The New Silk Roads: The New Asia and the Remaking of the World Order Kindle Edition

Peter Frankopan is a brilliant historian, who has comprehensive understanding of the interactive nature of history. The New Silk Roads is well researched, full of interesting and important details. He recognizes the historical impact of China's contemporary restoration as a major world power and puts it in international context. I recommend it to every investor, scholar, politician or diplomat and everyone else, who needs to keep up with the changing realities of our times.However, this book, does not have the historical depth of his previous work "The Silk Roads, A new History of the World". It hink this must reflect the time press the author was under. When you travel fast you cannot always understand the significance of details or how they fit in the over-all picture. To name one example, Mr. Frankopan does not quite get the significance of remote satellite sensing for ensuring compliance of urban planning. It has nothing to do with "chimney pots or patio extensions" (p21). Its purpose is to stop the common practice of corrupt local officials to close their eyes for illegal property development, where agricultural land is converted to urban development and industrial parks and turned into luxurious villa districts sold a premium prices. Central authorities use computers for spotting anomalies and discrepancies between the rules and regulations on land use and realities on the ground. It is highly effective. The authorities have sent bulldozers to destroy luxurious villa districts and severly punished the officials involved. As for the patio extensions, the common practice is to close one eye and pretend not to notice, as long as it is not excessive or dangerous and does not disturb the local harmony.

Gives a historic perspective of the competition between East and West. Gives causal factors and possible routes for the future.

This book concerns the modern-day intrusion of Asia (especially China) and the Middle East into dominance of the world, and the apparent loss of influence of Europe and the U.S. Russia, China and the U.S. are portrayed as modern-day empires, involved in an extremely complex game of political, economic and social influence. Various factors have significantly played into China’s hands. The extreme importance of energy and minerals have continued to keep Russia and the Middle East of central importance. It is far from clear as to what all of this means for the future of the world. Frankopan certainly projects his viewpoint, and is convincing that there is an important transition occurring in the world at this time. He presents a complex picture, and I am not sure that it gives us much insight on the big perspective over the numerous complicated details of change. Russia, China and the U.S. play the games of empires, but the world, beyond this game, has incurred changes, especially population growth (which Frankopan alludes to only very indirectly), that muddy the picture significantly. I recommend Frankopan’s book, but not strongly, for discussing a point of view that is important. It adds one piece to the puzzle of humanity today.

I could not put this down and will read it again. The clearly-stated informative political goals of the countries written about are certainly needed in this Europe/America-centric world of media news. Central Asia has always been a fascinating source of history, but not so much a vibrant source of contemporary news. The author gives us plenty of reasons to learn more. I read Frankopan's previous book and am eager to read more of his analysis of the political shifting of sands in these countries.

The author is describing the rise of foreign economies and powers, particularly China and Russia but lesser states as well, who are benefitting greatly from the selfish, short-sighted nationalistic stance the US has taken throughout the world. As I’m neither a historian nor savvy about the minutia of international economics, I can’t speak to the veracity of everything the author says, but I do know, from living in Asia and Europe, that the US keeps “cooking its own goose,” as they say. We have abandoned our friends and the sane strategy of intelligent collaboration, so rising economies have forged other connections. One chilling line from the book has stayed with me. “A new world is emerging in Asia, but it is not a free one.”

The first and last chapters tell the whole book. The first chapter particular was very insightful the middle was just a lot of examples and statistics to back up the original thesis. To me it was a lot of filler material. Read the first chapter and move on

Typical western main-stream approach:1) Refuse to touch the actual reasons behind events. The book mentions that Syria and Iraq are in chaos, as if this simply came to be. Whose fault is that? Everybody knows, yet being written by a Westerner, the author refuses to even remotely say anything about it. At least in my opinion, the prospects of countries wanting to co-operate with China and not wanting to co-operate with the West, i would have naively thought that whether or not they have been invaded and destroyed by the US-of-A will most probably play a role in their decisions. None of the catastrophic consequences of Western foreign policy are seriously discussed.2) Refuse to touch the actual reasons which underline the decline of the West, which are: DE-industrialization, exploitation of the labor via "flexible" working and zero-hour contracts which have destroyed the purchasing power of millions of citizens of the western countries, at the moment when many more millions of workers see their income soar in the East,3) Witch-hunting about Russia and "election-meddling" at every opportunity, at the moment when even the very same US Congress reached the conclusion that there was no "collusion" or any involvement of Russia whatsoever (Although to be fair , the book was written in 2018 and those findings were not out yet. But then again, neither was the "meddling" ever proved, so why does the book take the liberty to present it as actual fact?).4) Reference of the-death-of-500,000-iraqi-children-was-worth-it, Madeleine Albright in expressing opinion about democracy (page 43).5) The author clearly is not comfortable with concepts like the will of the majority, since we see in inverse quotations ('the will of the people') references to the Democratic election of the British people to exit the EU. In a similar vein, not even Western-planted elections observers had anything to comment regarding the elections processes in Russia. Yet the "author" calls president Putin 'dictatorial'. Do I need to ask whether the "author" has even visited Russia, or whether has he ever talked with the Russian people itself to hear how the 'dictatorial president' has led Russia to the most prosperous era in the entire history of the country (What Putin calls: "Historical justice")?6) Labeling Venezuela a 'failed state' as if the "author" is oblivious to the war america has raged on the country, since President Chavez nationalized the country's oil resources and took them away from Private american oil corporations.This is clearly a book written by a mainstream westerner: a neo-liberal westerner of the the typical, irresponsible type.

