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G20, increasing connectivity without North America, and the Belt & Road Initiative


COGwriter

The organization known as the G20 has just finished meeting. Here are some reports:

September 10, 2023

NEW DELHI (AP) — G20 leaders paid their respects to Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi as their summit came to a close Sunday, a day after the group added a new member and reached agreement on a range of issues but softened language on Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The Group of 20 rich and developing nations welcomed the African Union as a member — part of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s drive to uplift the Global South. And host India was also able to get the disparate group to sign off on a final statement despite pointed disagreements among powerful members, mostly centered on the European conflict.

India also unveiled an ambitious plan with the United States, the European Union and others to build a rail and shipping corridor linking it with the Middle East and Europe in a bid to strengthen economic growth and political cooperation. …

The G20 includes Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the U.S and the EU. Spain holds a permanent guest seat.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping opted not to come this year, ensuring no tough face-to-face conversations with their American and European counterparts. https://apnews.com/article/g20-summit-india-final-statement-gandhi-modi-9a44765ce588f9ed1b690a0f475a61ab

September 10, 2023

The group announced Saturday that the African Union would be its newest member. “This will strengthen the G20 and also strengthen the voice of the Global South,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The group also held an event Saturday where it announced a multinational rail and ports deal linking the Middle East and South Asia.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “Today, as we embark upon such a big connectivity initiative, we are sowing the seeds for future generations to dream bigger.”

The deal seeks to connect Middle Eastern countries by train and then connect them to India by ports.

U.S. President Joe Biden said the initiative is a “real big deal” that would connect the ports of two continents and could lead to a “more stable, more prosperous and integrated Middle East.” https://www.voanews.com/a/g20-leaders-pay-tribute-to-gandhi/7261816.html

Bringing in the African Union, wanting to increase the influence of the ‘Global South,’ and increasing connectivity between the Middle East and South Asia is helping to set up cooperation of nations that will not have to be involved as much with the USA.

China’s President Xi did not attend the G20. Here is one person’s view about that:

September 9, 2023

The world’s most powerful leaders gathered in New Delhi for the year’s premier diplomatic event—the G20 summit—but China’s Xi Jinping deemed it not worth his time. His absence sends a stark signal: China is done with the established world order.

Ditching the summit marks a dramatic turn in China’s foreign policy. For the past several years, Xi has apparently sought to make China an alternative to the West. Now Xi is positioning his country as a full-on opponent—ready to align its own bloc against the United States, its partners, and the international institutions they support. …

By skipping the G20, Xi is attempting to discredit it. …

In place of institutions like the G20, Xi has been pushing rivals that he thinks he can dominate or pack with friendly clients. One such forum is the BRICS group of developing countries, which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Xi has been lobbying for a rapid expansion of the BRICS membership, and at the group’s August summit, in Johannesburg, he got what he wanted. Six additional countries were invited to join, including at least three (Egypt, Ethiopia, and Iran) with close political and economic ties to China. Through such expansion, the economist Hung Q. Tran argued in a recent report, China aims to “turn the BRICS group into a support organization for China’s geopolitical agenda” and a “venue for anti-US political activism.”

Xi is also planning a third Belt and Road Forum for later this year. Participants in his global infrastructure-building scheme—mainly developing nations—will be expected to dispatch high-level delegations to Beijing, rather like the tribute missions foreign states sent to honor Chinese emperors in past centuries. While other world leaders gather at the G20 summit, Xi will be hosting state visits from the presidents of Venezuela and Zambia, two countries that are highly indebted to China.

The effort to build a rival bloc comes at a time when Xi appears to be distancing himself from the West. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/xi-jinping-is-done-with-the-established-world-order/ar-AA1gtcNM

China has had a lot of international influence with its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which was formerly known as the Silk Road Project.

But while China has had various successes, it has also had some backlash from some poor nations. That said, notice the following report related to the BRI and Italy:

September 10, 2023

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni outlined Italy’s plan to pull out of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) during a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang at the G20 summit, Italian media reported on Sunday.

Italy, seeking to minimize any backlash from the decision from Beijing, would as a replacement aim to revitalize a strategic partnership agreement with China, aimed at fostering economic cooperation, it first signed in 2004.

Italy is the only G7 nation to sign up to the BRI, a global trade and infrastructure plan modeled on the old Silk Road that linked imperial China and the West. …

Italy has the G7 presidency next year and recasting its relationship with Beijing would placate its Western allies. https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/meloni-china-belt/2023/09/10/id/1133891/

Let me add that the European Union has something it calls the Global Gateway project which it believes will increase its influence in trade while blocking some of China’s influence:

Alternative To China’s Belt & Road Initiative, European Union Eyes ‘Global Gateway’ To Counter The BRI

January 9, 2023

Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) is a mega project of China through which it wants connectivity to West Asia and the European world. China has given a vast media hype to the initiative and declared it would undertake a significant financing share in the project.

