What's new

The Great Game Changer: Belt and Road Intiative (BRI; OBOR)

hi,

Can Type 54A beat Talwar Class Frigates ? :)

This is an interesting question that will initiate flame war. So no sure answer. But there is one sure thing that 054A is 100% made in China and costs $250 million per each, while for Telwar the sure thing is that it is made in Russia with some indian inputs, and unit price is $1 billion. With that unit price, Telwar should be compared with China's 055 cruiser instead of 054A.
 
This is an interesting question that will initiate flame war. So no sure answer. But there is one sure thing that 054A is 100% made in China and costs $250 million per each, while for Telwar the sure thing is that it is made in Russia with some indian inputs, and unit price is $1 billion. With that unit price, Telwar should be compared with China's 055 cruiser instead of 054A.
some Fun Facts for you:

Talwar Class Frigates Cost - $1 Billion Dollars
Shivalik Class Frigates Cost - $370 Million Dollars :woot:

Talwar Class :
Armament: Anti-air missiles:
24 × Shtil-1 medium range missiles 8 × Igla-1E (SA-16)

Anti-ship/Land-attack missiles:
8 × VLS launched Klub, anti-ship cruise missiles (F40, F43, F44)
or
8 × VLS launched BrahMos, anti-ship and land-attack cruise missiles(F45, F50, F51)

Guns:
1 × 100mm A-190E, naval gun
2 × AK-630 CIWS (F45, F50, F51)
2 × Kashtan CIWS (F40, F43, F44)

Anti-submarine warfare:

2 × 2 533mm torpedo tubes
1 × RBU-6000 (RPK-8) rocket launcher
Aircraft carried: 1 Ka-28, Ka-31 or Dhruv helicopter

Shivalik Class :
Armament: Anti-air missiles:
32-cell VLS launched Barak 1 missiles
24 × Shtil-1 medium range missiles

Anti-ship/Land-attack missiles:
8 × VLS launched Klub, anti-ship cruise missiles
or
8 × VLS launched BrahMos, anti-ship and land-attack cruise missiles

Guns:
1 × 3.0-inch Otobreda, naval gun
2 × AK-630 CIWS

Anti-submarine warfare:
2 × 2 DTA-53-956 torpedo launchers

2 × RBU-6000 (RPK-8) rocket launchers
Aircraft carried: 2 × HAL Dhruv or Sea King Mk. 42B helicopters.

so Basically overall :
one Shivalik Class ship = 2 Talwar Class Ships
but in cost :
one Talwar Class ship = 2 Shivalik Class Frigate

i dont know why our Government ordered 9 Talwar when they can produce 25(?) Shivalik indigenously
 

The first train to go through China, Mongolia and Russia. (Photo/China.com.cn)

Every Wednesday at Beijing Station, a green train stops at the platform. People may not notice anything different until they see the emblem of China on the train and its board that reads "Beijing-Ulan Bator-Moscow."

It takes Train K3 130 hours from Beijing to Moscow. The total length of the route is 7,826 kilometers - one fifth of the circumference of the equator. Every Wednesday afternoon, the train welcomes tourists from different places. Many people are excited about taking this trip, always taking photos with the train at the platform before they leave. This scene at Beijing Station has been occurring for 55 years. Yang Jiguang is in charge of the train. At the age of 23, he graduated from college with a degree in Russian and took a job on the train. After 24 years, he is still very excited about his job. " I want to keep working on the train until it’s time for me to retire," he says.


Two foreign tourists have their photos taken with the train. (Photo/China.com.cn)


There is a shower head in the bathroom. (Photo/China.com.cn)


Foreign tourists in the dining carriage. (Photo/China.com.cn)


Waitress in the dining carriage. (Photo/China.com.cn)



Head of the train Yang Jiguang. (Photo/China.com.cn)



The train arrives at Erenhot, a city on the border of China and Mongolia. (Photo/China.com.cn)

FOREIGN201506090952000507438271965.jpg

The train leaves the Gate of China in Erenhot. (Photo/China.com.cn)
 
China is building the most extensive global commercial-military empire in history

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the sun famously never set on the British empire. A commanding navy enforced its will, yet all would have been lost if it were not for ports, roads, and railroads. The infrastructure that the British built everywhere they went embedded and enabled their power like bones and veins in a body.

