Akbarali Sattorov

(Chairman, Tajikistan's Union of Journalists)

Author

Akbarali Kurbonalievich Sattorov was born on February 10, 1965 in Hisor District, Tajikistan. He is Chairman of Tajikistan's Union of Journalists. Graduated from the Department of Journalism of the Leningrad State University (now Saint Petersburg State University) in 1990, he was a journalist at Soviet Tajikistan Newspaper from August to November in 1990. He was Reporter and then Director at the Department of Politics and Law at Sadoi mardum from November, 1990 to November, 1994, and has been the General Manager at the Charhi gardun since November 18, 1994. (The Charhi gardun was established in 1994, publishing four weekly magazines, that is, Charhi gardun, Dushanbe Evening, Avicenna, and News Digest. The Charhi gardun also runs a printing house Intishor.) He paid visit to more than 30 countries including the United States, Switzerland, Sweden, Japan, Turkey, China, Germany, Australia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Iran.

Abstract

Less than a year ago when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Nazarbayev University in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, he proposed to build the Silk Road Economic Belt, or Economic Corridor. Chinese experts believe the realization of the goal could help transform disadvantageous geographical locations of Central Asian countries into regional advantages. The ancient Silk Road stretched more than 7,000 kilometers, connecting much of the known world at the time. The ancient Silk Road was first created by the Chinese in the second century A.D. Two centuries later, China is again launching the revival of the Silk Road, which has played a crucial role in human history over the past two millennia. Over the centuries, the routes of Silk Road changed many times, but two primary routes remained consistent: southern and northern routes. The northern route crossed Sogdiana, Kazakhstan Grassland, Aral Sea and downstream regions of Volga River and ended in the Black Sea areas. The southern Route wound through Bactria, Parthia, India and the Middle East before ending at the Mediterranean. The ancient Silk Road was successively controlled by many empires including

Rome, Parthia and the Chinese Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-24 A.D.). During sixth to seventh centuries, it was controlled by nomads before eventually returning to the hands of the Chinese and Arabs. It is well known that the longest section of the ancient Silk Road crossed Central Asia, where many prosperous cities of the era could be found, such as Merv, Bukhara, Samarkand, Urgench, Chimkent, Taraz and Talgar. Dubbed "boats of the desert" in the Orient, camels marched along the ancient Silk Road carrying Chinese silk, Indian spices and jewels, Iranian silver, Byzantine paintings and Samarkand porcelain. In the 13th Century, Mongolian people conquered a vast area and implemented unified administrative rules for the Silk Road. However, when Timur (1336-1405), founder of the Timurid Dynasty (1370-1507), attacked the Golden Horde, commercial cities in areas of the Aral and Black Seas were destroyed, resulting in traders abandoning the northern route of the ancient Silk Road. After the death of Timur, the centralized Mongolian authority collapsed, so the southern route of the ancient Silk Road became nearly deserted, leaving only small sections for traders to shuttle between Central Asia and China until the early 20th century. Actually, the real fall of the ancient Silk Road began in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. While Central Asia was consumed by continuous wars of "all people against all people," Europeans were opening maritime routes and entering the "Age of Discovery." Quickly, sea transport had evidenced its advantageous speed, capacity and cost. German philosopher Friedrich Hegel once remarked that humans never learned from their history, but, actually, much has been gleaned from the history of ancient Silk Road. The reason Chinese President Xi Jinping's proposal of the Silk Road Economic Belt is so attractive is that over the past 2,000 years, the road has played such an important role in Central Asian countries' contribution to global civilization. Otherwise, today, perhaps no one would propose building roads through precipitous mountains and vast deserts, allowing cars to smoothly whiz through the cold and heat of these areas. During the period when camels were the only transport vehicles, the Silk Road still benefited a lot of people.

Today, several centuries later, we can confidently predict the revival of the Silk Road, one of the greatest ancient routes in the world. The Silk Road Economic Belt will become the longest economic corridor in the world. It stretched 7,000 kilometers, traversing 20 modern nations and connecting the Asia – Pacific Economic Circle to the Western European Economic Circle. It should be noted that the population of countries concerned totals three billion, accounting for almost half of the planet's population. Tajikistan is completely landlocked, so the revival of the Silk Road means a lot to the country. Three major tasks facing the Tajik government are guaranteeing energy security, breaking the country's transport and communication isolation and ensuring substantial food supplies. The renewal of the Silk Road will certainly improve the livelihoods of nearly every resident. China is an advocate of the revival of the Silk Road and Central Asian countries have shown great interest in expanding trade with China. Central Asian people traditionally bought and sold commodities produced by others. But now, in the 21st century, the situation has changed. Today, each country produces products needed by foreign countries, such as natural gas of Turkmenistan, oil of Kazakhstan, gold of Uzbekistan and rich hydropower resources of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. All these products are in high demand in the international market. After the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the development of newly independent states was restricted by shortages of funds and outdated transport and communication. In recent years, with help from China, these situations have gradually improved. In the past, researchers only considered land and sea routes. But today, transportation options include sea routes, pipelines, flight, energy lines and telecommunication lines. And land route including highways and railways remain. A few years ago, the Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan-China natural gas pipeline was built, through which natural gas from Turkmenistan reaches Shanghai. A coastal city on the western edge of the Pacific, Shanghai is 6,000 kilometers from Turkmenistan. In recent years, economic cooperation between China and Central Asian countries has grown rapidly. Xi Jinping's visit to these countries last autumn brought contracts worth as much as US$60 billion. Respectively, China and Uzbekistan signed contracts worth US$15.5 billion related to petroleum and natural gas. China and Turkmenistan signed contracts worth US$7.6 billion to extract natural gas. China and Kyrgyzstan signed contracts worth US$7.5 billion to build natural gas pipelines. In Kazakhstan, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) spent US$5 billion to purchase an 8 percent share of an oil field in the Caspian Sea. It is expected that, in the near future, power will be transmitted from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in every direction, reaching as far as the India Peninsula, Persian Gulf, Siberia and China. China has already invested greatly in promoting the economic growth of Central Asian countries. From 2006 to 2013, Export-Import Bank of China (EIBC) provided a one-billion-dollar concession loan to Tajikistan. China's various aid projects in the area reached US$5 billion, spent mainly on infrastructure such as unified energy systems, modern roads, tunnels and highways.