Eurasia’s Middle Corridor: An Atlanticist frenzy to stifle Europe-Asia integration
Matthew Ehret
On 12 December 2022, the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID) hosted a
conference on the future of Eurasia’s Middle
Corridor, a transport and energy infrastructure
development project that stretches from the
resource-rich Caspian Sea to Europe.
At the meeting, leading Atlanticist officials paid
particular attention to how to ‘frame’ this strategic
global transportation hub developing outside of their
control.
They emphasized that the nations standing most to
gain by the inevitable growth of the Middle Corridor
should not characterize themselves as an east-west
“regional hub” connecting Europe to China, but
rather as a standalone zone of wealth – independent
of China, and supportive of a declining EU.
The value of the Middle Corridor has increased
significantly in the past year due to two main factors.
First, the Russian military intervention in Ukraine,
and second, the urgency to “decarbonizing” those
nations still trapped within the Atlanticist sphere of
influence.
The Middle Corridor gets its name from China’s
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which was launched
in 2013. It consists of three corridors of development
designed to promote trade and inter-civilizational
commerce on an east-west basis. These corridors are
the Northern Corridor, the Southern Corridor, and
the Middle Corridor.
The Three Arteries of the New Silk Road
The Northern Corridor: Currently the most
developed and utilized of the
three corridors, it consists of railways and
pipelines that run from China to Kazakhstan,
Russia, and Europe. Some Atlanticist geopoliticians
would like to see this corridor shut
down to further isolate ‘new enemy’ Russia’s
transportation and commercial routes.
The Southern Corridor: Less developed but still
important, this corridor involves the construction of
continuous rail connections from China to Pakistan,
Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and
potentially Turkey, before reaching Europe through
ports in Lebanon and Syria, and via land-based
connections in Turkey.
This route has the potential to promote sustainable
peace and reconstruction in West Asian nations, and
could possibly be extended to integrate and
industrialize the Persian Gulf states through
large-scale high-speed railway projects like the
2000 km Persian Gulf-Red Sea high-speed railway,
and hasten development prospects in the strategic
Horn of Africa.
The Middle Corridor: The most complicated but no
less essential of these arteries is the Trans-Caspian
International Transport Route (TITR), dubbed
“the Middle Corridor” and features multimodal rail
and sea transit of goods from China to Europe via
Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia,
Georgia, and Turkey.
Although this path involves the shortest distance,
complications and additional costs arise with the
complex process of transitioning from land routes
to sea routes via ports in the Caspian Sea.
In recent months, the nations along the Middle
Corridor have worked to harmonize their interests
and coordinate their efforts to tap, process, and move
the energy resources in the Caspian Sea (which
contains the fourth largest natural gas reserves in
the world).
On 30 March 2022, a quadrilateral agreement was
signed between Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan,
and Georgia to advance the construction of the
Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway system, the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, and the Trans
Anatolian National Gas Pipeline (TANAP), which
is already in operation. The TANAP is part of the
larger Southern Gas Corridor, which involves seven
countries and consists of 3500 km of pipelines worth
$35 billion.
Some of the key projects within the Southern Gas
Corridor include:
- The Shah Deniz 2 offshore gas and oil well
- operations in the Caspian Sea, where Azerbaijan,
- Iran, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan are
- working towards finalizing a broader agreement
- to resolve long-standing disputes.
- The expansion of natural gas processing plants
- at the Sangachal Terminal in the Caspian Sea.
- The expansion of gas transmission networks in
- Italy.
- The development of new connections into the
- gas networks of southern and western Europe.
- Four major pipelines, including the South
- Caucasus Pipeline (SCPX) involving Azerbaijan
- and Georgia, the TANAP involving Turkey, the Trans
- Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) involving Greece, Albania,
- and Italy, and the Greece-Bulgaria Gas Interconnector.
The importance of the INSTC
In addition to these three east-west corridors,
the much anticipated Russia-Azerbaijan-Armenia-Iran-India
International North-South Transport Corridor
(INSTC) has also seen significant growth in recent
years, with an additional eastern extension now
stretching from Russia to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan,
Kyrgyzstan, Iran, and India.
Once goods from Russia reach Iran via either the
western or eastern branches of the INSTC, they can
be delivered to markets in India, South Asia, and
East Africa through the Ports of Chabahar and
Bandar Abbas on the Indian Ocean.