Great nations have done this since Rome paved 55,000 miles (89,000 km) of roads and aqueducts in Europe. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Russia and the United States established their own imprint, skewering and taming nearby territories with projects like the Trans-Siberian and the Trans-Continental railways.

Now it’s the turn of the Chinese. Much has been made of Beijing’s “resource grab” in Africa and elsewhere, its construction of militarized artificial islands in the South China Sea and, most recently, its new strategy to project naval power broadly in the open seas.

Below are snapshots of components that are either already in place or on the way...


The story starts with a reimagined Silk Road …

silkiland.png


In September 2013, newly anointed Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana. He was in town to seal the Chinese purchase of a $5 billion stake in Kashagan, one of the world’s largest oilfields. On that trip, he unveiled a plan ultimately dubbed “One Belt, One Road”—a land-and-sea version of the fabled East-West Silk Road trading route.

The idea is audacious in scope.

Kunming-Singapore.png


On land, Beijing has in mind a high-speed rail network (map 2). It will start in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, and connect with Laos and on into Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Another overland network of roads, rail and energy pipelines will begin in Xi’an in central China and head west as far as Belgium (see dotted brown line above). As we’ve written previously, Beijing has already initiated an 8,011-mile cargo rail route between the Chinese city of Yiwu and Madrid, Spain. Finally, another 1,125-mile-long bullet train will start in Kashgar and punch south through Pakistan to the Arabian Sea port of Gwadur. The thinking behind this rail-driven plan isn’t new–as we have written previously, Beijing has been piecing it together for awhile.

At sea, a companion 21st-century Maritime Silk Road (see dotted blue line in map 1) would connect the South China Sea, and the Indian and South Pacific oceans. China would begin to protect its own sea lanes as well. On May 26 it disclosed a strategy for expanding its navy into a fleet that not only hugs its own shores, but can wander the open ocean.

China does not need to build all of these thousands of miles of railroads and other facilities. Much of the infrastructure already exists; where it does, the trick is to link it all together.

Everywhere, new public works will be required. And to make its vision materialize, Beijing must be careful to be seen as generously sharing the big engineering and construction projects. Up to now, such contracts have been treated as rare, big profit opportunities for state-owned Chinese industrial units. These include the China Railway Group, whose already-inflated share prices have often gone up each time another piece of the overseas empire has fallen into place. If local infrastructure companies are excluded from the largesse, there will be push-back on almost every continent.

In any case, not all this will necessarily happen. In a recent note to clients, China observer Jonathan Fenby of the research firm Trusted Sources suggested that it may all be too ambitious. China has had a history of announcing and then shelving projects, such as a $3.7 billion railway canceled by Mexico in February amid allegations of local nepotism. Meanwhile, Japan has begun to challenge Chinese plans. It has launched rival bids for billion-dollar high-speed rail and other projects in Indonesia, Thailand and elsewhere, with relatively low-interest loans and sometimes better technology (paywall).

But Beijing seems to recognize its own limits. Rather, the world may help to build at least some of the infrastructure through another Chinese creation—the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, with its 57 founding members, modeled loosely on the World Bank. Projects backed by the bank are meant to be good for the country where they are built. But given China’s outsize influence in the institution, they are certain to include some that fit into its grand scheme of global infrastructure.

…extends into South America…

sa-china-rail-map.png


Xi has pledged $250 billion in investment in South America over the next 10 years. The centerpiece is a $10 billion, 3,300-mile, high-speed railroad (dotted red line above) that would start in Acu, near Rio de Janeiro, crossing the Amazon rainforest and the Andes Mountains, and terminate on the Peruvian coast. (NPR’s Tom Ashbrook conducted an excellent hour-long program on the railroad.)

