The momentum of One Belt – One Road

Paving the way forward

In a historical beginning, the first Chinese ship docked at the Gwadar Posrt on 16 October, making the port a crucial conduit for linking it with Western China.

It is now the third anniversary of the initiative undertaken by President Xi Jinping to revive the ancient Silk Road. An international conference on One Belt – One Road (OBOR) Initiative was jointly organised by the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Beijing Foreign Studies University in Beijing on 10-11 October. The delegates from around 23 countries participated at this conference and gave their opinion about the OBOR.

The idea of One Belt One Road was expounded by President Xi in September in Kazakhstan and Jakarta in October 2013. Since then many inter-governmental dialogues were held between China and a number of countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe to build the 21st century modern Silk Road.

The response of the countries was mixed. There were a number of issues such as geo-strategic, political, ecological, social, environmental degradation, and so on and so forth. Many concerns were overcome but still many have remained unanswered. This created some confusion and chaos to upgrade the exiting physical infrastructure in these three contents, around 65 countries.

The OBOR or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is not a Chinese political agenda or a strategic project per se. It is truly an economic development project to address the woes of physical infrastructure, transport and connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, social, cultural, civilisational, and people-to-people relations among the countries along the Silk Road and beyond up to Africa and Europe.

The OBOR/BRI is not a Chinese martial Plan either. Even it is not a “strategy” but an “initiative”. Details of the projects ranging from industries to roads to financial integration to the People-to-People contacts supposed to be chalked out between China and the host countries depending on the recipient wishes, stakes, and concerns. The OBOR/BRI is not either a challenge to the existing global values and institutions or to make conflict with them but to integrate with the existing system. The newly created Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and Silk Road Funds (SRF) are not a challenge to the IMF, World Bank, or Asian Development Bank (ADP) or the Bretton Wood System. They are supposed to facilitate OBOR/BRI projects.

The OBOR/BRI is a holistic in nature, as the physical infrastructure of many Asian countries was not developed after World War II. With the exception of Japan, the whole of Asia was underdeveloped. Japan played an increasingly important role in integrating Asian economic system after its economic recovery in the 1950s and 1960s.

The phenomenon of ASEAN was emerged and transformed the economic landscape of the South East Asian region. With Japan’s increasing trade and investment in the region, “Four Asian Tigers” namely Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, and Malaysia emerged in the 1980s. The whole credit went to Japan.

In China’s opening and reforms since the 1978, Japan, Asian Tigers, ASEAN, and the United States have increasingly played pivotal role in bringing about a miracle on the Yellow River and transformed the Chinese economy as the leading global economy and now exceeding to US$ 11 trillion in term of the PPP vales leaving behind the United States, Japan, and Asian Tigers.

Similarly, like Japan’s developmental role in integrating Asian economies and reducing the gap of poverty through economic stimulation, China also finds its responsibility to share its development experience, its huge US$ 3.4 foreign reserves, its excessive trade surplus, industrial expertise, and financial superiority with all developing countries and by providing a financial cushions to developed economies facing economic crunches after the 2008 economic slowdown and bankruptcy.

There is a willingness among the Chinese to cooperate with the United States, Japan, and India in order to help implement the OBOR/BRI. The United States is not much reluctant compared to Japan and India. Dr Kent Calder of the Johns Hopkins called the OBOR/BRI the “emergence of new continentalism which shares a huge potential in changing the foundation of Asia”. China termed it a global, shared destiny to overcome crises and the issues of underdevelopment and share economic prosperity with a large number of countries and people.

China has been offering its diplomatic leverage to resolve the political issues, for instance, in Afghanistan and the Middle East. President Xi visited Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Egypt to ask them to join hand in OBOR/BRI initiative. These countries pledged to actively get involved in the OBOR/BRI.

Among all the six OBOR/BRI corridors, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is considered to be the flagship project. The progress on the CPEC is amazingly going well and Pakistan is quite ahead in the implementation the Early Harvest Programs (EAP) of energy and physical road infrastructure.

The efforts of the Government of Pakistan in the past three years was well acknowledged by Chinese and international experts. The diplomatic and political understanding between the Government of China and Pakistan with regards to the CPEC projects became an indispensable element for the success of the CPEC. The CPEC was considered to be a true model for speedy development. The examples of Japan, Asian Tigers, and now China are speedily transforming the economy of Pakistan.