New Silk Road Initiative

The New Silk Road Initiative was a United States initiative in the 2010s that aimed to integrate Afghanistan with Central Asia, boosting trade and economic development.[1][2][3] Originally developed by the staff of General David Petraeus at the United States Central Command,[2] it was formally announced by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2011 in a speech in Chennai.[4] However, the initiative never got off the ground.[5][6][4] General Jim Mattis cancelled all military funding after Petraeus retired, and the US State Department lacked the funds to implement the projects.[5] The term "New Silk Road" is now commonly used by journalists to refer to China's Belt and Road Initiative.[7][8][9][10][11]

Key projects that were previously linked to the US initiative were later funded by other sources. The CASA-1000 hydroelectricity project is being funded by a consortium led by the International Development Association. The United States contributed 1% of the cost of the project before it pulled out, making it the smallest of seven funding sources.[12][13] The Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India Pipeline (TAPI) is being funded by a consortium led by the Asian Development Bank.[14] Contrary to a conspiracy theory that was posted to Facebook in 2021, the United States has provided no funding to TAPI.[15]

References

  1. "U.S. Support for the New Silk Road". state.gov. Archived from the original on 2018-11-19.
  2. Rosenberger, Leif. "The Rise and Fall of America's New Silk Road Strategy". The Street EconoMonitor.
  3. "U.S. Relations with Central Asia after 2014 and the New Silk Road: Regional Integration, Trade and Economic Prospects". Jamestown Foundation.
  4. "US, India To Revive New Silk Road Seen As Counter To China's Belt And Road Project". NDTV. Press Trust of India. 24 May 2017.
  5. Rosenberger, Leif (14 June 2021). "American Foreign Policy: The Rest of the Story". TheStreet EconoMonitor.
  6. Chandran, Anurag Ram (5 May 2017). "Why Afghanistan Should Join CPEC". The Diplomat.
  7. Tiezzi, Shannon (9 May 2014). "China's 'New Silk Road' Vision Revealed". The Diplomat.
  8. Monteleone, David (8 January 2018). "A New Silk Road". The New Yorker.
  9. Simpfendorfer, Ben (2009). The New Silk Road: How a Rising Arab World is Turning Away from the West and Rediscovering China. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780230580268.
  10. Kuhn, Anthony (16 May 2017). "For China's 'New Silk Road,' Ambitious Goals And More Than A Few Challenges". NPR.
  11. "The new Silk Road". The Economist. 10 September 2015.
  12. "CASA-1000 Central Asia-South Asia Electricity Transmission Project". NS Energy.
  13. Putz, Catherine (8 February 2018). "CASA-1000 Creeps Toward Construction Bridging Central and South Asia". The Diplomat.
  14. "Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) Gas Pipeline". Hydrocarbons Technology.
  15. "No, Biden administration is not helping build a pipeline in Afghanistan". Politifact. 18 February 2021.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.