China-Iran: China's Railways Minister Liu Zhijun will visit Tehran on 12 September to sign a contract between Iran and a Chinese company to build a $2 billion rail link to Iran, according to Iranian Transport Minister Hamid Behbahani. Transport ministers from Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Iran are expected to gather in Dushanbe in October to firm up the deal for a 2,000-kilometer (1,200-mile) route that links China and Iran.
NIGHTWATCH Comment: For more than a decade Chinese leaders have talked about linking Chinese rails with systems in Central Asia at meetings of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Within the past five years, the Chinese have backed their talk with investment.
China has railroad projects in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Burma and now Iran. It has road and pipeline projects in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.
Many of the projects are scheduled to be completed by 2012. Their cumulative effect would be to shift the economic focus of Central Asian states from Moscow to Beijing. The advantage China brings is that the Chinese rails would use standard gauge, making it possible to ship from the Pacific Coast of China to Turkey without changing bogeys or moving containers in order to accommodate different rail gauges.
Until the Chinese projects become operational, all rail traffic from Asia to Europe will continue to rely on Russian gauge railroads and multiple gauge changes in Asia and at the border of European states.
Phi Beta Iota: Never mind the Caliphate, it's dead because India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Turkey want it dead. Instead, think about the Chinese waging peace with construction, and exporting their excess males to take over Argentina and portions of Africa with war by womb. We continue to be stunned by what war college scholars call “strategic decrepitude,” i.e. the confusion of powerpoint slides and operational motion with strategic thinking. Below we list all primary references to China on this website; indirect references are too many to list.
See Also (38 Items):
03. Bringing Martin Luther King to China (and back)
04. Graphic: China-Centered View of the World
05. Journal: $750 Billion Wall Street Scam, Russian Anger, Chinese Intent, We are NOT Making This Up!
06. Journal: 300,000 Beijing residents to access National Library through TV
08. Journal: China Maps Afghan Solution, India Comments
09. Journal: China May Demand Physical Gold
10. Journal: China’s Africa footprint: makeover Algeria
11. Journal: Chinese Military Bases in Pakistan, Elsewhere
12. Journal: CINCPAC Slams IC on China
13. Journal: England to Lose Falkland Islands/Malvinas Over Oil–China Triumphant by 2020
16. Journal: The Chinese Crash or the Chinese Solution?
17. Journal: USA Has No China Strategy….
18. NIGHTWATCH Extract: China – North Korea Law Enforcement…the Hybrid Model Advances
19. NIGHTWATCH Extract: China Rules Central Asia….
20. NIGHTWATCH Extract: China Wages Peace with Railroads Across Pakistan and Into Afghanistan
21. NIGHTWATCH Extract: Gwadar for Peace & Prosperity
22. NIGHTWATCH Extract: Indian Ocean Chinese Lake
24. NIGHTWATCH Extracts: China Rising, African Food Riots
25. NIGHTWATCH Extracts: China-Fiji, China Carriers, Venezuela-Colombia Re-Set
26. Opening Beijing’s Seven Secrets
27. Reference: Chinese Information Warfare
28. Review (Guest): Adam Smith in Beijing–Lineages of the Twenty-First Century
29. Review DVD: Tibet – Cry of the Snow Lion (2003)
30. Review: Charm Offensive–How China’s Soft Power Is Transforming the World
31. Review: China into Africa–Trade, Aid, and Influence
32. Review: China Safari–On the Trail of Beijing’s Expansion in Africa
33. Review: Prisoner of the State–The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang
35. Review: Three Billion New Capitalists–The Great Shift of Wealth and Power to the East (Hardcover)
37. Review: Yachtsman in Red China
38. Worth a Look: Books on China in Africa
