The New Silk Roads Flashcards
Wealthy Easterners are buying up western trophies and changing travel industry
The East is hosting more intl events: World Cup, Olympics, Winter Olympics
Eastern people are shopping and tourists in west
Last 30 years - Chinese tourists’ spending increase 5x (rose $500 million to $250 billion annually - twice as much as American tourists)
Means airlines and hotels (travel) change caterings
West seeks economic isolation, East embraces free trade and partnerships
Donald Trump - ‘America First’ / Britain - Brexit
Silk Roads:
Trade between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan rose by over 30% in 2017, doubled between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in the first half of 2018, compared to the previous year
Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership’s members include South Korea, China, India and Japan - Combined GDP of around $30 trillion + 3.5 billion citizens
China financing new Silk Roads to boost trade and leadership
OBOR initiative - 2015, the Export-Import Bank of China financing over 1000 projects in nearly 50 nations
4.4 billion individuals in sphere of Chinese influence - over 63 percent of the global population + around 30 percent of the world’s total output.
Hope for other nations during a period of increasingly global change, stepping into the vacuum created by the United States’ and Europe’s isolation, demonstrates China’s suitability for providing positive global leadership + corporation
Americans blaming China for foreign ownership of American brands
Firm that quarries Italian marble used to construct the Peace Monument in Washington D.C. and New York’s 9/11 memorial - controlling stake in firm sold to Bin Laden family — means materials used in the 9/11 monument come from a company owned by the relatives of the figure behind the attack.
China, as a rising global superpower that has purchased significant amounts of American industry, has been singled out for demonization.
Trump imposed trade tariffs on over 1000 Chinese products, affecting around $60 billion in imports.
CEOs of IKEA, Costco and Gap advised the White House that tariffs drive up the prices of household essentials (electronics, clothing, home products, and shoes)
Regional conflict in ME is complicating America’s future weapons deals
2017, the US State Department lost nearly two-thirds of its longest-serving ambassadors (knowledge)
US still have deals with Saudi Arabia - oil wealth + buying American-made weapons.
Obama - Saudi Arabia bought $112 billion of weapons, including a single deal in 2009 that was worth more than $60 billion.
But Saudi Arabia imposed a blockade on Qatar, + planning to dig new canal in region to cut Qatar off from the Arabian Peninsula’s mainland.
Yet US supplying plenty of weapons to both countries.
Europe’s disharmony allows China to make new friends and influence EU
EU friction: Brexit, anti-EU parties in Hungary and Poland, independence movements in Catalonia and Scotland
16 + 1 Initiative - Beijing-driven project providing conversation between China and eleven member states of the European Union — receptive because of the future financial investments + feeling of being overlooked by Western Europe.
Has led to Europe’s failure to sanction China for creation of human-made islands in the South China Sea that could potentially be used as military bases
