ARTICLE: "The New Silk Road: Historic bonds between the Middle East and Asia are being revitalized in a torrent of trade and investment in energy, infrastructure, and manufacturing," by Stanley Reed, BusinessWeek, 17 November 2008.

You're tempted to say, "So much for the clash of civilizations," but Huntington always allowed himself this out, describing an Arab-Sinic bond over energy.

But even that bit of ass-covering, substantial a hedge as it was, underestimates the bond-building going on here.

Frankly, the East-East link-up here simply reflects the natural expansion of globalization: Europe does to North America what the latter thereupon does to Asia, which now is the natural integrator of the Gap, meaning the Islamic and African chunks, and--to a lesser extent--the Latin chunk in the Western hemisphere.

Trade expands at a 30% clip in recent years. The ambition of network builders is just beginning to come into view. So far, the article says, investment hasn't kept up with trade, but that's clearly changing, as the Middle East's investment flows get progressively redirected from the west to the east. Then there's the natural push--just like American states have in the past pushed Japanese corps--of Middle East economies to force their Asian partners to build factories and create jobs locally, like Egypt now pushes China.

[Ed's note: Steve wrote about this same story: The New Silk Road]