86 | FORBES ASIA NOVEMBER 2016

I

t is happening subtly, but its impact could alter the

geopolitical and economic balance of the world:

Eurasia, a land mass stretching from western Eu-

rope to the eastern coast of China, is slowly being

drawn together into a massive market covering 70%

of the world’s population, 75% of its energy resources and

70% of global GDP.

Driving this concept of an interconnected Eurasia is

something that has been haphazardly dubbed the New Silk

Road—the modern version of the ancient trade routes, trans-

shipment hubs and economic corridors that once spanned

Europe and Asia—which has been emerging over the past 15

years. This growing network received a large boost in 2013

when Chinese President Xi Jinping formalized his country’s

enhanced participation in it, which included more than a tril-

lion dollars of funding and the political will and direction to

make the colossal project come together.

“Because of the New Silk Road concept, more and more

people have started using the term Eurasia,” says Karl Ghey-

sen, the former CEO of the Khorgos Gateway dry port on the

Kazakh/China border. “Five years ago that didn’t exist: You

had Europe, and you had Asia. Somewhere in the middle

was Central Asia, where they have the camels and the funky

people, and that was it. But now people are really talking

about Eurasia as a continent.”

Since the demise of the ancient overland trade routes of

the Silk Road, the sheer expanse of land and distance in the

central parts of Eurasia have been a barrier to transportation

and development. In the recent era the region has been ham-

strung by political divisions, ineicient customs protocols

and crumbling Soviet infrastructure. While the port cities

on the peripheries of this land mass prospered, the interior

lagged behind.

The Chinese recognized this imbalance in their own

country early on. On the eastern edge of China some of the

most economically kinetic and sophisticated cities in the

world were rapidly rising, while the inland regions remained

suspended in the proverbial stone age—in Shanghai people

were driving around in BMWs; in Gansu tens of millions

were living in caves. It was clear that this disparity was going

to became a social, political and economic crisis, and in 2000

China commenced the “go west” policy, which sought to link

and develop the left-behind regions.

The result was a completely new transportation, energy

and telecommunications grid that included over 19,000

kilometers of new high-speed rail lines, 60,000 kilometers

of new expressways and over 100 new airports—a series of

massive Economic & Technological Development zones, and

a significant share of the most economically dynamic cities in

the world today.

As China was improving the logistical network and eco-

nomic conditions in its hinterlands, other regions across Eur-

asia were doing the same. Some former Soviet states, such as

Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Georgia, began seeking ways to

develop and diversify their economies. They searched their

histories and found what they were looking for in the ancient

Silk Routes. They began building transportation infrastruc-

ture, logistics hubs and industrial zones, and forging diplo-

matic and economic relations with other countries across

the emerging trade network. On the western side of Eurasia,

some eastern European countries, such as Poland, were wak-

ing up to the fact that they could serve as doorways to the

great markets straddling them to the east and west.

“Regions that have long been regarded as peripheral and

as separating Europe from the densely populated parts of

Asia along the Indian and Pacific Oceans are now increasing-

ly seen as constituting a ‘land bridge’ that serves to connect

Europe with various parts of Asia,” said Frans-Paul van der

Putten of the Clingendael Institute, which publishes a key

Silk Road newsletter.

China’s developmental advances in its western regions are

now meeting those of Central Asia, which in turn are meet-

Eurasia: The World’s

Largest Market

BY WADE SHEPARD

The new Silk Road is creating a new economic and geographic entity.

FORBES ASIA

HISTORY REPEATS