BRI - HOME AND ABROAD
It has been evident in no uncertain terms for those with an understanding of Chinese domestic politics and foreign policy behaviour that the structure of BRI-related events - conferences, delegation exchanges, high-level leadership visits - and the language used by Chinese scholars, diplomats and Party officials as well as the actions of the Chinese government have all been about promoting Chinese national objectives.While this in itself is not surprising- all countries must be expected to promote their national interests - there are some aspects that should worry countries hosting BRI projects.
- There is a domestic economic logic to the BRI in that it helps reduce excessive and unnecessary investment in infrastructure development within China and shifts the overcapacity to outside China’s borders. This capital investment in the form of infrastructure projects has played a role in the high figures of Chinese GDP growth. However, it is also a fact that China’s infrastructure overcapacity can actually be necessary in its immediate and extended neighbourhood where there are substantial infrastructural and industrial deficits.
- There is a rather wide gap between China’s rhetoric and its practice.Over the five-year period of the BRI, the image that China has assiduously tried to cultivate of the BRI being a mere economic project aimed at fulfilling a crucial development need for infrastructure in Asia, Africa and Europe and at increasing people-to-people contacts has been punctured by several unflattering reports of the nature of these projects. In the main, these revolve around the high costs of Chinese projects that have led many nations into debt traps, lack of transparency on their terms, alleged bribery of host government officials, the use of Chinese labour and the use of old, polluting technologies.
- It is an endeavour in which the Chinese state and CPC have spared no effort even using social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, which they have banned at home, and paid advertisements in foreign news publications, to sell the message of the BRI. It must be underlined that practically every Chinese project or foreign policy exercise abroad is now being brought under the rubric of the BRI or has a BRI theme from investments in technology startups to people-to-people exchanges. The BRI has become something of a legacy-building project for Xi Jinping and therefore, under the ongoing centralisation of power under Xi, the Party and state have devoted considerable propaganda resources to its promotion.
INDIA’S RESPONSE
The general Indian view about the BRI including government was that the BRI is less about economic development and more about political goals. This particular insight came from multiple sources - conferences that the academics and researchers in think-tanks attended in China promoting the BRI in which the Chinese consistently tried to run down Indian contributions to the ancient Silk Roads while promoting the ‘new Silk Roads’ of the SREB and the MSR. Though some Chinese sources - never officially sanctioned - always showed India as lying along both a branch of SREB and MSR.This author has, in fact, stated elsewhere that the BRI is the closest thing to a ‘grand strategy’ that the Chinese have come up with since the waning years of the Qing dynasty in the 19th century. In 20th century China was much under pressure of the fall of the Qing, the lack of capacity of the successor Republic of China regime, civil war, and the Japanese invasion and subsequently World War II to the fall of the Republic, the economic and humanitarian disaster of the Great Leap Forward under the Communist Party, and the Cultural Revolution. Despite of some economic reforms in the late 1970s, it has not been until now under the powerful and centralising leadership of Xi, backed by an over US$12 trillion economy, adequate military might and a large diplomatic corps among other things that China has begun to pay sufficient attention to not just maintaining and protecting its interests abroad but expanding them and pushing a ‘Chinese model’ of development and politics. The BRI is the platform to achieve these goals.
China’s ‘all-weather friend’ Pakistan has seen complaints against the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) from a variety of sources - political parties, provincial governments, economists and the media, and businessmen and entrepreneurs. Indian analyst cannot ignore the opposition in Pakistan over the CPEC, this has implications on India-Pakistan relationship. The implication is that if the CPEC were to fail, then there is greater likelihood of Pakistanis taking to terrorism for lack of better opportunities. Therefore, the conditions that affect the progress of the CPEC are also of concern to Indian observers. Later on if the Chinese were to depend on the Pakistan Army to carry the CPEC through to fruition in case of the inability of or opposition from the civilian government, then this risks also further aggravating tensions in the India-Pakistan relationship given the Pakistani security establishment’s positions.
