broadsword
Brigadier
I can see the concern of the nations involved. If their ports have been the choice of shipowners for decades, they do not want to be sidetracked by the new arrangement, which can mean the demise of their cities.
China's overland Silk Road and Maritime Silk Road Thread
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
India is to be part of the project as a member of BRICS, SCO, AIIB &c., so the Indian navy is expected to protect the maritime trade of not only India and China but of all the countries concerned. I read that Brazil too will be a member of AIIB ....No, its to do with China's aspiration - the maritime route is critical to China's naval strategy to safeguard the supply from Middle East and Africa to China. It is also as a mean to put India's navy in check - because out of all the countries west of China, India posed the greatest threat and is the most hostile towards China. India has the means to cut off China's supply by sea, thus the naval "string of pearls" strategy is needed to ward off the potential risk of such event.
vesicles
Colonel
Yep! I thought India had been chosen to be the head of the AIIB while the HQ of AIIB had been chosen to be in Shanghai?
solarz
Brigadier
Two trade routes are always better than one. There's nothing that says the land route will be detrimental to the maritime route, or vice versa, so it makes perfect sense to try to pursue and improve both.
There are risks inherent in both routes. The existing maritime route is vulnerable to interdiction by the US and US-allied forces. The land route passes through a dozen countries with unstable economies and governments.
The two routes also require different approaches. To ensure the safety of the maritime route, the PLAN needs to modernize its fleet and improve its power-projection capabilities. For the land route, diplomacy is far more important in order to gain the cooperation of those nations lying along the route.
There are risks inherent in both routes. The existing maritime route is vulnerable to interdiction by the US and US-allied forces. The land route passes through a dozen countries with unstable economies and governments.
The two routes also require different approaches. To ensure the safety of the maritime route, the PLAN needs to modernize its fleet and improve its power-projection capabilities. For the land route, diplomacy is far more important in order to gain the cooperation of those nations lying along the route.
No, its to do with China's aspiration - the maritime route is critical to China's naval strategy to safeguard the supply from Middle East and Africa to China. It is also as a mean to put India's navy in check - because out of all the countries west of China, India posed the greatest threat and is the most hostile towards China. India has the means to cut off China's supply by sea, thus the naval "string of pearls" strategy is needed to ward off the potential risk of such event.
Those are China threat twists and inaccurate statements which don't match up with reality.
The Silk Road proposal if realized makes China dependent on both the land and maritime routes as they do not connect the same locations along the way. The proposal is really the Silk Road and Zheng He's maritime routes.
Both routes cover so much distance that there is no way China can militarily secure them on its own and the proposal specifically calls for multilateral efforts to maintain security along these routes for all parties.
The proposal does not exclude anyone from being a part of it nor does it somehow exclude current links, rather it seeks to build upon and expand existing links. Of course there will be natural competition for business among stops along the routes.
Diplomacy and stable states are necessary to maintain security for both routes which is why the proposal specifically calls for multilateral efforts towards this goal. And the best weapon against threats to these trade routes are the trade routes themselves.
They are intended to promote trade and benefit all parties along the way, with the interconnected world economy this means other trading partners of all parties along the way are likely to benefit as well. The only reason for someone to disrupt the route would be because they are not benefiting from it which means the proposal is not fulfilling its primary purpose in the first place.
Rather than this proposal leading China to develop US-scale global power projection military capabilities which China is already building a lite version of regardless, the main difference it would make is involve the PLA in more international exchanges and exercises, and possibly deployments against non-state banditry or terrorism targets.
solarz
Brigadier
While I mostly agree with you, I have to point out the elephant in the room when it comes to China's maritime trade routes: the threat of interdiction from the US.
This is an unlikely event because the US stands to lose as much as China if the maritime trade is disrupted, but that doesn't mean the threat doesn't exist. Of course there is no way for China to completely secure the trade route, short of becoming as dominant against any other nation as the US is against China right now, and that won't be happening any time soon. Instead, the role of the PLAN is to raise the costs of any such interdiction so that the idea because less and less palatable as the PLAN becomes more powerful. In a way, this is the calculus between all peer nations.
