it had contained materials from China and India. The cloth (pictured right) suggests the trade route extended south into Nepal in 400 to 650AD
Dr Margarita Gleba, from the University of Cambridge’s McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, found the cloth contained degummed silk fibres and Indian dyes.
Dr Gleba said: ‘There is no evidence for local silk production suggesting that Samdzong was inserted into the long-distance trade network of the Silk Road.’
[QUOTE]TEA LEAVES GIVE EARLIEST EVIDENCE OF THE SILK ROAD
The world’s oldest tea leaves have been discovered buried with royal treasures in the tomb of an ancient Chinese emperor who ruled more than 2,150 years ago.
Unearthed in the tomb of Jing Emperor Liu Qi, the tea provides some of the earliest evidence for the ancient Silk Road trade route that grew to stretch across Asia from China to Europe.
It appears Emperor Jing, who was the fourth emperor of the Western Han Dynasty, enjoyed the drink so much he wanted to be buried with a large supply of tea leaves so he could drink it in the afterlife.
Archaeologists discovered the huge stash of tea buds – or tips - in one of the burial pits that surrounded the mausoleum built for the emperor and his wife in Xi’an, Sha’anxi Province, China.
Writing in the journal Scientific Reports, Dr Houyuan Lu, an archaeologist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, and his colleagues described also finding similar tea remains in a tomb in Tibet.
They said this also dates to around 200AD, which is the earliest indication tea was being transported along, and traded on, what later became known as the Silk Road.
'The data reinforce the notion that instead of being isolated and remote, Upper Mustang was once a small, but important node of a much larger network of people and places.
‘These textiles can further our understanding of the local textile materials and techniques, as well as the mechanisms through which various communities developed and adapted new textile technologies to fit local cultural and economical needs.’
The cloth used in the funerary mask was found to contain silk but also Indian dyes such as munjeet and lac, which suggests the materials had been imported from China and India.
The Silk Road was an ancient network of trade route that ran through central Asia connecting China to the Mediterranean Sea.
It was initially named after the lucrative trade in Chinese silk but other precious items such as jade, gold, silver, bronze and spice were also transported initially between China and Egypt, then later to ancient Greece and Rome and eventually to Medieval Europe.
While many sea route were opened up by sailors to transport goods, merchants crossing overland were thought to have travelled by northern and southern routes that bypassed the Takliamakan Desert in north west China.
The northern route took several paths through Kazakhstan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.
The southern route ran through the Karakoram mountains that sit on the border of Pakistan, India and China.
They merged again near Merv in Turkmenistan before continuing west to the south of the Caspian Sea.
The researchers say their discovery suggests merchants travelling the Silk Road (shown in red) had plied their wares far further south than had been initially thought
Alongside the funerary mask was some wool that included copper, glass and cloth beads (pictured). Analysis of this showed traces of dyes including Indian lac and munjeet alongside silk from China
But the cloth discovered in the tombs near the village of Samdzong in the Mustang region of Nepal suggest merchants may have also extended their route further south still.
At a height of 13,100ft (4,000 metres), the cloth was exceptionally well preserved alongside the remains of the ancient people who were buried in tombs cut into the mountainside in Samdzong.
The man-made remains were only exposed to view in 2009 when an earthquake caused the façade of the cliff to calve off.
One segment of cloth found in the tombs was made of wool with copper, glass and cloth beads attached to it.
The tombs were cut into the cliff face in Upper Mustang (similar caves above a monastery in Lo Manthang, Nepal pictured) more than 13,100ft up, where the dry cold air helped to preserve the cloth
It was found near a coffin of an adult alongside the spectacular gold and silver funerary mask.
The mask has small pinholes around its edges, suggesting it had been sewn to a fabric and was perhaps part of a piece of decorative headwear.
Writing in the journal Science and Technology of Archaeological Research, Dr Gleba and her colleagues explain how analysis found a range of organic dyes on the cloth.
They said turmeric, knotweed indigo, Indian lac and munjeet were all found on the cloth along with cinnabar.
They said: ‘The results indicate that locally produced materials were used in combination with those likely imported from afar, including China and India.’
The cloth was found in man-made caves hewn into the mountainside alongside many human remains in Samdzong, close to the border with Tibet (shown above)
[/QUOTE]
Silk Road spring ****tails
Drink your way down the Silk Road with Pouring Ribbons’ new spring ****tails
By Dan Q. Dao
Posted: Tuesday April 5 2016, 10:54am
Drink your way down the Silk Road with Pouring Ribbons’ new spring ****tails
Photograph: Paul Wagtouicz
Last fall, the team behind East Village ****tail favorite Pouring Ribbons rejigged the bar’s concept, launching the first in a series of creative ****tail menus built around specific themes. That inaugural iteration, a fall menu inspired by America’s iconic Route 66, will now give way on April 13th to a springtime drinks list based on the Silk Road, that 2,000-year-old superhighway connecting China to the Mediterranean Sea.