On top of that, there’s an advanced proposal by Chinese billionaire Wang Jing to build a 170-mile-long, $50 billion canal through Nicaragua.

…and also across Africa

east-africa-railways-master-plan1.png


In January, China agreed with the African Union to help build railroads (map 4), roads, and airports to link all 54 African countries. These plans are already under way, including a $13 billion, 875-mile-long coastal railroad in Nigeria; a $3.8 billion, 500-mile-long railroad connecting the Kenyan cities of Nairobi and Mombasa; a $4 billion, 460-mile railway linking the Ethiopian cities of Addis Ababa and Djibouti; and a $5.6 billion, 850-mile network of rail lines in Chad.

Then there are China’s maritime ambitions. These envision modern ports in the Tanzanian capital, Dar es Salaam; the Mozambican capital, Maputo; Libreville, Gabon; the Ghanaian city of Tema; and the Senegalese capital, Dakar.

All these land and marine projects align with existing Chinese natural-resource investments on the continent. For example, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has large oil projects in Chad and Mozambique, and Chinese manufacturers are fast setting up Ethiopian factories that rely on cheap local labor.

The new Chinese empire is also enveloping its neighbors …

image


In addition to its planned high-speed rail network into Malaysia and Singapore (map 2) and Laos (map 5) into southeast Asia (see map 5 for Laotian portion), China plans a canal across the Isthmus of Kra in Thailand, adeep-water container port and industrial park in Kuantan, Malaysia, and a$511-million expansion of Male airport in the Maldives.

… and nations further afield in the Pacific

screen-shot-2015-05-29-at-9-46-18-am.png


China wants to dominate not only the South and East China seas, but far into the Pacific (map 6). According to the Lowly Institute, transportation comprises by far the largest portion of $2.5 billion in Chinese assistance and commercial credit to South Sea nations. Among the projects are:

Fiji: A $158 million hydroelectric plant and several sports complexes, including the 4,000-seat Vodafone stadium in Suva.

Samoa: A $100 million hospital in Apia, a $40 million terminal and upgraded runway at Faleolo Airport, and a $140 million wharf at Vaiusu.

Tonga: A $12 million government building to be called St. George Palace, and two small Chinese turboprop aircraft for domestic routes aboard Real Tonga airlines. The aircraft deal has been controversial because neither of the planes are certified for use in the West.

Vanuatu: Two more turboprops, this time for Air Vanuatu, and $60 million to build a Port Vila campus of the University of the South Pacific and a Parliament House (both loans have been forgiven).

Pakistan is pivotal to China’s Silk Road …

pak-china-map.png


Why has China lavished $42 billion in infrastructure projects on Pakistan? The two have always been allies. But China has a particular goal: It wants to contain Uighur separatists who have been fomenting violence in the western province of Xinjiang. Some of these separatists have sanctuaries in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Beijing has pushed hard for both countries to hand over Uighurs living there.

china-malacca-pakistan.png


But sending goods through Pakistan (map 7) also helps China avoid the Malacca Strait (map 8). Much of Beijing’s oil and other natural resources passes through this narrow, 500-mile-long stretch of sea between Malaysia and Indonesia. China worries that, if its relations with Washington become truly hostile, the US could theoretically blockade the strait and starve the country of its lifeblood resources. That is in large part why Beijing is financing a deep Arabian Sea port at Gwadur, and the 1,125-mile-long super-highway, high-speed railway and oil-pipeline route to the Chinese city of Kashgar.

Scroll down...
 
… as is Central Asia …

pipeline1.jpg


Central Asia has been an almost exclusively Russian playground for almost two centuries. It still is when it comes to pure muscle. But in matters of cash, China is fast moving in.

The relationship revolves around oil and natural gas. Turkmenistan supplies more than half of China’s imported gas. It gets there through three, 1,150-mile-long pipelines; a fourth pipeline is soon to begin construction. China is the only foreign nation that Turkmenistan allows to drill for gas onshore, in particular from Galkynysh, the second-largest gasfield in the world. China’s $5 billion share of the Kashagan oilfield in Kazakhstan is one of its largest oil stakes anywhere. Xi also has signed $15 billion in gas and uranium deals in Uzbekistan.