This calculus is fundamentally different from the land route, e.g. the New Silk Road. There, China does not face any peer adversaries. Yes, there is Russia, but Russia is a partner in the current political climate. In fact, were Russia to become hostile to the idea (for whatever reason), then the New Silk Road would quickly become unsustainable. Of course, the whole reason why this idea is on the table in the first place is because it's an attractive idea for both Russia and China.
Ambassador Bhadrakumar in Asia Times on line:
[QUOTE}
AIIB: A morality play for India
Author: March 28, 2015
, ,
China’s foreign policy fired all eight cylinders on Saturday. There has been a wanting to be founder members of the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank (AIIB) – South Korea, Australia, Brazil, Russia, Netherlands, Switzerland, Georgia and so on. – if only Beijing could find a way to admit an entity that it considers a part of China. Monday is the deadline for aspiring applicants.
Clearly, the United States’ “pivot” to Asia is in trouble, big trouble, and without the pivot, there is uncertainty how a steady erosion in America’s standing in Asia can be averted. The U.S. has been badly exposed as being at odds with the prevailing sentiment in the Asian region. The AIIB has busted a hole into the US’ “pivot” strategy through which even the Indian elephant can pass. A Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement with the obsessive idea of “containment” of China seems more problematic than ever.
What has happened is seen as and a manifestation of the dysfunctional American political system whereby the Congress could stall for 4 years already the quota reform measure for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that would have pacified China by granting it a greater voice in the fund. But then, there is much more to it. China is aiming at something much bigger, much more profound in scope and objectives.
China is changing the balance of power in Asia itself. A historic power shift is under way. The document released in Beijing on Saturday on the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ is breathtakingly ambitious in scope. If half of what it says could be realized, China will have already risen as a great power on the world stage exclusively on terms it set and negotiates for itself.
The stark alternatives sketched by pundits, drawn from European history and World War I as regards the dialectic involving the rise of great powers and the resistance to it by established powers, do not seem to be applicable to the Asian drama. Simply put, the European parallels are grossly inappropriate for contemporary Asia. China’s Asian neighbors are learning to live with China, are willing to engage with it while also preserving their relations with the U.S. China is comfortable with the idea, too. In strategic terms, China is leaving the U.S. hardly any wriggle room but to take a second good look at Beijing’s standing offer to create a ‘new type of relationship’ between the two big powers.
The ‘Vision’ document titled details the action plan whereby China hopes to change the world political and economic landscape through participating in the development of countries along its proposed Silk Routes. In a nutshell, geo-economics is forcing geopolitics to the margins. By volunteering to share its prosperity with its Asian neighbors, Beijing rubbishes the petard of “assertive” China, which the U.S. has hoisted on the Asian landscape as the raison d’etre of its “pivot” strategy. The document released on Saturday says:
“The Silk Road Economic Belt focuses on bringing together China, Central Asia, Russia and Europe (the Baltic); linking China with the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea through Central Asia and West Asia; and connecting China with Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Indian Ocean. The 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road is designed to go from China’s coast to Europe through the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean in one route, and from China’s coast through the South China Sea to the South Pacific in the other.
“On land, the Initiative will focus on jointly building a new Eurasian Land Bridge and developing China-Mongolia-Russia, China-Central Asia-West Asia and China-Indochina Peninsula economic corridors.”
The Chinese initiative aims at promoting policy coordination with its partners, facilitating connectivity and investment and trade, financial integration (through building a currency stability system in Asia, for example).
On Saturday, President Xi Jinping inaugurated the annual Boao Forum and in his too, China’s soft power took the centre stage. Xi harped on the need of an Asian community that eschews zero-sum mentality and cold-war mindset. Xi offered that China is willing to sign treaties of good-neighborliness and friendship and cooperation with all its neighbors. “What China needs most is a harmonious and stable domestic environment and a peaceful and tranquil international environment,” Xi said. He committed China to accommodate “the interests of others while pursuing own interests”.
In his speech, Xi presented the Chinese market as the driver of growth for the Asian economies. He outlined that China will import more than $10 trillion worth goods in the coming five-year period and proposes to make investments abroad in excess of $500 billion. Xi visualized that in excess of 500 million Chinese tourists will be making outbound visits during this period.