A collaboration between all members of the bar team, including owner-bartender Joaquín Simó, partner Shannon Tebay and head bartender Demario Wallace, the menu comprises 20 continent-traversing sips as diverse as the disparate locales they allude to. Gin lovers can try creative director Amanda Elder’s Painted Veil (pictured above), fusing Chinese pu-erh tea with citrusy London dry gin, baijiu and housemade amaro in a tea pot, while whiskey fans can sip barman Sam Johnson’s Bread & Circuses, spotlighting Dutch genever in a mix of Ragtime rye whiskey, toasted barley water and Lustau East India Solera sherry.
The new hard-copy menu, brought to life by Elder, will nod to the tapestries, fabrics and textiles traded along the road with traditional patterns and materials. The bar itself will also tout thematic decor, with a colorful backdrop of silk paper fans lining the counter. See below for more photos of Pouring Ribbons’ Silk-Road-inspired ****tails and head down next Wednesday to try them.
Bread & Circuses at Pouring Ribbons
Photograph: Paul Wagtouicz
Prophet’s Cup at Pouring Ribbons
Photograph: Paul Wagtouicz
Way of the Warrior at Pouring Ribbons
Photograph: Paul Wagtouicz
Joaquín Simó
Photograph: Eric Medsker
I doubt that they drank these on the Silk Road. They probably just drank fermented camel milk. 
Installment 11 as promised
Read The Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour Continued: Part 11: The Wushu of Young Master Anar Budagli, Tashkent’s City Center’s Chorsu Bazaar & A Visit to the International Caravanserai of Culture in Tashkent By Greg Brundage.
Final Installment (of the second series)
Read The Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour Continued: Part 12: The Road to Ashgabat: Interview with Yazmyrat Annamyradov & a Visit to the Nation Turkmen Kurash (Traditional Wrestling) Training Center by Greg Brundage
BBC Four’s The Silk Road
On the Silk Road with Sam Willis
In a new BBC Four series Dr Sam Willis reveals how the Silk Road was the world’s first global superhighway where people with new ideas, new cultures and new religions made exchanges that shaped humanity. Here, Willis tells BBC History Magazine’s TV editor, Jonathan Wright, about the series, about his experiences travelling to places that were once among the most connected and cosmopolitan in the world, and why we’ve got the Silk Road to thank for rhubarb crumble…
Friday 29th April 2016Submitted by: Emma Mason
Sam Willis’s three-part series The Silk Road airs on BBC Four on Sunday 1 May at 9pm. (BBC/Alastair McCormick)
According to Willis, “The Silk Road cut across borders and broke down the borders in our minds”. It’s a quote that in itself does much to explain why Willis wanted to explore the route, which once linked China’s ancient capital Xian with Venice, and its history…
Q: What was the spark for the series?
A: I have always been interested in undertaking an enormous journey – one that would be almost too difficult to fathom – and to travel as a historian rather than as a tourist. I think that the Silk Road attracted me because of the scale of the challenge: 5,000 miles, so many cultures, so many countries, so many people, so many stories. I am also fascinated by the unknown; I like visiting places and studying parts of history that are entirely new to me.
Q: You had a lot of ground to cover – how did you choose where to spend time?
A: I realised early on that there were certain major building blocks that we could start with. I wanted to emphasise certain major themes: how the Silk Road transported not just goods but ideas, religion, culture, war and peace, and those themes dictated certain locations.
I also wanted to experience the full range of climate – from the hottest desert on earth (in Iran) to the snow-covered mountains of Tajikistan. My favourite place was an extraordinary desert in central China that was like the moon. It was full of grey stones about the size of golf balls.
Dr Sam Willis in China. (BBC/Alastair McCormick)
Q: Perhaps we don’t always realise how connected our forebears were. Did making the journey give you any insights into this?
A: The one major theme that comes out of the programme and of my personal experience is one of connection – and the flip side of that is how isolated we Europeans seem to have been. The countries of central Asia were most aware of what was happening everywhere because of the constant influence of trade, and people coming from both east and west. Above all, the Iranians were and certainly still are most conscious – and proud – of this. They felt as if they were in the centre of the world.
Q: What was it like visiting Iran?
