Dawn of the Eurasian century

“Old Silk Road”, declares the sign by the side of the road in Pakistan’s Hunza Valley. An arrow points towards what was once the greatest artery of ancient global commerce. The sign has become a stopping spot for adventurous tourists experiencing the Karakorum Highway, the road to China that crosses one of the world’s highest mountain ranges…

It is easy to see why such a thing grips the imagination, including that of Bruno Maçães, Portugal’s former junior Europe minister. His recently published book, The Dawn of Eurasia, shows how Europe and Asia are once again being bound together through trade, only on a vastly larger scale. It is hard to disagree when he describes a visit to a place like Yiwu, a Chinese city that is home to an enormous market where the world’s wholesalers come to buy everything from children’s toys to Egyptian tourist-market tat. It is so tapped into the global bloodstream that the traders of Yiwu were not surprised by the election of Donald Trump: their order books had told them well before polling day that Trump flags were far outselling Hillary Clinton flags.

Providing America’s election bric-a-brac is one thing. China wants to go much further. It is attempting to re-engineer Eurasia’s entire economy to suits its needs. Maçães calls it “transnational industrial policy”. China gets the raw materials it needs from countries it is connecting to with “Belt and Road” infrastructure projects. It may make some investments in farming or low-tech sectors. But it will keep the most valuable part of the international value chain for itself.