The Chinese thinking on the AIIB has evolved and it is far too simplistic to view it as a pincer aimed at the heart of the Bretton Woods system or in a spirit of competition with Washington. Clearly, China does not want to destroy the existing international financial system but instead seeks a greater say in its running and management and if that doesn’t happen, China will go its own way. In fact, Xi said China will promote a system of regional financial cooperation, explore a platform for exchanges and cooperation among Asian financial institutions and advance complementary and coordinated development between the AIIB and such multilateral financial institutions as the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank.
In the new matrix, China proposes to give full play to the AIIB and the Silk Road Fund by blending them with the sovereign wealth funds of countries along the Belt and Road and by encouraging commercial equity investment funds and private funds to participate in the key Silk Routes projects. The IMF has already shown interest in collaborating with the AIIB.
The AIIB membership drive has underscored the importance of the European states as Asia’s partner during a period when the region is passing through a major transition. On the one hand, the participation of the European countries ensures that China is obliged to mould the AIIB as an institution of the highest standard in transparency and efficiency. Indeed, the European countries’ participation in the AIIB helps shape its rules but on the other hand, it also offsets US opposition. Put differently, on the bigger plane of the global power dynamic, it also strengthens the Europe-Asia side of the US-Europe-Asia strategic and economic triangle, which dominates the world’s economy and politics today.
From an Indian perspective, Saturday triggered depressing thoughts of despondency.To be sure, the so-called signed during the visit by President Obama to Delhi hardly two months ago has been rendered irrelevant and archaic. Clearly, India, which, notwithstanding its profession of devotion to the ‘Asian Century’, is unable to figure out whether China’s rise is a good thing or not, has been taken for granted by Beijing as a partner in the Belt and Road Initiative. Beijing has left India with no choice but to tag along lest it gets stranded on the Silk Road.
China seems one hundred percent sure that Delhi cannot sustain its zero-sum mindset, when Asian countries all around it – big and small – find it attractive to partake of the Chinese initiative, which they see as inclusive, non-prescriptive, based on market rules and in a ‘win-win’ spirit of mutual benefit out of common development. China’s extraordinary ability in the geopolitical sphere makes Indian diplomacy look provincial and out of touch with the Asian and global realities.
[/QUOTE]
There is no advantage in opposing the economic development of Asia and anyone doing so will be seen as an enemy by all countries of Asia, and of Africa and countries further afield whose trade will benefit from that development.
[QUOTE}
AIIB: A morality play for India
Author: March 28, 2015
, ,
China’s foreign policy fired all eight cylinders on Saturday. There has been a wanting to be founder members of the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank (AIIB) – South Korea, Australia, Brazil, Russia, Netherlands, Switzerland, Georgia and so on. – if only Beijing could find a way to admit an entity that it considers a part of China. Monday is the deadline for aspiring applicants.
Clearly, the United States’ “pivot” to Asia is in trouble, big trouble, and without the pivot, there is uncertainty how a steady erosion in America’s standing in Asia can be averted. The U.S. has been badly exposed as being at odds with the prevailing sentiment in the Asian region. The AIIB has busted a hole into the US’ “pivot” strategy through which even the Indian elephant can pass. A Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement with the obsessive idea of “containment” of China seems more problematic than ever.
What has happened is seen as and a manifestation of the dysfunctional American political system whereby the Congress could stall for 4 years already the quota reform measure for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that would have pacified China by granting it a greater voice in the fund. But then, there is much more to it. China is aiming at something much bigger, much more profound in scope and objectives.
China is changing the balance of power in Asia itself. A historic power shift is under way. The document released in Beijing on Saturday on the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ is breathtakingly ambitious in scope. If half of what it says could be realized, China will have already risen as a great power on the world stage exclusively on terms it set and negotiates for itself.
The stark alternatives sketched by pundits, drawn from European history and World War I as regards the dialectic involving the rise of great powers and the resistance to it by established powers, do not seem to be applicable to the Asian drama. Simply put, the European parallels are grossly inappropriate for contemporary Asia. China’s Asian neighbors are learning to live with China, are willing to engage with it while also preserving their relations with the U.S. China is comfortable with the idea, too. In strategic terms, China is leaving the U.S. hardly any wriggle room but to take a second good look at Beijing’s standing offer to create a ‘new type of relationship’ between the two big powers.
