Peter Frankopan, The New Silk Roads

- This is a stunningly good and enlightening book about the decline of the West and the growing strength of the East. 

- The huge increases in trade and infrastructure agreements between the resource rich countries of Central Asia, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, India and China (from the Pacific to the Mediterranean coasts) are being overlooked in the West as we are distracted by ludicrous White House shenanigans, Brexit, the rise of European populist delusions and general isolationism. 

- China, India, Russia, Turkey and Iran are attuned to the fact that the world is changing. The West is retreating, losing power and influence, and the US under Trump is quickly becoming untrustworthy. Alliances are desperately being sought elsewhere.

- Frankopan describes in great detail China's huge One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative. It is a vast investment project unlike anything that's come before. Chinese loans are building the continent of Africa, as they are in the Caribbean and Central and South America. 

- He also outlines the critical importance of the South China Sea to China and why it has become such a hot button issue.

- Trump's absurd cancellation of the Iran nuclear deal, and its dreadful repercussions, of course enables China to emerge as the winner. ‘China jumps into every vacuum that opens’.

- As for Europe: ‘Compared with the Silk Roads and Asia, Europe is not so much moving at a different speed as in a different direction. Where the story in 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’. 

- These overarching, strategic visions are matched by an enormous amount of detail. Frankopan is a master at fleshing out a gripping narrative. He also writes clearly and cleanly. It's a pleasure to read.


(Unfortunately there are many editorial and proofreading errors in the text, which are very annoying. They're virtually on every page. Bloomsbury, the publisher, ought to do a lot better than this pretty amateurish effort. Look at this for example: ...'corporations that compete in global morliets for global customers’!! One positive I suppose is that the pub date of late November 2018 is welcome when so much detail in the book concerns things that happened as recently as September 2018. So it’s been a rushed job, but that’s no excuse. Proofreading can be done in days).