China’s new ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ through Central Asia seeks to exclude both Russia and U.S.

Special to WorldTribune.com

President Xi Jinping has sought to kill several birds with one stone through his proposal of forming a “Silk Road Economic Belt” with five Central Asian states.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Turkmenistan’s Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov in Ashkhabad, on Sept. 3. /Xinhua/Huang Jingwen

The Chinese supremo visited Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan in the run-up to and after attending the G20 summit in St. Petersburg earlier this month.

The world’s newest Free Trade Area (FTA) will cover these four states plus Tajikistan. Trade between China and these five countries ballooned from $460 million in 1992 to $46 billion in 2012.

Xi ws quoted as saying in Astana, Kazakhstan, that the new economic belt “boasts a 3-billion population and a market that is unparalleled both in scale and potential.”

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“Silk Road Economic Belt”, China’s new ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ through Central Asia seeks to exclude both Russia and U.S., Free Trade Area, Xi Jinping

China’s new ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ through Central Asia seeks to exclude both Russia and U.S. added by World Tribune on September 18, 2013
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