It tried to convince the Eurasian and European countries that they would benefit highly from the project. In a sense, Beijing wants to revive the mystique of the ancient Silk Road, which remained the main trading route between the East and west in the olden world. …

… the EU has finally come up with the Global Gateway at the end of the day. Reverting to December 2021, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen confidently announced in a Brussels rally that the European Union’s new infrastructure drive would be a genuine alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

She added, “We can do that. Countries made their experience,” she said of Global Gateway, a spending drive that promised to mobilize up to Euro 300 billion (US$318 billion) by 2027 for modern infrastructure projects outside the EU. … in an interview with Politico last week, senior EU officials promised that “the projects would come next year. Once we have rolled out much more substantially the concept of Global Gateway, it will prove to be an attractive option, precisely as Belt & Road has been seen with all the negativity … with all the problems that it was creating,” said Stefano Sanin, Secretary General of the European External Action Service to the publication. https://eurasiantimes.com/alternative-to-chinas-belt-road-initiative-european-union/

Europe, which is part of the G20, does NOT intend to sit completely on the sidelines as it also wants to have connections into Asia and Africa. While it has been moving slower than China on such infrastructure projects, its involvement in the G20 supporting more connectivity is consistent with its goals and plans.

Here is some of what EU News said about the Global Gateway project in the past:

What is new in this Communication and how does it relate to previous initiatives in Connectivity? 

Global Gateway is global in scope, adapting to the needs and strategic interests of different regions. It builds on the achievements of the 2018 EU-Asia Connectivity Strategy, the recently concluded Connectivity Partnerships with Japan and India, as well as the Economic and Investment Plans for the Western Balkans, the Eastern Partnership, and the Southern Neighbourhood, but paying also particular attention to Africa, Central Asia and Latin America.

Global Gateway will be implemented in a Team Europe approach, that brings together funding by the EU, its Member States and European financial institutions, ensuring that investments can be targeted and more effective, strengthening existing initiatives and fostering new ones.

Global Gateway is values driven and based on the Union’s high social, environmental, fiscal and labour standards. It will focus on physical infrastructure – such as fibre optic cables, transport corridors, clean power transmission lines – to strengthen digital, transport and energy networks. It will also provide an enabling environment to make sure projects deliver, by offering attractive investment and business-friendly trading conditions, regulatory convergence, standardisation, supply chain integration and financial services. The EU has put in place financial and other tools to address the investment needs in sustainable infrastructure development across the world. accessed 12/02/21 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_21_6434

The EU project is ambitious. It is intended to help insure, that it, and not China or the USA will gain dominance. This is strategically interesting in that Europe is not intending to spend as much as China, but by being more selective about where to spend its funds, it will mainly fill in ‘gaps’ that it expects will benefit it the most. Notice that North America is NOT part of the connectivity plans.

Furthermore, unlike the Chinese plan, the European one involves infrastructure around data and communications technology.

The Bible shows that economically as the “daughter of Babylon” Europe will rise up in this century–(cf. Revelation chapters 17 & 18)–and this project is another step in that direction.

Consider that while China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) itself will face various obstacles, it looks to be supportive of some biblical prophecies.

Since the Bible teaches that it will be Europe that will dominate world trade, the BRI and Europe’s Global Gateway look to be ways that Europe will get access to markets in Asia and Africa. Roads work both ways. Furthermore, Europe has a long history of trading with Asia and Latin America and is biblically prophesied to continue to do so.

Consider that the Bible teaches the following about an end time European power:

2 … Babylon … 3 For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury. (Revelation 18:2,3)

The above is referring to the fact that nations of the world are prophesied to get wealthy trading with end time Babylon, which will be a European entity.

Back in 1971, the old Worldwide Church of God (WCG) published the following:

Momentous, historic events are transforming Western Europe. But most Americans are “asleep at the switch” to what is happening. It’s time for a self-centered America to wake up – before her allies become her enemies. Envision the startling future of Western Europe. A … union of perhaps 250 million people, surpassing both the United States and the Soviet Union in economic strength, possessing for the first time worldwide political power and influence. One news source recently called it an “enormous, physically powerful beast.” A new Western Europe controlling perhaps half of all world trade, by exclusive arrangements with dozens of nations who produce raw materials. A “United States of Europe” possessing one single currency – a currency so strong that it will replace the U. S. dollar as the kingpin currency of world trade. (Hogberg G. EUROPE’S COMMON MARKET RISING WORLD COLOSSUS. Plain Truth, 1971)

Now we all know that Europe has its own currency–a currency that some see as the logical replacement for the US dollar for world trade. Now, let me add that less than a decade after the above was published, the WCG publicly announced that Eastern Europe would also be part of this European power. And within a decade of that, Eastern European nations began to officially join in with what has become the European Union (more in Eastern Europe have also applied to become members of the EU). And, in population, the European Union already is actually larger than that of the USA. The Global Gateway project and the EU’s support of the G20 connectivity goals are steps intended to help Europe rise up.

