The EconomistFebruary 8th 2020 Special reportChina’s Belt and Road 112
1A final reason is that, even more than other dimensions, the
digital one lends itself to dual-use possibilities. For instance, the
global version of Beidou, China’s answer to America’s gps, will
launch this year, and will increase China’s surveillance and its mil-
itary command-and-control capabilities. Beidou requires a net-
work of ground stations around the world, for which China needs
friendly states. For Mr Xi the Marxist, technology is, as Julian Ge-
wirtz of Harvard University puts it, “power in practice...historical
change in material form”. Many believe China intends the digital
Silk Road to be the main stage on which the briplays out in future.
The question is whether the West will let it.
The answer will come in part from how Europe handles the
challenge. In places the digital dimension China is pushing is in-
distinguishable from the others. For instance, Huawei’s 5gpropos-
als for Greece are pitched in part to help drive the next phase of the
logistics transformation under way at Piraeus port, which Mr Xi
calls the “dragon’s head” of Chinese investment in Europe.
Last year Greece became the first western European country to
join the 16+1 (now 17+1), a group of central and eastern European
countries happy to work with Beijing. China’s influence over this
group is a source of growing concern in Brussels as lines harden
over Huawei’s future involvement in 5g. Europe’s biggest states are
agonising over whether to let Huawei develop 5g, or ban it and face
China’s wrath. America may insist that any compromise, in which
Huawei is excluded from core parts of the 5gsystem, is unwork-
able. It is hard to imagine the eusplitting with America on such a
profound matter—and the new government in Greece under Ky-
riakos Mitsotakis is more Western-friendly than its predecessor.
But it is clear. The digital battle lines are about to be drawn. 7B
ack inkhorgosone winter’s morning, a press of shopwork-
ers—members of the ethnic Han majority, along with Kazakhs
and Uighurs—line up in front of border officials to enter the duty-
free mall shared with Kazakhstan. Four city officials from the pro-
paganda department have got wind of this correspondent’s pres-
ence, and insist on accompanying him, nervously calling their
boss for instructions. Even in this zone of declared openness, the
contradictions multiply. Not least, Kazakhs and Uighurs—though
not Han Chinese—must surrender their passports if they want to
work in the zone, so that they may not cross over into Kazakhstan.
It is a small mark of a much larger campaign of high-tech sur-
veillance and incarceration in which China has sent over 1m inno-
cent Muslims in Xinjiang to indoctrination camps. Though most
caught up in the dragnet are Uighurs, the biggest ethnicity in the
region, some 1.5m ethnic Kazakhs live in Xinjiang, too. Every fam-
ily he knows, says one young Kazakh man, has at least one member
in the camps. His uncle, a local-government official, disappeared
six months before, for having needlework verses from the Koran
on his wall. “It is meant to make us love the authorities,” says the
woman, “but it only makes us hate them more.”
The anti-Muslim repression sends ripples across Central Asian
borders. In September anti-China protests erupted in western Kaz-
akhstan, in large part against the Xinjiang campaign. It is, a Kaz-
akhstani foreign-ministry official admits, a highly delicate issue.
Practically the only thing China demands of Central Asian states in
return for brimoney is unquestioning allegiance to a fight against
supposed separatism in Xinjiang. Indeed, one main motivation for
the briwas to do an end-run around China’s restive province, put-
ting Central Asia out of bounds as an anti-China base. And by
bringing development to Xinjiang itself, the brimight address the
economic backwardess of the province that the authorities as-
sume must be at the root of its restiveness. So far, it has failed.
It points to a big question over the bri: how to square all the
fizzing connectivity implied in it with China’s dystopian techo-
authoritarianism at home? It is the bri’s foundational paradox.
In grappling with it, it helps to sort briprojects into three buck-
ets, assessing each bucket separately. First come projects intended
to promote local development or growth. Power stations in Paki-
stan are a case in point: who can doubt Pakistanis’ need for more
electricity? Yet even here come questions, above all, about the en-
vironment. The great bulk of brienergy spending is in carbon-
intensive areas—especially coal-fired power stations. The emis-
sions from such projects are not counted under China’s own
undertakings under the Paris agreement. Neither are they usually
factored into recipient countries’ commitments, as the World Re-
sources Institute, an environmental group, points out. The brise-
verely undermines China’s own green credentials.
The second bucket contains those connectivity-related pro-
jects that boost transport and trade—the Khorgos corridor is a
prime example. Here the potential benefits need to be more rigor-
ously assessed. A study by the World Bank last year, “Belt and Road
Economics”, concluded that, by shortening transport time and
lowering trade costs, the brican expand trade and investment,
and lift 7.6m people out of extreme poverty, mainly in “corridor”
economies like those in Central Asia. But the gains will only hap-Wanted: new maps
Will China sit again at the heart of its own cosmos?The future