A: It is staggeringly beautiful and the people are so fascinated in their own history and place in the world. They were polite, kind, thoughtful, generous, interested, interesting, charming and funny. They found the idea of a western film crew quite bewildering. “Where are you from?” they would all ask in mild astonishment. The answer, Glasgow (the programme was commissioned out of BBC Arts in Scotland), then confused them even more. I would urge you all to go.
We were there on the day that the sanctions were lifted and there was a tangible sense of excitement and promise, and if I know one thing now it is that the Iranians are endlessly resourceful. They will now make that country even more magical than the bones of it already are.
Q: How difficult was it to get all the necessary permissions to film?
A: This was very difficult. Iran, Uzbekistan and China are three of the most difficult countries for any film crew to access but we stuck to our guns and the gamble paid off. There were one or two major hiccups, not least when we spent a week filming in Tajikistan and were waiting to receive our visas for Uzbekistan, which never arrived. We had no choice but to fly home, with a massive hole in our documentary and very low morale.
Fortunately, a number of weeks later the permissions came through and we made it to Uzbekistan, which meant that we could visit the iconic Silk Road cities of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva – places that changed the world as we know it.
Q: Was there a favourite moment during filming?
A: An extraordinary experience was visiting a very remote valley in Tajikistan, the Yaghnob Valley, which is populated by a tribe of people who are related to the Sogdians, who once dominated the Silk Road trade of central Asia but were dominated by countless invading armies and forced to hide in the mountains. These folk – and there are very few of them indeed – still speak Sogdian. To hear them speak is to hear history at least 2,000 years old. It sent a shiver up my spine because the language is dying.
Dr Sam Willis with a Yaghnob family. (BBC/Alastair McCormick)
Q: What other themes does the shows throw up?
A: I like one of the simplest of all examples of the power of the Silk Road. In Venice, on the corner of a house overlooking a canal, is a statue of a man carrying a bag of rhubarb on his back. He is a rhubarb merchant, but rhubarb comes from China. So, although the Silk Road helped spread such world-defining ideas as algebra, paper, printing and gunpowder, it also spread rhubarb: no Silk Road, my friends, no rhubarb crumble.
Sam Willis’s three-part series The Silk Road airs on BBC Four on Sunday 1 May at 9pm.
This looks promising.
Wow! I had missed all the posts from April that I was unaware of… have to catch up on some reading ! Ultra-Cool Thread !
Glad your into it, PS
To be honest, I started this for Greg’s articles. He proposed The Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour, which he funded himself, in exchange for LORs to get him into the interviews he secured.
China’s bold gambit to cement trade with Europe–along the ancient Silk Road
A cargo train bound for Germany waits in Zhengzhou, China. China’s leadership envisions a “New Silk Road” of global economic expansion with such train routes. (New China News Agency)
Julie Makinen and Violet Law
From his office on a bend of the Rhine River, freight terminal boss Bernd Putens can see — and hear — the early stirrings of what China calls the New Silk Road.
The clang-clang of forklifts echoes through his building as 42 containers of cargo are unloaded at the Duisburg Intermodal Terminal, part of the world’s largest inland port.
The containers have just arrived on a train from Changsha, China, filled with electronics and other consumer goods, and will return carrying Land Rovers and other European products.
They represent a bold effort by Chinese leader Xi Jinping to extend his country’s economic and political clout.
Until four years ago, there was no regular rail service linking China and Germany, and for good reason.
The tracks existed, but at nearly 7,000 miles, the distance is longer than a round trip between Los Angeles and Boston, and trains must switch gauges — a laborious, time-consuming process — as they pass from China into Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus and Poland. Trains are twice as fast as sea shipment yet twice as expensive, so rail makes sense only for high-value products or goods with short shelf lives.
But two millenniums after traders began ferrying gems, precious metals, fabrics and spices on arduous overland routes linking the Far East with Africa, the Mediterranean and the Middle East, China believes the time is nigh for a modern Silk Road. Leaders in Beijing envision a 21st century version of the path trod by the likes of Marco Polo, starting with locomotives but quickly expanding to encompass roads, pipelines and other infrastructure.
By physically linking itself more tightly with Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, China is aiming to create new markets as growth slows at home while deepening Beijing’s influence across Asia and as far away as the Middle East and Europe.
The effort is at the center of Xi’s signature political and economic policy initiative, called the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.
For two years, Xi has been talking up the sweeping strategy — known collectively as One Belt, One Road, or OBOR — on his frequent trips abroad, while lining up financing plans at home and enlisting the participation of state-run and private companies.
With its expansive ambition, some observers have compared China’s grand new endeavor to America’s Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II, a game-changing effort that revolutionized trade and recast many long-standing relationships.
It is expected to cost even more than the Marshall Plan, for which the United States spent the equivalent of slightly more than $100 billion in today’s money.