The ‘Vision’ document titled details the action plan whereby China hopes to change the world political and economic landscape through participating in the development of countries along its proposed Silk Routes. In a nutshell, geo-economics is forcing geopolitics to the margins. By volunteering to share its prosperity with its Asian neighbors, Beijing rubbishes the petard of “assertive” China, which the U.S. has hoisted on the Asian landscape as the raison d’etre of its “pivot” strategy. The document released on Saturday says:
“The Silk Road Economic Belt focuses on bringing together China, Central Asia, Russia and Europe (the Baltic); linking China with the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea through Central Asia and West Asia; and connecting China with Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Indian Ocean. The 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road is designed to go from China’s coast to Europe through the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean in one route, and from China’s coast through the South China Sea to the South Pacific in the other.
“On land, the Initiative will focus on jointly building a new Eurasian Land Bridge and developing China-Mongolia-Russia, China-Central Asia-West Asia and China-Indochina Peninsula economic corridors.”
The Chinese initiative aims at promoting policy coordination with its partners, facilitating connectivity and investment and trade, financial integration (through building a currency stability system in Asia, for example).
On Saturday, President Xi Jinping inaugurated the annual Boao Forum and in his too, China’s soft power took the centre stage. Xi harped on the need of an Asian community that eschews zero-sum mentality and cold-war mindset. Xi offered that China is willing to sign treaties of good-neighborliness and friendship and cooperation with all its neighbors. “What China needs most is a harmonious and stable domestic environment and a peaceful and tranquil international environment,” Xi said. He committed China to accommodate “the interests of others while pursuing own interests”.
In his speech, Xi presented the Chinese market as the driver of growth for the Asian economies. He outlined that China will import more than $10 trillion worth goods in the coming five-year period and proposes to make investments abroad in excess of $500 billion. Xi visualized that in excess of 500 million Chinese tourists will be making outbound visits during this period.
The Chinese thinking on the AIIB has evolved and it is far too simplistic to view it as a pincer aimed at the heart of the Bretton Woods system or in a spirit of competition with Washington. Clearly, China does not want to destroy the existing international financial system but instead seeks a greater say in its running and management and if that doesn’t happen, China will go its own way. In fact, Xi said China will promote a system of regional financial cooperation, explore a platform for exchanges and cooperation among Asian financial institutions and advance complementary and coordinated development between the AIIB and such multilateral financial institutions as the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank.
In the new matrix, China proposes to give full play to the AIIB and the Silk Road Fund by blending them with the sovereign wealth funds of countries along the Belt and Road and by encouraging commercial equity investment funds and private funds to participate in the key Silk Routes projects. The IMF has already shown interest in collaborating with the AIIB.
The AIIB membership drive has underscored the importance of the European states as Asia’s partner during a period when the region is passing through a major transition. On the one hand, the participation of the European countries ensures that China is obliged to mould the AIIB as an institution of the highest standard in transparency and efficiency. Indeed, the European countries’ participation in the AIIB helps shape its rules but on the other hand, it also offsets US opposition. Put differently, on the bigger plane of the global power dynamic, it also strengthens the Europe-Asia side of the US-Europe-Asia strategic and economic triangle, which dominates the world’s economy and politics today.
From an Indian perspective, Saturday triggered depressing thoughts of despondency.To be sure, the so-called signed during the visit by President Obama to Delhi hardly two months ago has been rendered irrelevant and archaic. Clearly, India, which, notwithstanding its profession of devotion to the ‘Asian Century’, is unable to figure out whether China’s rise is a good thing or not, has been taken for granted by Beijing as a partner in the Belt and Road Initiative. Beijing has left India with no choice but to tag along lest it gets stranded on the Silk Road.
China seems one hundred percent sure that Delhi cannot sustain its zero-sum mindset, when Asian countries all around it – big and small – find it attractive to partake of the Chinese initiative, which they see as inclusive, non-prescriptive, based on market rules and in a ‘win-win’ spirit of mutual benefit out of common development. China’s extraordinary ability in the geopolitical sphere makes Indian diplomacy look provincial and out of touch with the Asian and global realities.
[/QUOTE]
There is no advantage in opposing the economic development of Asia and anyone doing so will be seen as an enemy by all countries of Asia, and of Africa and countries further afield whose trade will benefit from that development.