I don't know how many of the posters here subscribe to John McCreary's NightWatch newsletter, but as a free resource I find its contents preferable to most of the more mainstream outlets. Here's the relevant bit:

China-Central Asia: Yesterday the Ministry of Foreign Affairs summarized the results of Premier Wen Jiabao's swing through central Asia and Russia between 2 and 6 November. Wen paid official visits to Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Belarus and Russia; attended the sixth meeting of the Prime Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Tashkent; and led the Chinese delegation to the 12th China-Russia Prime Ministers’ regular meeting, where he attended the closing ceremony for the “China Year “in Moscow.

It is no accident that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization members were the first to be visited after the 17th National Congress approved the latest leadership lineup. China’s turn to the countries in the Asian landmass is historic and strategic because these are the barbarian lands in antiquity and more recently they were hostile as members of the Soviet Union. After years of meetings that achieved little, they are now becoming the centerpiece of a non-western strategic economic center. High oil and natural gas prices are reshaping trade and development patterns faster.

The level of interaction seems to be gathering momentum as patterns of trade shift. For example, in Uzbekistan, China promised to buy more cotton, as part of the ten cooperation agreements signed last week in Tashkent. To ensure the cotton reaches China, China has agreed to accelerate transit road construction across Kyrgyzstan. China also intends to continue to expand the railroads that will link to the Chinese system. The Chinese quest for resources is accelerating the development of the continent.

Older maps show China’s railroad west of Urumqi ending at the Chinese border so that invaders from the Soviet Union could not use it. Now it is a 32 hour train trip from Urumqi to Almaty, Kazakhstan and costs $63. Many readers will not know there are two rail systems from Moscow to the Far East: the well-known Trans-Siberian Railway and the newer Silk Road route that links all the central Asian states and terminates in Beijing.
As a visual aid, McCreary includes a map displaying the growth of the two railroad lines, and when you add that to the existing transportation hubs that tie into Moscow, you can clearly see the potential for a game-changing shift of power from the Western hemisphere to the Far East, driven by the rapid technological development of a nation that contains 20% of the world's population.