Ever
since being elected as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China
(CPC) in November 2012 and subsequently the President of China in March 2013,
Xi Jinping has put forth grandiose ideas like ‘Chinese Dream’ and ‘One Belt and
One Road’. The former aims to ‘realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese
nation’, by realising the two centenary goals, i.e. to double the 2010 GDP per
capita income and build a moderately prosperous society by 2021 when the
Communist Party of China marks its 100th anniversary; and second goal
is to turn China into an all-around modern and socially advanced country by 2049
when the People’s Republic marks its centenary. The later refers to setting up
of a geopolitical and geo-economic Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and the 21st
Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) connecting China to Europe by land and sea.
These
grandiose initiatives have been scantly reported and least debated in India and
may be the world at large. Nevertheless, have raised hopes as well as suspicion
as to what China is up to. And that even if silk routes existed in ancient
times, but what is the relevance of such initiatives in modern times? And also
whether such initiatives are in sync with China’s foreign policy goals such as
multi polarity, no hegemony, common security etc. or an antidote to the US
foreign policy goals like ‘pivot to Asia’ or ‘Trans Pacific Partnership’ (TPP)?
Or, is China challenging the US hegemony and rewriting the rules of
geopolitical and economic architecture?
The ‘One Belt one Road’ concept is rooted in history as
there existed an overland Silk Route and a MSR that connected China to
countries across Asia, Africa and Europe. In the last three decades of reforms,
China has built a network of highways and railroads from north to south and
from east to less developed western and south western regions. Having achieved
that, China sees an opportunity to link the hinterland with south Asia, Europe,
Africa and even the Americas.
The concept was
first proposed by Xi Jinping during a speech at Nazarbayev
University, Kazakhstan on 7 September 2013 when he said that ‘To forge
closer economic ties, deepen cooperation and expand development in the
Euro-Asia region, we should take an innovative approach and jointly build an
’economic belt’ along the silk road. This will be a great undertaking
benefitting the people of all countries along the route.’ Xi
proposed that traffic connectivity need to be improved so as to open the
strategic regional thoroughfare from the Pacific Ocean to the Baltic Sea, and
gradually move toward the set-up of a network of transportation that connects
Eastern, Western and Southern Asia. Chinese President also urged the regional
members to promote local-currency settlement so as to improve their immunity to
financial risks and their global competitiveness (XHN 2013).’ Undoubtedly, the
economic connectivity
is the heart of the matter for which Chinese President Xi Jinping also
announced the establishment of a Silk Road Fund with 40 billion US dollars
to support infrastructure investments in countries involved; however, the notion is equally significant strategically as
it will imply common security or security dilemmas at regional and
trans-regional levels.
The initiative of building MSR was proposed by Xi Jinping
during his visit to Indonesia in October 2013 in order to deepen economic and
maritime links. The MSR begins in Fuzhou in Southeast China’s Fuzhou province
and heads south into the ASEAN nations, crosses Malacca Strait and turns west
to countries along the Indian Ocean before meeting the land based Silk Road in
Venice via the Red Sea and Mediterranean.
Under the ambit of MSR, China plans to build hard and soft infrastructure
from Indo-Pacific to Africa, including transport, energy, water management,
communication, earth monitoring, economic and social infrastructure.
China has sought the participation of countries and regions
touching the ‘One Belt and One Road ‘zone. For example most of the ASEAN
countries with whom China has a trade volume of 400 billion dollars has
welcomed the idea as it sets to build a single market economic community by
2015. As far as South Asia is concerned except India most of the smaller
nations have also welcomed the idea as they perceive the initiative as a great
opportunity to comprehensively deepen economic and people to people relations.
Why has India remained silent to China’s invitation even if
the former has underscored the importance of India as far as the
initiative is concerned? Should security analysts and sceptics see these
initiatives as part of ‘strategic encirclement’ of India policy, and club it
with China’s similar but smaller initiatives such as China-Pakistaan Economic
Corridor, the prospective Trans-Himalayan Economic Zone of Cooperation with
Nepal and Bhutan, and the BCIM Economic Corridor that connects India’s
northeast to China’s southwest, Bangladesh and Myanmar? Is it because of this
‘strategic encirclement’ of India that India is going slow on the BCIM-Economic
Corridor even if it was officially signed during Premier Li Keqiang’s India
visit in 2013 and falls in the ambit of ‘one belt’ initiative? The security
establishment and strategic community have always maintained that India cannot
give China access to its sensitive areas. But, can the new government in office
think differently on the issue?
Shennon Tiezzi
(2014) associate editor of the Diplomat and Chen Dingding (2014) has
drawn parallels between ‘One Belt one Road’ to the ‘Marshal Plan’ that
established the US as a ‘bona fide super power’. The Chinese scholars including
Prof. Shi Ze (2014) of the China Institute of International Studies, however, have
denounced the western criticism of the initiative and have maintained that the
policy of ‘Three Nos” that is non interference in the internal affairs of other
nations; not to seek the so called ‘sphere of influence’; and not to strive for
hegemony or dominance equally applies to the “One Belt One Road” policy (Shi Zi
2014). The initiative indeed is larger than the Marshal plan as it attempts to
encompass the entire world, the economic value of which could reach whopping 21
trillion US dollars (Shennon Tiezzi 2014). Will this grandiose concept succeed
and realise not only the Chinese dream but the dreams of various countries and
people around the world? Or will it give rise to geostrategic rivalries around
the world and cold or hot war with the sole and declining superpower of the
world?
It
appears that if grandiose initiatives such as Asia Infrastructural Development
Bank (AIDB), Silk Road Fund, MSR and most recent Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP) has put China at the centre
of the global geopolitics and geo-economics, and has forced the
US to scramble for a leadership role at least in the region if not globe; the
same has challenged the US hegemony in the region including the US
notions of ‘pivot to Asia’ and Trans Pacific Partnership which is yet to take
off. It remains to be seen, how India approaches both the camps as for now it
is out of the ambit of US as well as Chinese initiatives. The Chinese have
realised that the US would not be supportive of Beijing's renewed drive as it
was during the formative years of reforms and open door policy in the late
1970s. The US sees China as the only potentially qualified rival to the US
hegemony. China also believes that if there are countries that restrict China’s
maritime ambitions these are the US, Japan and India (Zhang 2009). Under such
circumstance, will India maintain its strategic autonomy or lean to one side,
the choice would be difficult to make.
References:
Chen Dingding (2014) “China’s ‘Marshal Plan’ is much
more” The Diplomat, November 10, 2014. http://thediplomat.com/2014/11/chinas-marshall-plan-is-much-more/
Shennon Tiezzi (2014) “The New Silk Road: China’s
Marshal Plan?” The Diplomat, November 6, 2014.
http://thediplomat.com/2014/11/the-new-silk-road-chinas-marshall-plan/
Shi Zi (2014) “One Road & One Belt” New Thinking
With Regard to Concepts and Practice” lecture delivered at the 30th
anniversary of Conference of the Schiller Institute on October
14, 2014, Germany available at http://newparadigm.schillerinstitute.com/media/one-road-and-one-belt-and-new-thinking-with-regard-to-concepts-and-practice/
XHN [Xinhua News] (2013) “Xi suggests China, C. Asia
build Silk Road economic belt” 7 September, 2013
Zhang Shiping (2009) 《中国海权》(China’s Sea Rights) People’s
Daily Publication, Beijing
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