A good connection: Kazakhstan to China
Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 11:20PM ARTICLE: New Gas Pipeline From Central Asia Feeds China, By ANDREW E. KRAMER, New York Times, December 14, 2009
We in the West have the tendency to think that Central Asia must be "saved" from the Russian grip by connecting it directly to us, when history says otherwise:
The pipeline is the first major export corridor for natural gas out of the region that does not pass through Russia. It breaks from the Soviet-era design of a pipeline system built to supply Eastern Europe via Russia to the north of Central Asia. The new pipe revives a pre-Soviet view of trade in the region, in which economic exchanges flow east and west, not just through Russia.
"The startup of this pipeline reconstructs the ancient Silk Roads and symbolizes friendship and cooperation," Kazakhstan's president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, said at the ceremony on Monday, the Interfax news agency reported.
Whatever you think of Nazarbayev as a leader, the guy has got some genuine strategic smarts.
(Thanks: stuart abrams)
Reader Comments