Contrary to the claims of some Atlantic
Council-affiliated analysts, the east-west BRI
corridors and the north-south INSTC are highly
synergistic and united in a grand strategic outlook
for broad Eurasian growth and integration in a
post-zero sum game world order.
The “Green Belt Initiative”
After US President Joe Biden’s inauguration in
January 2020, a new concept called “Build Back
Better” was introduced from the corridors of
highly paid commercial agencies. The oft-repeated
term was ambiguously defined, but it was embraced
by technocratic leaders of Atlanticist states,
including Canada’s Justin Trudeau, the UK’s Boris
Johnson, and the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen. The
concept was later rebranded as “Build Back Better
for the World” (B3W).
Despite its warm and fuzzy image, the Global Green
New Deal and B3W failed to gain traction due to a
lack of concrete action plans or details on how to
finance and demonstrate the viability of the grand
vision.
In March 2021, Biden and Boris Johnson unveiled
a new program called the “Green Belt Initiative,”
which they described as a response to China’s
Belt and Road Initiative. When asked for details on
how to fund the $3 trillion in investments required
to make the “green transition” to a world dependent
on solar panels and windmills, no specifics were
provided.
Once again, the concept was under defined, but the
image presented was one of a green revolution
expected to usher in a new era of “clean zero carbon
infrastructure” led by utopian rules-based orderistas
of the transatlantic west.
Within the framing of the B3W branding, “Global
Green New Deal” was often celebrated as a warm
and fuzzy concept which former Bank of England
Governor Mark Carney heralded as a $130 trillion
renaissance into a post-hydrocarbon age.
In September 2021, the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen
announced the “Global Green Gateway” as Europe’s
response to the BRI. However, this initiative faced
criticism for ignoring the hundreds of thousands of
engineers trained by China in Africa over the past
decade, and for projecting the historic predatory
lending practices of Europe onto China.
Von der Leyen stated: “We want to create links and
not dependencies… It does not make sense for
Europe to build roads between a Chinese-owned
copper mine and a Chinese-owned harbor.”
Despite this, the Global Green Gateway failed
to propose a viable lending mechanism or staff,
and soon faded away, similar to the Build Back
Better and Global Green New Deals before it.
On 26 June, 2022, the global situation had changed
dramatically as Russia’s military intervention in
Ukraine was already four months old and the erection
of a new Iron Curtain attempting to cut Europe off
from both Russia and China was in full swing.
Despite these developments, the demand for nations
to access affordable and reliable energy and food
had risen higher than ever.
In response, the White House released its newest
rebranding of the B3W in the form of a G7-led
program now titled “The Partnership for Global
Infrastructure and Investment”.
This program promised $600 billion over five years
to recipient nations in Africa, Southwest Asia,
Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe to
build digital infrastructure, telecommunications,
green energy, and soft infrastructure with a focus on
gender equity.
The goal of this program was to provide poor
nations with an alternative to China’s alleged
predatory lending ambitions. However, few of the
nations offered this “life raft” have shown much
interest so far.
The Three Seas Initiative
In Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia,
the NATO-led Three Seas Initiative (3SI) was
founded in 2014 as an ambitious effort to thwart the
Middle Corridor. The 3SI includes 12 Eastern
European states within the Black Sea-Adriatic Sea-Baltic Sea region.
While many of the dozens of highways, rail, and gas
projects featured in the 3SI are objectively beneficial
to participating nations and all of Eurasia, the fact
is that those NATO and Atlantic Council operatives
promoting the grand design are only doing so from
an anti-Eurasian geopolitical agenda.
In June 2022, Ukraine was made a partner member
of the 3SI group, and funds were set up to
accumulate private capital to invest in this
trillion-dollar investment scheme to integrate
the energy and transportation corridors of the
region as a hub for supplying Europe with energy
while also building a wall to cut off the broader
New Silk Road corridors.
During a 3SI Summit that month, the foreign
ministers of Poland and Romania released a joint
statement saying:
“The 3SI is part of our response to the need for
developing energy, transport, and digital infrastructure
that will be more climate-friendly, fully aligned
with the goals of the Paris Agreement and the
European Green Deal.”