Related to the ‘Global Gateway,’ the Continuing Church of God (CCOG) put together the following video on our Bible News Prophecy YouTube channel:

12:52

EU’s Global Gateway, Trade, and War?

The European Union announced that it planned to spend €300 billion ($340 billion) in a program called ‘Global Gateway.’ According to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen it is a “true alternative” to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, also known as the Silk Road Project. Both the EU and Chinese projects will improve road, ports, and/or other infrastructure to connect with Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. Will this result in increased trade for Europe and Asia during the time of the Gentiles? Will Babylonian Europe dominate trade for a time? Will devastating war hit Europe with Russian and Eurasian involvement? Would infrastructure these projects are involved in be used for war? What about preparation for Armageddon? Dr. Thiel address these issues and cites biblical prophecies related to these matters.

Here is a link to our video: EU’s Global Gateway, Trade, and War?

That said, while the USA supported and praised the new connectivity initiative from the G20, the connectivity does not really connect the USA.

The Chinese and Europeans are building infrastructure in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Asia, like roads and ports. India is also involved.

This will facilitate trade, help set up for the gathering at Armageddon (watch Is China paving roads to Armageddon?), but also help the coming Beast power rise up and prosper.

Some items of possibly related interest may include:

Lost Tribes and Prophecies: What will happen to Australia, the British Isles, Canada, Europe, New Zealand and the United States of America? Where did those people come from? Can you totally rely on DNA? What about other peoples? Do you really know what will happen to Europe and the English-speaking peoples? What about Africa, Asia, South America, and the Islands? This free online book provides scriptural, scientific, historical references, and commentary to address those matters. Here are links to related sermons: Lost tribes, the Bible, and DNA; Lost tribes, prophecies, and identifications; 11 Tribes, 144,000, and Multitudes; Israel, Jeremiah, Tea Tephi, and British Royalty; Gentile European Beast; Royal Succession, Samaria, and Prophecies; Asia, Islands, Latin America, Africa, and Armageddon;  When Will the End of the Age Come?;  Rise of the Prophesied King of the North; Christian Persecution from the Beast; WWIII and the Coming New World Order; and Woes, WWIV, and the Good News of the Kingdom of God.
Armageddon Who is involved and when will this gathering happen? Here is also a video from Dr. Thiel, from Tel Megiddo in Israel: Armageddon. Other videos include: Armageddon Will it come on Trump’s watch?, Iraq, Armageddon, & Prophecy, Freemasonry, Armageddon, and Rome, Is China paving roads to Armageddon?, and Jordan, Petra, and Armageddon.
China, Its Biblical Past and Future, Part 1: Genesis and Chinese Characters Where did the Chinese people come from? This article provides information showing that the Chinese peoples must have known about various accounts in the Book of Genesis up until their dispersion after the Tower of Babel. Here is a link to a version of this article in Spanish: ¿Prueban los caracteres chinos la exactitud de la Biblia?
China, Its Biblical Past and Future, Part 2: The Sabbath and Some of God’s Witness in China When did Christianity first come to China? And is there early evidence that they observed the seventh day sabbath?
Asia in Prophecy What is Ahead for Asia? Who are the “Kings of the East”? What will happen to nearly all the Chinese, Russians, Indians, and others of Asia? China in prophecy, where? Who has the 200,000,000 man army related to Armageddon? A YouTube video of interest may be Is China THE Threat to the United States of America?
The Times of the Gentiles Has there been more than one time of the Gentiles? Are we in it now or in the time of Anglo-America? What will the final time of the Gentiles be like? A related sermon is available and is titled: The Times of the Gentiles.
Who is the King of the North? Is there one? Do biblical and Roman Catholic prophecies for the Great Monarch point to the same leader? Should he be followed? Who will be the King of the North discussed in Daniel 11? Is a nuclear attack prophesied to happen to the English-speaking peoples of the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand? When do the 1335 days, 1290 days, and 1260 days (the time, times, and half a time) of Daniel 12 begin? When does the Bible show that economic collapse will affect the United States? In the Spanish language check out ¿Quién es el Rey del Norte? Here are links to two related videos: The King of the North is Alive: What to Look Out For and The Future King of the North.
Europa, the Beast, and Revelation Where did Europe get its name? What might Europe have to do with the Book of Revelation? What about “the Beast”? Is an emerging European power “the daughter of Babylon”? What is ahead for Europe? Here is a link to a video titled: Can You Prove that the Beast to Come is European? See also EU’s Global Gateway, Trade, and War?
The Times of the Gentiles Has there been more than one time of the Gentiles? Are we in it now or in the time of Anglo-America? What will the final time of the Gentiles be like? A related sermon is available and is titled: The Times of the Gentiles.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 10th, 2023 at 8:00 am and is filed under Prophecy.



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