… and Russia

russia-china.png


Two years ago, Russia announced a pivot towards China. The centerpiece of the shift is two natural-gas pipelines (the larger of the two is the dotted red line in map 9) through which a fifth of China’s gas imports would flow. The deal had some snags, but they reportedly have been worked out, and construction is to begin soon. In addition, China is to build a $242 billion, 4,300-mile high-speed railway from Beijing to Moscow, a two-day trip compared with the current six-day Trans-Mongolian Express.

China is speeding up how fast goods get to Europe …

railroad.png


The Maritime Silk Road (the solid blue line in map 10) will enter Europe through a $260 million Chinese-funded upgrade of the Greek port of Piraeus. From there, rail service will continue into the Balkans. Ships from China will also make port in Lisbon, Portugal, and Duisburg, Germany. To take the network into the heart of Europe, Beijing has agreed to finance a 250-mile bullet train, costing up to $3 billion, from Belgrade to Budapest. Separately, China’s new 8,011-mile cargo railroad from Yiwu to Madrid is taking away business from far more time-consuming truck shipping.

… and has piled into US real estate

china-to-us-graph.jpg


For now, the Chinese web of infrastructure does not extend to the US. Instead, what has been built elsewhere is serving as a jumping-off point to the gigantic US market. High-speed trains are only now starting to be planned in the US, and Chinese firms are front-runners to win contracts, including a $1 billion contest for the San Francisco-to-Los Angeles route, expected to be worth $68 billion. China’s CNR Corp. is already providing 284 passenger cars worth $566 million to the Boston subway system.

Another big splash: the United States is China’s favored destination for real estate investment (see chart above). This has included commercial jewels such as New York’s Waldorf Astoria ($1.95 billion to Angbang Insurance) and the Chase Manhattan Plaza ($725 million to Fosun). But the bigger sums have been spent in all-cash deals by wealthy Chinese for residential properties.

Last but not least, China has polar ambitions

icebreaker1.jpg


Though the closest Chinese territory gets to the Arctic Circle is a thousand miles away, China nonetheless calls itself a “near-Arctic state.” Chinese oil company Cnooc has a majority share in Iceland’s Dreki oil and natural gas field, and Beijing established the Arctic Yellow River Station, a permanent research facility on Norway’s Spitsbergen Island. In Antarctica, China has four research stations, structures that allow nations to stake a claim to the continent. Plans for a fifth station at a place called Inexpressible Island are under way. It is positioning itself to move for the continent’s resources when a 1959 treaty guaranteeing its wilderness status expires in 2048.

Some of the infrastructure China is creating around the world will align with Western economic interests. But to the extent that it does, that will be inadvertent. Some of the most modern transportation infrastructure going up not only in China, but around the developing world, is deliberately linked to China. It is meant to make the global economy a friendly place for Chinese commerce.

That does not make China’s ambitions necessarily menacing or pernicious. But it does make them China-centric. It’s worth remembering that this way of doing economic development is not a Chinese invention. As Michael Pillsbury, author of “The Hundred Year Marathon,” tells Quartz, China’s ambitions are rooted in “a fierce sense of competitiveness which they claim they learned from the America of the 1800s.”

China is building the most extensive global commercial-military empire in history - Quartz
 
Last edited:
Thank you very much. I always dream of taking a train from Hanoi - Nanning, Nanning-Beijing and Beijing - Moscow and one day, direct train from Hanoi to Vientiane and then from Vientiane to Singapore.
 
Russia and China intend to hold naval exercises in the South China Sea, according to comments by Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov. The exercises will include Russia’s allies in the Asia-Pacific region, though Antonov did not clarify which countries, beyond China, would participate in the exercises. Russia maintains close relations with several Southeast Asian states, especially with Vietnam, for which Russia is an important provider of arms. China, however, is involved in territorial disputes with four Southeast Asian states — Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei — over the sovereignty of various islands and reefs in the South China Sea.