“With these initiatives, Beijing, and more particularly, the Chinese Communist Party, seeks to reinforce the emerging global narrative that China is moving to the center of global economic activity, strength and influence,” Christopher K. Johnson of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a recent paper analyzing One Belt, One Road.
Markus Taube, a professor of East Asian economic studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen, believes the initiative “will strengthen China’s economic and diplomatic leverage in Europe and provide a political and diplomatic counterweight against the U.S.”
“The more I think about [the strategy], the more it makes sense,” he said.
But others are more skeptical, saying China’s lofty language around One Belt, One Road masks myriad questions about how much money will be spent on the project and where, and who will benefit.
“It’s generated a lot of buzz, but no one is quite sure what it actually means,” said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.
China’s government has set up a $40-billion fund to promote private investment in One Belt, One Road initiatives and is encouraging state-run banks to make loans for projects including power plants, ports, pipelines and railways — to be built overseas, in many cases, by Chinese companies. The Bank of China has announced plans to fund $120 billion of those projects from 2015 to 2019.
In January, the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank officially opened its doors, and the multinational institution is expected to finance tens of billions of dollars’ worth of projects that fall under the One Belt, One Road umbrella.
Chinese firms, eager to avail themselves of government financial incentives and align themselves with a key Communist Party priority, are scrambling to get on board and show they’re embracing One Belt, One Road.
Although massive ground-up infrastructure projects will take years to come to fruition, the ripple effects of the strategy are already being felt in places like Duisburg.
Xi visited the German city in 2014 to tout the rail project, and since then, interest in China-to-Germany freight has surged. Now Duisburg is receiving one train every day from China, including three to five a week from Chongqing, two a week from Wuhan and one a week from Changsha. There are also weekly trains to Hamburg from Wuhan and Zhengzhou.
“Now it seems every [Chinese] city wants to send its own train,” Putens said.
continued next post
Continued from previous post
::
Germany is not the only country welcoming new rail service from the Middle Kingdom. In February, the first train to connect China with Iran arrived in Tehran after traveling 5,900 miles through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. The 39-wagon train carried $600,000 worth of clothing, shoes and bags.
China has also pioneered a 16,000-mile round trip between the cities of Yiwu and Madrid. The 82-car train left China full of Christmas decorations, crafts and trinkets, arriving in Spain just before Christmas 2014. The train returned to Yiwu last year hauling olive oil.
Although the train that arrived in Iran originated from China’s eastern province of Zhejiang, Chinese officials believe land-locked western Chinese cities such as Urumqi — which is closer to Iran than to Shanghai — could benefit even more substantially from rail links through Central Asia. In that sense, One Belt, One Road is intended to correct an economic imbalance within China, helping goose the development of the nation’s western regions, which lag far behind their coastal cousins.
Although the arrivals of the first locomotives in places like Iran and Spain have been greeted with much fanfare, it’s not clear if they can blossom into vibrant transportation links and significantly boost trade.
Homayoun Jahani, an executive of the Iranian transportation company Pers, which was involved in arranging the train, said the 14-day journey to Tehran proved the train was a “reliable vehicle” and said plans were already underway to begin monthly service to the port of Bushehr.
But Masoud Daneshmand of the Iran-UAE Chamber of Commerce, said it was “far from being a viable, hustling and bustling railroad.”
In Duisburg, port spokesman Julian Boecker said operations have grown increasingly smooth since the first test train from Chongqing in 2011. One-way travel time, which took 18 days at first, now averages 11 to 13 days. Putens said customs clearance in Duisburg has been shortened from two days to two hours.
“As we gained experience in cooperation, efficiency improved,” said Boecker, especially in areas such as gauge changes. (While Europe and China have the same gauge width for their tracks, all former Soviet states have wider gauges, so trains have to be adjusted at those borders.) But with the trains now running at 600 miles per day, “it’s reaching the limit.”
One problem in Germany is that while there are plenty of Chinese goods coming in, finding enough cargo to ship back out hasn’t been easy. Empty containers from China are piling up. Port managers are planning to rent a five-acre plot to hold about 2,000 of the metal boxes while Chinese shipping firms figure out how to handle them.
Some do go back full. In addition to Land Rovers, China-bound containers have been packed with Porsches, Audis, auto parts from Ford and Volkswagen plants, steel coils, specialized machinery and milk powder. (Jaded by food safety scandals, Chinese consumers pay handsomely for imported dairy products.)
Putens said his Chinese counterparts had recently requested refrigerated transportation for European wines.