The Indian government might be first government to claim many shortcomings of BRI in a brief note by its foreign ministry spokesperson outlining it's reason for not to be a part of the Grand belt and Road initiative that was organised in Beijing in may 2017.The Indian foreign ministry statement highlighted issues of transparency, environmental protection, economic feasibility and technology transfer associated with the BRI. However, the problem as always with India has been one of little action following up the talk. Indeed, New Delhi has lost much goodwill over the years for its inability to implement promised projects despite these originating several years, even decades, before the Chinese or the BRI appeared on the scene. In many instances, the Chinese have had opportunities because of New Delhi’s abdication of its responsibilities, including a very narrow view of what accountability and profits mean, limited to financial aspects rather than wider political aspects.
Indians were perfectly right in suggesting that the port was not economically feasible, it must be asked whether ways could not have been found to offer alternatives or to bear some of the cost in anticipation of precisely the current reality of the Chinese occupying for 99 years a prime piece of strategic real estate. Also Pakistan appears to be demonstrating precisely this in the face of its declining relationship with the US and its (particularly, the military establishment’s) hard-line stance on economic ties and political opening up to India.Indeed, Beijing could well argue that the premium countries pay or the risks involved in BRI projects are inevitable given that China is the only country that is willing to invest in what are arguably some of the most politically unstable and economically underdeveloped areas of the world.
India have tried their best to make up in engaging with greater cooperation with Japan especially for growth of Asia- Africa growth corridor.Indian government officials and some analysts can make the point that India cannot and should not compete directly with the Chinese in their areas of strength such as infrastructure projects and that India should focus on its strengths in the field of sharing expertise in developing medium - and small-scale enterprises in other countries. While this is a legitimate approach, New Delhi cannot both highlight the security and economic challenges of the BRI’s mega-infrastructure projects and not offer a direct counter or alternative to them. In other words, New Delhi might not have the option of only working in its comfort zone and not developing the capacity or making the necessary investments in competing directly with the Chinese.
By the May 13, 2017 , MEA statement, New Delhi has to do their best to offering support to BRI host countries to build up their competence and to expertise in the legal , economic and legislative domains to help them preempt as far as possible the ill-effects of BRI projects that have been highlighted. This could be for helping those countries to formulate government norms to infrastructure projects like EIA , financial standards and so on. At the same time, India in cooperation with US , Japan and like that countries also be able to implement some other projects with better standards.
CONCLUSION
China’s BRI might make mistakes but the Chinese also possess the ability to learn from their mistakes and recover lost ground fairly quickly. This is because despite whatever other problems they might have; their whole-of-the-body politic approach is unmatched by other governments. Such an approach involves considerable synergy between various government and CPC institutions including between government officials and the academic and research community.Chinese provinces bordering foreign countries have inevitably developed local expertise on those countries that even the central government depends on and has used in promoting the BRI.If one were to consider the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Regional Economic Forum (BCIM) that began as an initiative of the Yunnan provincial government in 1999, and the idea BCIM Economic Corridor that was put forward in May 2013 , it could also be argued that the BRI was in many ways a further scaling up of these initiatives.While the BCIM has not been without its problems – some of which, in fact, anticipate problems now being faced by the BRI, too - what is notable is the level of agency that sub-national entities in China have, which is not replicated in full measure in India even though it is a federal state.
China’s BRI, therefore, challenges India to reconsider the whole of its foreign policy objectives, strategies, and structures as well as its internal structures of administration, including centre-state relations.India is not short of ideas, it is short of both resources and capabilities. Some of these can be mended by greater inter-ministerial coordination and synergy in the implementation of foreign development project. The government and its ministries both open themselves up to greater inputs and expertise from the outside including from the states, the military, the universities and think-tank communities as well as invest far more than it does in developing capacities in these institutions.
I am Harsh Jain.I am pursuing B.E. in Information Technology from Shri G.S. Institute of Technology and Science. I like to be around my phone for games and also to write about the current affairs around the world.
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