There can be few jobs more difficult than that of paramount leader of China: the surrounding world invariably alive with danger, the extent of the state, its integrity and stability forever uncertain. For an outsider, it is easy to observe that the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C.) is far more secure now than it used to be. To a Chinese leader, that is far from sufficient
The Silk Road Economic Belt the overland component of Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) promises to bind China to Central Asia and beyond through a new infrastructural network. Connecting through China’s far western Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, the belt, alongside a network of pipelines and highways constructed since the early 2000s, is part of a