We are living in the Asian century already, at a time when the movement of global economic, and therefore military, activity is moving from the west to the east at an astonishing speed.Peter Frankopan sees, all across Asia, a strong sense of states trying to work together and to elide their interests while putting differences behind them. Chief among these is the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’, President Xi of China‘s signature economic and foreign policy, which uses the ancient Silk Roads – and their success – as a matrix for Chinese long term planning. Since the project was announced in 2013, nearly $1 trillion has been promised for infrastructure investments, mainly in the form of loans, to around 1,000 projects.Peter Frankopan describes in some detail the Roads to the East, being Russia, Pakistan, India and the Middle East; the Road to the Heart of the world including Iran, Kazakstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan , Afghanistan, Georgia and Turkey.One reason for the optimism across the heart of Asia is the immense natural resources of the area. The Middle East, Russia and Central Asia account for 70% of proven oil resources, 65% of natural gas resources, 75% of silicon, 85% of rare earths like yttrium, dysprosium, and terbium, which are essential for super-magnets, batteries, actuators and laptops, and 80% of world heroin production.But Frankopan maintains the Initiative is not just driven by raw materials. As opposed to Trump’s inconsistent and adversarial behaviour, he maintains that President Xi’s international relations are based on win-win cooperation. He is moving to fill a vacuum left by the US and Europe’s isolationist and self- indulgent politics and to provide Chinese leadership that emphasises the benefits of mutual cooperation.The Initiative is by no means plain sailing. The rivalry with the US and the imposition of sweeping tariffs by Trump is examined, military disputes in the South China Seas, the conflict between India and Pakistan and the risks of indebtedness and non payment of loans are all discussed.Peter Frankopan contrasts the collaborative approach of the Chinese with the arbitrary, isolationist and short term nature of Trump’s foreign policies. And quotes numerous examples of the contradictions of US strategy. For instance, Saudi Arabia has become the pillar of US policy in the Middle East. One reason is its oil wealth but another is the prodigious amount of money it spends on US weapons. But Russia is active in wooing Saudi Arabia, including fighting alongside it in Syria. With the US’s Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, US arms sales are prohibited to any nation that buys Russian weapons. This means that if Saudi Arabia, Turkey and others can be persuaded by Moscow to switch allegiances, then they fall decisively out of Washington’s orbit.Compared to the Silk Roads and Asia, Europe is not so much moving at a different speed as in a different direction. Where the story of Asia is about increasing connections, improving collaboration and deepening cooperation, in Europe the story is about separation, the re-erection of barriers and ‘taking back control.’ Brexit provides good example of this, but so do rising anti-EU movements in Italy, Germany, Poland, Hungary and elsewhere – and support by hundreds of thousands of people for independence in Scotland and Catalonia.Frankopan quotes King Zhao who ruled China nearly 2,500 years ago and declared ‘a talent for following the ways of yesterday is not sufficient to improve the world of today.’ Understanding what is driving change is the first step in being able to prepare and adapt to it. The fact is that the Silk Roads are rising. How they develop, evolve and change will shape the world of the future.Hard to argue. Certainly a sobering and topical book.

This is a fascinating review of the rise of influence of China, which does not spare a damning look at the counterproductive, ill informed and dangerous policies of the current White House. The enormous capital investments being financed around the world by China are driving trade but also creating staggering levels of national debt in countries which can ill afford the repayments. However, increasingly Russia and China are the 'go to' countries for support for former allies of the US who have been vilified by the current administration. Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and even India are increasingly looking to China, and to Russia, as the US pursues its policies of America First - described in these pages as being 'We are America, bitch'The development of AI and robotics in Russia and China, with their enormous potential military applications, place the world at a point of great uncertainty. This all makes for sobering reading. We must hope China uses its new position of emerging world leadership wisely to preserve the peace and to live up to the fine words of its leadership.Beautifully written, erudite and engaging, this is an excellent addendum to the fine 'Silk Roads' by the same author

Firstly, I loved the first book and think Peter Frankopan is an excellent historian and writer. However, as many others have written in their reviews, this book should have been used for its original purpose as an extra chapter in the first (and much better) book.It feels rushed, unfinished and without purpose. Unlike its predecessor, it gives only a very surface level overview of the topics covered, with incoherent flow and vague section titles blurring the whole book into one.Furthermore, and most annoyingly, is my edition (Bloomsbury 2018) was riddled with typos, grammatical errors and other editing problems. Not sure this was even given a proper proofread before being sent to print, I've seen high-school essay first drafts with fewer errors.

Peter Frankopan wrote The Silk Roads and this is like an update of where his original book finished and my what a wake up call it is with the speed of change in the rising East. The West has blown it from being completely unable to respond to the changing circumstances of the world happening under our noses - sadly our politicians have been so obsessed with maintaining the status of our much vaunted Liberal Democracy that they have contributed to us being blindsided completely by the astonishing rise of China, the Tiger Economies and India that we have no coherent response to anything that is happening at the moment! Definitely worth a read!