What are China and Russia up to with this ‘New Silk Road’ venture? It’s something Merryn has mentioned in MoneyWeek before. In fact, it’s the main reason she’s not terribly concerned about short-term financial panics. They come and go.
A continent, though? That doesn’t go anywhere. Unless you count continental drift. And the grinding of the earth’s tectonic plates against one another isn’t the sort of thing to derail a plan between the Chinese and the Russians. They want to connect the Eurasian landmass with steel, a whole network of bridges, railways and roads that turn the zone into the new frontier of global trade.
It’s pretty ambitious
But they [China and Russia] made progress in late August with a meeting between mid-level functionaries from their respective foreign ministries. Here’s what the official announcement said [emphasis added is mine]:
“On August 25, 2015, Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping and Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov of Russia held in Beijing the consultations on the working group of coordination mechanism for connecting the construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Eurasian Economic Union between China and Russia.
“Both sides stressed that the connection cooperation of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Eurasian Economic Union is a strategic decision made by President Xi Jinping and President Vladimir Putin from a long-term perspective, which fully embodies the high-level of China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination and plays a significant role in and exerts a far-reaching influence on regional development, prosperity, and cooperation. The two sides will work together to comprehensively implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of both countries so as to ensure new and early progress in the connection cooperation.
“The two sides exchanged in-depth views on the composition, priorities, and key areas of the connection cooperation mechanism, the role of Shanghai Cooperation Organization(SCO) in the connection cooperation and other topics, and agreed to bring into full play the overall coordinating role of the working group, join forces with all kinds of existing consultation and cooperation mechanisms, and fully mobilize the initiative of all departments and all sectors so as to jointly push forward the various tasks of the connection cooperation of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Eurasian Economic Union.”
Got that?
The replacement of the world’s dollar-monetary order is just one item on the Sino-Russian agenda. And right now, frankly, that project isn’t going so well.
But creating a rival, continent-sized economy and coupling Russia’s vast energy reserves with China’s nearly inexhaustible manufacturing capacity? That’s the kind of project an empire builder could get behind.
But let’s save further discussion on that project. It belongs in the geopolitical and grand strategy category. That’s the domain of the once-and-future Fleet Street Letter. And that’s all I have to say about that at the moment.
Meanwhile, you may never have heard of Dr Harald Malmgren. But he’s one of the few thinkers I’ve read—other than Bill Bonner and Tim Price—who can see why the move to a cashless society is the logical next step in financial repression. In a recent interview with Erico Tavares of Sinclair and Co here in London, Malmgren says the following:
“Banks in the US and Europe are trying to develop a cashless transactions system. The concept is to establish a comprehensive ledger for a business or a person that records everything received and spent, and all of the assets held – mortgages, investment portfolios, debts, contractual financial obligations, and anything else of market value including pleasure boats, automobiles, and other machinery….Any purchase, past or recent could be found and details provided whenever such information was sought.
“Governments would very much like such ledgers to exist because they could view everything that is taking place financially in real time, including ability to evaluate net worth, patterns of spending and of earned and unearned income, and of course, an instant assessment of all taxable activities. Governments would be able to gauge overall economic activity in real time, no longer needing to wait for months for the collection of revenues and sales of businesses and surveys of consumer spending.
“This is not a dreamy idea. Blythe Masters, the JP Morgan architect of organized market trading of modern asset backed securities like mortgage backed securities and collateralized debt obligations…In 2015 she is leading a new business effort to develop a universal cashless system. Not only is she gathering significant investor interest, but the Federal Reserve and various US Government agencies have become keenly interested in the potential usefulness and efficiencies of a universal cashless system.”
Universal cashless system. Who controls it? Good question. Who gets controlled? That’s easy: you. More tomorrow.
Category: Geopolitics