Despite the growth, China rail freight accounted for less than 1% of all cargo handled at Duisburg last year. That’s small, said Boecker, but “it is an important symbolic value.”
The challenge now is to find better balance between inbound and outbound cargo, and to see if the line can sustain itself without government aid.
“There’s economic interest on all sides to keep this rail route alive,” said Boecker.
::
Taube, the professor at the University of Duisburg-Essen, said that for China, the initial volume of trade by rail isn’t as crucial as the opportunities it opens up for economic development — and greater political clout — along the route.
“The rail links are the skeletons, but the important flesh will be the industrialization zones along the tracks,” he said.
The long-term vision, he believes, is for China to bring manufacturing to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries as labor in China gets more expensive; at the same time, Beijing can build up its economic and diplomatic sphere of influence.
Tom Miller, a China expert with Gavekal Dragonomics, said developing transportation links through Central Asia will give China greater access to natural resources in the region, including oil. Diversifying China’s sources of energy and the transportation routes will also make China feel more secure, he said.
Just weeks before the arrival of the train in Tehran, Xi became the first Chinese leader to visit Iran in 14 years, signing treaties on judicial, commercial and civil matters and pledging to boost trade — which stood at $52 billion in 2014 — to $600 billion a year over the next 10 years.
China has announced similar headline-grabbing contract deals in countries including Pakistan and Kazakhstan.
Beyond securing more oil and other resources, Miller said China wants to use One Belt, One Road to boost trade with its western provinces and develop their local economies. And Beijing may be hoping to find new customers for some of its excess steel, cement, heavy equipment and rolling stock, among other things.
China’s economy has been slowing, with growth dropping in 2015 to 6.9%, its lowest in several decades.
David Kelly, director of research at the Beijing-based consultancy China Policy, said the envisioned projects of One Belt, One Road are too big and would take too much time to provide any sudden economic benefits for China.
The strategy “is not going to yield strong returns on investment for many years,” he said.
Still, unlike many of China’s earlier “going out” initiatives that saw Chinese firms encounter friction as they ventured to places such as Africa and South America in search of natural resources, One Belt, One Road is being approached with a greater degree of sophistication and patience, Kelly believes.
“A lot of these ventures will be successful,” he predicted. “There’s already a smarter feel to a lot of the proposals.”
Times staff writer Makinen reported from Beijing and special correspondent Law from Duisburg. Special correspondent Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran contributed to this report.
I’m glad Greg brought the Silk Road to our attention as it is once again a global frontier. Quite topical in the world view.
Lucky 13
Greg tells me he’s hitting the road again. This is a little teaser in preparation for his next journey.
2,000-year-old personal hygiene sticks
2,000-year-old personal hygiene sticks with remains of cloth, excavated from the latrine at Xuanquanzhi. Photo: Hui-Yuan Yeh.
PARIS (AFP).- Merchants plying the ancient Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean moved more than gold, fabrics, spices and tea – they also exported gut parasites, researchers said Friday.
It has long been theorised that the Silk Road helped spread bubonic plague, leprosy, anthrax and other infectious diseases between East Asia, the Middle East and Europe – though concrete archaeological evidence has been scant.
But now analysis of the contents of an ancient latrine along the route has revealed evidence that traders 2,000 years ago did indeed spread disease.
The team from Britain and China examined faeces preserved on wood and bamboo sticks wrapped in cloth – the toilet paper of their day – that were excavated in 1992 at the Xuanquanzhi pit stop in north-west China.
Unearthed from a latrine dating back to 111 BC, during China’s Han Dynasty, and which was still in use in 109 AD, seven samples yielded eggs from four types of parasite: roundworm, whipworm, tapeworm and Chinese liver fluke, the researchers wrote in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.
The fluke, a parasite that causes pain, diarrhoea, jaundice and liver cancer, needs wet, marshy areas to complete a life cycle, whereas Dunhuang is in an arid area on the edge of the desert.
“The liver fluke could not have been endemic in this dry region,” said a statement from Cambridge University, whose researchers took part in the study.
“In fact, based on the current prevalence of the Chinese liver fluke, it’s closest endemic area to the latrine’s location in Dunhuang (in north-west China) is around 1,500 kilometres (930 miles) away, and the species is most common in Guandong Province – some 2,000 km from Dunhuang.”
Xuanquanzhi in Dunhuang was a popular stopping place for merchants, explorers, soldiers and government officials.
“Finding evidence for this species (liver fluke) in the latrine indicates that a traveller had come here from a region of China with plenty of water, where the parasite was endemic,” said study co-author Piers Mitchell.
“This proves for the first time that travellers along the Silk Road really were responsible for the spread of infectious disease along this route in the past.”