A major point of agreement between China and Russia, per Antonov’s comments in Singapore, is that the United States is the primary destabilizing factor in the South China Sea. Antonov suggested that Russia and China were being singled out for criticism by the United States: ”We are concerned by U.S. policies in the region, especially since every day it becomes increasingly focused on a systemic containment of Russia and China.” Antonov’s remarks reflect the broader cooling of bilateral relations between the White House and the Kremlin since Russia’s invasion of Crimea and subsequent backing of anti-government rebels in Ukraine last year.

“Despite our concerns about the U.S. global missile defense architecture, they continue a policy of disrupting strategic stability, adding a regional segment of an anti-missile ‘shield’ in the Asia-Pacific,” he added.

Antonov went further and accused the United States of interfering in the international affairs of other states. “An epidemic of ‘color revolutions’ swept the Middle East and, like a hurricane, wiped out several states in the region. This disease went across several European countries, where events are freely controlled from the outside,” he remarked.

Russia and China have been steadily increasing their bilateral maritime security cooperation, and the interoperability of their navies. The development is a result of several trends in China’s naval posture and overall ties with Russia. Over the past two years — since Chinese President Xi Jinping came to power — relations between Russia and China have grown closer and deepened strategically. Additionally, China’s military is in the process of readjusting the country’s historic military focus on land-based assets to its navy. As a result, China’s navy is looking toward global operations. As The Diplomat noted recently, Russia and China concluded a naval exercise in the Mediterranean just two weeks ago.

The details of any bilateral Russia-China exercise in the South China Sea remain sparse. Russian state media notes that the likely time frame for the exercise is May 2016. Events are moving swiftly in the South China Sea — particularly with regard to China’s land reclamation and construction activities on disputed islands and reefs in the Spratly and Paracel Islands.

China has strongly emphasized that its construction activities in the South China Sea are primarily “for civilian purposes,” but as recent events have shown, the People’s Liberation Army is present in the region. A bilateral naval exercise next year between the Russian and Chinese navies could showcase the utility of some of the new features China has established on the disputed islands, including airstrips and radar installations.

Russia Plans South China Sea Naval Exercise With China in 2016 | The Diplomat
 
There must be some kind of mistake, I am sure russian plans are for the viets to exercise together instad of china.
 
Silk Road Journey Xinjiang: China to construct freight line

A new 300-kilometer railway in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is expected to be whistling at the end of 2016, linking Baketu port near Kazakhstan and Kuitun.

When it opens in 2017, the railway is expected to carry over 10 million tons of freight annually. Officials expect that number will eventually increase to 15 million tons.

Tacheng town and Karamay city are two main sites along the freight line. Tacheng is rich in coal while Karamay has a major oil field that has been under development by China National Petroleum Corporation since 1955.

Xinjiang, China’s passage to northwestern and central Asia, is vital to President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative.

The new railway aims to help Tacheng and Karamay expand their market share both in China and abroad.

The railway will also run through major industrial parks and urban communities in Xinjiang. It is expected to be part of a national network connecting Xinjiang with neighboring Gansu Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Kazakhstan has announced a plan to build its part of the railway link from its capital Astana to Tacheng in Xinjiang, said Tan Liwei, a project manager from China Railway Corporation.

Pending completion of the railway, cargo will be transported from China’s Pacific coast to Europe in eight days. The process now takes more than a month via a maritime route.

Tacheng is located near the border with Kazakhstan in a no man’s land. Although the area is vast and uninhabited, it used to be one of the busiest sections on the ancient Silk Road thousands of years ago.

CCTV reporter Han Peng has paid a visit to Tacheng to see the railway construction, and asked locals about their hopes for the project.
 
A major point of agreement between China and Russia, per Antonov’s comments in Singapore, is that the United States is the primary destabilizing factor in the South China Sea.

It is high time to balance out the US and stop its destabilizing policies in SCS.

This is good for regional peace and development, if true.
 

Country Latest Posts

Back
Top Bottom