While the 3SI is directed towards consolidating
controls over the Eastern European EU member
states (plus Ukraine), once again, very little
information has been made public regarding how
the various infrastructure projects will be funded.
The 3SI Fund, created in 2019 to gain support
from the private sector (which is expected to provide
the vast majority of financing for these green new
deal projects), is still far from achieving even a
fraction of its goals.
Building a “Green Barrier” to Actual Development
On 7 December, 2022, the World Bank released a
report titled “Azerbaijan: Towards Green Growth”
in which the authors stated that the:
“Global transition towards a low-emissions
economic model offers opportunities for
Azerbaijan to be globally and regionally
competitive. To make the best of it, Azerbaijan
needs to focus on decarbonizing and diversifying
the economy, bolstering innovation, and natural
and human capital development.”
From this Green New Deal agenda, Azerbaijan
would certainly receive funding, but in doing so,
it would be handicapped from developing its vast
resources or playing a positive role in either the
Middle Corridor or the INSTC.
Five days later, the World Bank agenda was
re-emphasized by USAID at a conference
co-sponsored with the Azerbaijan-US Chamber of
Commerce, the White House, and the Embassy of
Azerbaijan.
Sentiments of those wishing to cut Russia and China
off the Middle Corridor hub could be heard in the
words of Ian Rawlinson CCO at APM Terminals in
Poti, Georgia who stated:
“It [Georgia] has always been considered as a
satellite region of Russia. However, the region is
very western centric. There are a lot of western companies
settled in Central Asia, and there is a strong drive for
western products… APM considers Central Asia as
the last container is able region, with the biggest potential
in terms of logistics. As it is landlocked, it is only
reachable by rail. Kazakhstan for example exports 60
million tonnes of cargo to Europe. Much of it is still
moving through Russia, but that can be changed to the
Middle Corridor. This is also true for eastbound cargo to
Kazakhstan.”
Efforts to intimidate, bribe, and threaten nations like
Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Turkey into
abandoning the concept of the Middle Corridor as a
hub of China-led development are both
self-destructive and absurd.
Ignoring the fact that the Middle Corridor would
not exist if not for China’s leadership in the first
place, these nations are being asked to see
themselves as the end and starting point of a
new pro-Atlanticist exclusive hub.
The leaders of the nations along the Middle
Corridor have made it clear that they are happy
to do business with Europe, but not at the expense
of their relationships with either Russia or China.
Eurasian Integration Moves Forward
On 20 December, Russia, Iran, Turkmenistan, and
Kazakhstan released a joint statement offering all
public and private interests across the globe a 20
percent discount on all freight transit costs for
goods moving along the eastern branch of the
INSTC.
This discount would apply to all goods moving
across the Middle Corridor (involving the
Russia-Kazakhstan-China connection), as well as
the eastern INSTC (involving Russia, Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and China), and also the
South-Eastern INSTC featuring Russia, Iran,
West Asia, East Africa, India, and South Asia.
While many Atlanticists would love nothing more
than to see Georgia pried out of the grip of Eurasian
influence, it is clear that Tbilisi’s interests lie in the
east.
Last week it was reported that trade between
Georgia, Russia, China, and Turkey grew
by 32 percent (from January to September) over the
same period in 2021, and that Georgia also enjoys
the benefits of having signed an important free trade
agreement with the Commonwealth of Independent
States (CIS), which includes Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan,
Uzbekistan, and Turkey.
Meanwhile, Turkmenistan-Azerbaijan trade volumes
have increased over 620 percent (from $48 million
in 2021 to $305.5 million in 2022) with much more
room for growth as the Caspian development
continues to grow with flows of energy resources to
both Europe and China increasing significantly.
If Europe wishes to survive the coming decades,
leadership will have to emerge that shrugs off the
imposing pressures of the Anglo-American
establishment, which seeks to stop the potential
Europe-Russian-Chinese economic cooperation at
all costs, even if it means the willful murder of
millions of European citizens under an artificial
imposition of energy scarcity, food scarcity, and war.
Nations of Central Asia and Southwest Asia have
felt the burn of transatlantic imperial grand strategy
for far too long and increasingly have come to
recognize which pathway to the future is befitting
their true interests – that of Eurasian integration.
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