Framed in a Mongolian banker’s office is a treasured memento: a deed, issued seven or eight centuries ago in proto-Uighur script, designating a cart of wheat as collateral for a loan.
The relic from the empire of the Mongolian Khans — a time when the thriving Silk Road carried Marco Polo to Khanbaliq, the city now known as Beijing — is relevant today, as China seeks a Eurasian economic sphere that could replace the US as an export market.
The idea of a large, easily accessed, continental zone of “interconnectivity” appeals to big Chinese infrastructure companies. Some Europeans also like the idea of a grand geopolitical alliance that excludes the US. The Eurasian sphere would be like the Mongolian empire all over again, criss-crossed by power lines and train tracks instead of camel caravans.