Silk Road Consensus Emerges Linking Middle East and China

In late May academics from Arab nations and China convened in the Qatari capital Doha for “The Arab World and China,” a conference on the evolving state of Arab-Sino relations.

随着投资的增加，中国可能会发现其业务利益从政治经纪人中浑是有必要的，以便在现有混乱时创造稳定。问题被问到。中国将成为另一个剥削权力，只追求资源和市场吗？或者它将提供新的外交范式，建立在制作中国经济奇迹的实用主义原则上？

中国的发言人表示，他们的意图是扩大商业利益而不是成为政治，但阿拉伯领导人希望中国参与安全和维持和平调解。参与者引用了北京对巴勒斯坦国的认可，并继续支持以色列 - 巴勒斯坦冲突作为一个积极因素的两国解决方案，他们认为中国应该更加积极地推动解决方案。

在讨论中，能量也很覆盖。阿拉伯世界担心化石燃料的未来China’s massive state investments in renewable energy。阿拉伯世界可以成为这个的一部分吗？中国现在引领世界生产太阳能电池板。主要的太阳能电池板成分是硅，几乎完全由沙子制成。阿拉伯世界可能出口沙子而不是油in the future. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are all moving rapidly to develop solar energy, and sunlight intensity on the Arabian Peninsula is among the highest on the planet. Could the Arab world harness its sunshine with massive solar farms derived from Chinese technology and supported by co-investment, becoming a global provider of renewable energy, rather than oil, in the future?

China will be pushing an agenda of clean energy in the region. Nuclear will play a major role, and China intends to lead in this. Few realize that the Washington-Tehran nuclear negotiations were facilitated by Beijing, which is providing the technicians and technology to reduce Iranian plutonium output, without which a deal could not be struck. China’s role as a fresh international mediator in the region, driven by its increasing business and financial interests, is enhanced through its softer, back-door approach.

在会议上打顶是中国的议程是中国的“One Belt, One Road” project. For Arab leaders, the idea works: The region was culturally entangled with China along the old Silk Road trading routes for thousands of years. “One Belt, One Road” is China’s policy of revitalizing the Silk Road with investments in roads, high-speed rails and ports, bringing efficiency to manufacturing bases across a broad regional belt. It makes perfect sense to every Arab leader. For ages the Silk Road represented a true globalization of ideas, facilitated by trade and based on respect for others’ diversity, a mutual exchange and learning. That is different from unilateralism, whether coming from the World Bank, the White House or the Pentagon.

Asia was deeply connected with Africa and the Middle East. Colonialism and the postcolonial new economic order were but temporary glitches on the connectivity of the Silk Road. Now China is about to bring it all back.

Even the architecture of Beijing has Arab origins. When Mongol emperor Kublai Khan rebuilt Beijing after conquering China, he invited Arab architects from North Africa to design the city. That is why thehutong小巷看起来像北非麦地那。甚至北京的传统食品和花卉图案都有阿拉伯起源。所以对于多哈会议的房间里的每个人，丝绸之路共识，涉及更大的区域连接只是非常感觉。

“一带，一条道路”项目旨在通过增加新的维度 - 新的金融建筑来恢复古代交易路线的基础设施 -Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the New Development Bank, the Silk Road Fund and South-South Cooperation Fund for Climate Change all offering alternatives to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The Silk Road consensus calls for respecting diversity and addressing issues of resources. It is about diversified localization, rather than monolithic globalization. It is about security through building communities, rather than bombing them with drones. It is about letting people solve their own problems and facilitating with back-channel mediation, rather than intervening and toppling governments without understanding the foundations upon which they exist.

There is a general view that the U.S. has not provided leadership in the region and that its intervention has backfired on everyone. Could China provide a more neutral role as mediator? This question was at the forefront of the dialogue during the conference in Qatar.

Core to the Silk Road consensus is that such dialogues can serve to avoid conflict and violence — even terrorism. Everyone in the room agreed: Religion is not the problem. When you can respect diversity and empower local networks with being financial stakeholders, there will be a lot less violence and conflict. That is the power of the Silk Road consensus.

劳伦斯Brahm.is an international lawyer, mediator and economist and has served as senior adviser to China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection.

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