The Silk Road is so called for perhaps the most famous commodity that crossed its inter-connected network of trade routes criss-crossing Eurasia.
Not to be too crass, but how the heck do you wipe your ass with that? 
;)
Don’t want to guess , LOL ! The toilet paper of the day is what civilization was all about. Life without laptops, cellphones or Charmin.
Part 14
The Journey Continues. Read The Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour Part 14: Interview with Azer “Mallem,” President of the Azerbaijan Wushu Federation & Azerbaijan Muay Thai-Thaiboxing Federation, “Zorkhana” - The House of Force & Strength by Greg Brundage.
More on the ‘New Silk Road’
The thing is, it’s not about silk anymore.
China’s ‘New Silk Road’ brings great promise to eastern Europe
From roads in Montenegro to industrial parks in Poland, China has become one of the biggest investors in eastern and southeastern Europe. The Beijing-led “16+1” initiative promises to boost cooperation with the region.
Tschechien Staatsbesuch Xi Jinping und Milos Zeman (picture-alliance/AP Photo/M. Krumphanzl)
Xi Jinping visited the Czech Republic earlier this year
In the past 25 years, there have been a number of international platforms focusing on Central, East and Southeast Europe (CESEE). However, few have been as comprehensive and ambitious as the Beijing-led initiative dubbed “16+1,” which brings together 16 post-socialist countries, eleven of which are European Union member states and five of which are in different stages of accession. China is aiming to promote “pragmatic cooperation” across a number of policy areas, with the goal of making the most out of CESEE’s untapped economic potential.
On November 5, leaders from China and CESEE countries will hold their fifth-annual summit in Riga. The high-level talks are accompanied by business forums, think-tank conferences and other sideline events. Beyond the summit, there have been a vast array of gatherings under the 16+1 framework that involved various branches of government, academia and business. Delegations of CESEE representatives are now regularly flown to China and vice versa.
New era of cooperation
The increased interaction has been an unlikely development. Only few years ago, contact between the two sides was limited and far from enthusiastic. In the 1990s and early 2000s, many CESEE governments pursued ideological anti-communist diplomacy, which was not fond of closer ties with China. Since then, as elsewhere in the EU, political issues have been pushed to the side, allowing economic diplomacy to flourish. Today, Sino-CESEE relations are said to be at their highest point since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, when CESEE countries were among the first to recognize it - a fact that Beijing considers to be of special symbolic significance.
Chinese policymakers and experts say that in 2016, China-CESEE relations are ready to move beyond the initial phase of rapprochement. Earlier this year Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the Czech Republic, Serbia and Poland - signifying the increased importance Beijing is placing on the region.
16+1 has also become a crucial part of China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), also known as the “New Silk Road.” Rooted in both its domestic imperatives (developing western Chinese regions and exporting overcapacity) as well as the thirst for capital across Asia, Africa and Europe, the BRI pushes for coordinated development and policy, promotes investment in infrastructure and financial integration and calls for “civilizational dialogue.”
In practice, the 16+1 cooperation has, in only a few years, led to a significant increase in the economic importance of CESEE for China and vice versa. In 2015, for example, China had almost as much total trade volume with the bloc of 16 as it had with Russia. Investments from both Chinese and state-owned enterprises have gradually increased. A number of transport infrastructure projects - including the Budapest-Belgrade high-speed rail line, a leg of the “China-Europe Land-Sea Express” from Hungary to Greece - are underway.
Living up to its potential
However, aside from these achievements, the overall impression is that 16+1 has yet to live up to its full potential. Much more is being promised and projected than actually delivered. The economic cooperation between China and CESEE nations is still dwarfed by China’s partnership with the rest of the EU.
Sino-CESEE relations have had to adjust to the “new normal” of the Chinese economy, which now grows at a rate of around 6.5 percent. CESEE countries, which often lack resources and experience, have struggled to keep up with the pace that China has set under the comprehensive 16+1 format. Domestic, regional and European-wide political circumstances are also limiting. Thus, for China too, the early stages of cooperation have been a learning experience. Unlike their CESEE counterparts, however, Chinese policymakers pace themselves for the long run - often milestones are set for the decades to come.
The summit in Riga will provide an opportunity for Chinese and CESEE leaders to take stock of current developments and announce future measures and areas of cooperation. In a time when the EU faces multiple crises, from the rise of destructive political forces to increasing tensions between Russia and NATO, the 16+1 summit provides a rare opportunity to map out visions for global economic renewal. It is also understandable that sometimes the progress is slower than expected.
Anastas Vangeli is a doctoral researcher at the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, and a Claussen-Simon PhD Fellow of the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius.
