The following preface to the 2026 second edition of Hussein Askary and Jason Ross’s report “Extending the New Silk Road to West Asia and Africa” was written in November 2025 by Li Xing, who serves as Yunshan Leading Scholar, Guangdong Institute for International Strategies, Director of the European Research Center, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies and as an Adjunct Professor at Aalborg University in Denmark.
The report is available in English in paperback and kindle formats, and also in paperback in Chinese.
Extending the New Silk Road to West Asia and Africa: A Vision of an Economic Renaissance, co-authored by Hussein Askary and Jason Ross, is a wide-ranging and ambitious study of global politics and economics that seeks to rethink the path of development in the Global South. Originally published in 2017 as a special report by the Schiller Institute and comprehensively revised in its 2025–2026 edition, the report argues that lasting peace and stability in West Asia and Africa cannot be achieved through diplomacy or aid alone. True progress, the authors contend, must rest on a material-economic transformation driven by infrastructure, science, and industrialization. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched by China in 2013, is presented as the most inclusive framework for realizing such a grand transformation. At the same time, the authors urge Europe and the United States to abandon zero-sum geopolitical thinking and to participate as equal partners in building this new “win-win” paradigm.
The introduction situates the work within what President Xi Jinping has described as “a great change unseen in a century.” The authors believe that the world is undergoing a transition from a unipolar order characterized by financial speculation and conflict to a multipolar system based on real economic development. They identify two key forces driving this shift: the expansion of the BRICS mechanism into “BRICS Plus,” incorporating Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the UAE, and Indonesia; and the consolidation of the BRI, which by 2025 has attracted 152 participating countries. These developments, they argue, mark the emergence of a new model of multilateral cooperation centered on connectivity, industrial capacity, and mutual benefit. In contrast, the debt-ridden and deindustrialized transatlantic system, trapped in perpetual conflict, has lost its moral and economic authority to lead. The authors therefore call for a new global architecture for security and development—one that achieves East–West integration through shared growth rather than confrontation.
Askary and Ross emphasize that the special report serves as a methodological guide for creating a new economic order. Drawing on the “physical economy” theory of the late economist Lyndon LaRouche, they argue that genuine progress cannot be measured by financial gains alone but by the capacity to apply science and technology to enhance labor productivity and creative potential. Within this framework, infrastructure is not a market commodity but the physical platform upon which civilization rests. The authors criticize neoliberal dependence on private financing and public–private partnerships, asserting that nations must reclaim the sovereign power to create credit and direct it toward productive, long-term investment. Only by reconnecting economics with moral purpose—placing human creativity and dignity at its core—can the world break free from its current cycle of crisis.
A major portion of the report dismantles what the authors call the “myth of small and beautiful.” They criticize the ideology, promoted by Western economists such as E. F. Schumacher and institutionalized through aid agencies, that developing nations should limit themselves to “small projects” and “appropriate technologies.” They trace this doctrine to Cold War–era population control policies promoted by figures like Henry Kissinger, which sought to constrain industrialization in the Global South under the banner of sustainability. In their view, such ideas condemned entire continents to underdevelopment. By contrast, they argue that only large-scale, technology-intensive projects—such as dams, railways, nuclear power plants, and transcontinental water systems—can achieve the productivity leap necessary to eradicate poverty. Projects like the Grand Inga hydroelectric plants, the Transaqua water-transfer scheme, and the Pan-African high-speed rail network are presented as examples matching Africa’s true scale and aspirations.
The 2025 edition devotes much attention to Africa’s recent economic breakthroughs. Ethiopia’s industrial parks and the nearly completed 6,000-megawatt Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam demonstrate how infrastructure can drive industrialization. Egypt’s massive highway and high-speed rail systems, its new administrative capital, and Africa’s first major nuclear power plant at Dabaa provide another model of modernization. Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere Hydropower Project on the Rufiji River—built by Egyptian companies using Chinese technology—has doubled the nation’s energy capacity and symbolizes the rise of South–South cooperation independent of Western oversight. Collectively, these examples reveal an Africa no longer content to remain a supplier of raw materials but determined to build integrated value chains and manufacturing capacities in partnership with China and other BRICS nations.
In discussing West Asia, the authors describe the region as caught between two competing paradigms: the divisive logic of “divide and rule,” perpetuated by Western intervention and endless wars, and the cooperative vision of “unite and prosper” embodied in the BRI. They highlight the 2023 China-brokered rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the China–Arab States Summit in Riyadh in 2022, and the growing number of renminbi-based trade, technology, and energy projects across the Gulf, as evidence that economic interdependence can succeed where political coercion fails. In contrast, Western initiatives such as the India–Middle East–Europe Corridor are portrayed as geopolitical maneuvers aimed at isolating China and obstructing regional integration.
The special report’s core analytical chapters propose a new approach to financing development. The authors call for establishing regional infrastructure banks in West Asia and Africa, supported by sovereign credit creation rather than private markets. Inspired by Alexander Hamilton’s national banking model and the 2019 China–Iraq “oil-for-reconstruction” agreement, they argue that resource-backed, long-term credit mechanisms are more sustainable. They reject the “debt-trap” narrative as a politically motivated myth and assert that properly structured financing fosters real productive capacity and self-sustaining growth.
The latter part of the report translates these ideas into sectoral strategies—continental railway integration linking ports, resource belts, and industrial zones; comprehensive water management through river-basin cooperation and the Transaqua corridor; universal electrification powered by nuclear energy; and agricultural modernization to turn Africa into a net food exporter. The authors even extend their vision into outer space, suggesting that participation in space technology and exploration can catalyze scientific education and innovation, representing the highest expression of human creativity.
Throughout the work runs a strong moral and philosophical undercurrent aimed at fostering dialogue and coexistence among civilizations. The authors argue that the BRI’s principle of “consultation, co-construction, and sharing” aligns with the ethical teachings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and that the concept of “win-win cooperation,” although part of Confucian teaching, is not a Chinese invention but a universal moral ideal. They endorse the Schiller Institute’s proposal for “triangular cooperation,” encouraging the United States and Europe to work with China and Russia on development projects in third countries, thereby overcoming ideological divisions and reviving the humanist spirit of the Renaissance and the American Revolution.
In sum, Extending the New Silk Road to West Asia and Africa serves as both a grand blueprint and a moral declaration for a post-imperial world order. Its core message is that economic development is the most effective path to peace, and that infrastructure is the foundation of human progress. By linking the deserts of the Middle East and the savannas of Africa through railways, energy grids, and knowledge networks, the authors envision a future that transcends geography and ideology. While the work bears an idealistic tone and reflects the influence of LaRouchean economic thought, it nevertheless articulates an ambitious vision of intercontinental economic revival grounded in science, culture, and cooperation.
Placed within the growing body of BRI and Global South literature, this special report stands out for its intellectual ambition and unconventional analytical framework. Unlike most studies that assess the BRI through economic metrics, geopolitical competition, or debt sustainability, it advances a holistic “physical economy” perspective that measures real progress through productivity, technological advancement, and energy density rather than financial indicators. This approach redefines development as a fusion of science and moral purpose, emphasizing infrastructure as the physical foundation of civilization.