Part 16
Greg Brundage continues his Kung Fu quest along the Silk Road. Read The Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour Part 16: Interview with Abdurrahman Akyuz, President of the Turkish Wushu Federation and Fathomless Histories in Ankara, Bursa and Istanbul.
Why the New Silk Road needs a digital revolution
Kazakhstan looks set to become a major trading hub between China and Europe
Image: REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov
Written by
Mark Gottfredson
Partner, Bain & Company
Wolfgang Lehmacher
Head of Supply Chain and Transport Industries, World Economic Forum
Gerry Mattios
Expert Vice President , Bain & Company
Published Friday 13 January 2017
This article is part of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2017
The ancient and historic trade route between China and Europe is coming back to life as one of the biggest infrastructure projects of the 21st century, with major implications for economies throughout the world.
One Belt/One Road (OBOR), the all-encompassing effort to restore old trade routes and streamline the transport of goods from Asia to Europe, has already received more than $51 billion from China, and more than 100 countries have signed on, with free trade, collaboration agreements or other partnerships.
The expected benefits are well known: 70,000 new jobs, vastly improved economies of countries such as Kazakhstan, and opportunities for small and medium enterprises, both from Asia and Europe, to enter new markets that today may not be easily accessible. But achieving that potential means overcoming four major obstacles: the slow speed with which goods now travel, the inconsistency of customs clearance, the high costs for everything from labour to logistics delays, and the lack of visibility into the status of goods making their way along the New Silk Road.
When companies ship by air they only need to deal with the red tape of customs and inspections at the beginning and end of a journey. Ground transportation is less expensive, but it stalls each time you cross a border. Products not only move slowly but are also subject to increased costs, including potentially moving from one truck or train to another. There are also tariffs, arbitrary delays and possible system manipulation.
Image: The Wall Street Journal
However, if OBOR operated with a single unified customs system and effective methods of tracking the products on board, shipments could move smoothly across boundaries – replicating the efficiency of air shipments with the low cost of land transport.
Fortunately, the solutions exist to help OBOR reach its full potential with technologies that improve infrastructure inefficiencies, connect people and create new opportunities. Companies could achieve real time supply chain visibility by deploying low-cost satellites with access by iPhones or other handheld devices, for example.
Another move that could dramatically help is if the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) introduced a standard customs procedure for OBOR freight by consolidating requirements and developing a common IT platform.
For OBOR countries, the path to an efficient and cost-effective New Silk Road begins by systematically addressing the four pain points of the digital supply chain. Here are some ways to begin.
•Speed: Companies could smooth shipments and make better use of resources by installing state-of-the-art warehouse and inventory management systems, including capacity planning and supplier collaboration.
•Inconsistency: Countries could implement systems that standardize the clearance of goods while using common templates and replacing human decision-making with speedy Artificial Intelligence processes.
•Costs: Companies could reduce labour costs and shipment-delay costs, with automation replacing such activities as loading and unloading.
•Visibility: New advances such as digital ledger technology (DLT) could provide structured, real time tracking information to allow stakeholders to know when a shipment will arrive and to plan operations in advance.
By investing in the IT infrastructure needed to address these four pain points, companies and countries will generate basic data, which, as it matures and gets structured, becomes invaluable when accumulated as big data. These are complex data sets that can be collected and analysed for insights that serve as a starting point for improving everything, from operations to the development of services, even allowing companies to transform their business models for greater success.
With such systems in place, a few key areas of opportunity will emerge along the New Silk Road. First, a digital revolution will level the playing field for SMEs. For example, they’ll be able to adapt production plans to product supply and demand dynamics or identify new markets.
The sharing economy will also blossom. With the right IT in place, on-demand manufacturing and warehouse management platforms could connect makers with factories. A sharing economy inspired by big data will create significant employment opportunities in OBOR countries.
Finally, big data will attract more direct investment in OBOR countries from foreign sources. The money is already flowing to seed Kazakhstan’s growth. For example, Dubai-based port operator DP World is expected to invest $1 billion in the development of Khorgos-Eastern Gates Free Zone and Aktau Port in Kazakhstan.
Foreign direct investment in new technology will also broaden the economic base of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other countries along the New Silk Road. They could leverage such advances as 3D printing to develop their manufacturing industries. Smart manufacturing technologies would enable SMEs to make more of their money from selling intellectual property than from shipping end products to customers.
The revived railway, combined with wise technology investments, creates exciting prospects. Imagine how half-empty container cars travelling across a desert in Central Asia could advertise their available space in real time – and at a discount – connecting en route with potential shippers looking for a low-cost way to send their wares. Centuries after it was established, the New Silk Road could define the future of trade between East and West – but only if it first overcomes the four big obstacles in its path.
Kazakhstan. A Kung Fu brother put this place on the map for me when he fought an early MMA bout there decades ago.
One Belt, One Road, One Port
Exclusive: China ‘Silk Road’ project in Sri Lanka delayed as Beijing toughens stance
FILE PHOTO: Demonstrator shout at police officers at a protest against the launching of a $5 billion Chinese investment zone by China Merchants Port Holdings Company, in Mirijjawila, Sri Lanka January 7, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo
By Shihar Aneez | COLOMBO
China will delay a planned $1.1 billion investment in a port on its modern-day “Silk Road” until Sri Lanka clears legal and political obstacles to a related project, sources familiar with the talks said, piling more pressure on the island nation.
Heavily indebted Sri Lanka needs the money, but payment for China’s interests in Hambantota port could be held up by several weeks or months, the sources added.
After signing an agreement last December, state-run China Merchants Port Holdings had been expected to buy an 80 percent stake in the southern port before an initial target date of Jan. 7.
Beijing also has a separate understanding with Colombo to develop a 15,000-acre industrial zone in the same area, a deal that Sri Lanka was hoping to finalize later.
But Colombo’s plans to sell the stake and acquire land for the industrial zone have run into stiff domestic opposition, backed by trade unions and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
A legislator close to Rajapaksa is also challenging the government’s plans in court.
Now Beijing has linked the signing of the port deal with an agreement to develop the industrial zone, saying it would hold off on both until Colombo resolved domestic issues, officials on both sides of the talks said.
“China has said that when they start the port, they want the land also,” Sri Lankan Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake said, although he added that China had not made it a precondition.
Yi Xianliang, Chinese ambassador to Sri Lanka, said the two deals were related.
“If we just have the port and no industrial zone, what is the use of the port? So you must have the port and you must have the industrial zone,” he said.
A source familiar with China’s thinking said it may wait until May, when Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe visits Beijing, to sign both deals.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the Hambantota project was important for both countries.
“As far as we understand, at present the project is still progressing steadily,” he told reporters in Beijing.
The previously unreported setback for Sri Lanka suggests Beijing is digging in its heels as it negotiates its global “One Belt, One Road” initiative to open up new land and sea routes for Chinese goods.
SPEED BUMPS, MOUNTING DEBTS
President Maithripala Sirisena is struggling to contain popular opposition to land acquisition for the huge Chinese industrial zone, including from Rajapaksa, who remains an influential opposition legislator.
The deal for the port development and industrial zone has also been challenged in court, which means it is stuck at least until the next hearing on March 3.
Asked whether the agreement would be delayed until the court had ruled, Yi, the Chinese ambassador, said: “Oh yes. We will follow the rule of law. We have the patience to wait.”
Rajapaksa’s role, the court case and violent protests by people afraid they could be evicted from their land underlined how Beijing does not always get its own way even in countries that badly need investment. Sri Lanka wants Chinese money to help alleviate its debt burden; the government had expected to have the proceeds from the stake sale within six months of signing the agreement before Jan. 7.
Sri Lanka has been under pressure from the International Monetary Fund to cut its deficit, shore up foreign exchange reserves and increase tax revenues as part of a $1.5 billion loan agreement struck in 2016. At least part of the money from the port deal would have gone toward paying down some of the more expensive loans on the government’s books, some of which are from China, a senior Sri Lankan government official said.
Hambantota port and a nearby airport were built from 2008 by the Rajapaksa government with the help of $1.7 billion in Chinese loans.
When Sirisena unseated Rajapaksa in an upset victory in 2015, he froze all Chinese investments, alleging unfair dealings by his predecessor.
Sirisena eventually negotiated a new deal with the Chinese government that involved the stake sale and further plans for the Chinese to develop an industrial zone.
The Chinese government expects to invest about $5 billion to develop the area within 3-5 years. Sirisena also agreed to give land to the Chinese on a 99-year lease. The terms did not go down well with port trade unions, which have asked the government to reduce the Chinese stake to 65 percent and lease period to 50 years.
Hundreds of protesters clashed with police in January when a demonstration against the planned industrial zone turned violent.
(Additional reporting by Ranga Sirilal, and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Paritosh Bansal)
99-year lease. That sounds familiar.
Part 17
Part 18
[URL=“http://www.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=1355”]The Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour Part 18
Interview with Pakistan Wushu Federation President Malik Iftikhar Ahmed in Lahore and Two of his Teams, Visit to the Truly Ancient Metropolis of Mohenjoy Daro and the National Museum of Pakistan in Karachi
by Greg Brundage