Relevance : GS Paper II (International Relations)
Introduction
The China-led initiative’s global reach signals the advent of a new order led by Asia, which cannot exclude India.
Reasons why India should associate itself with BRI
There are at least five reasons why India should have sent an observer to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Forum.
- First, the defining feature of the 21st century is that Asia, not China, is at the centre of the world. Of the estimated $30 trillion increase in middle-class consumption growth estimated by 2030, only $1 trillion is expected to come from Western economies and most of the rest from Asia.
- Second, the global spread of the BRI signals the political end of the old order where the G7 shaped the economic agenda. Italy, a member of the G7, is joining the BRI.
- Third, the Asian Development Bank, not China, drew global attention to infrastructure as the key driver of economic growth in Asia.
- Fourth, the BRI, faced with criticism over lack of transparency and insensitivity to national concerns, is evolving towards standards of multilateralism, including through linkages with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
- The International Monetary Fund describes it as a “very important contribution” to the global economy and is “in very close collaboration with the Chinese authorities on sharing the best international practices, especially regarding fiscal sustainability and capacity building”. China is now also seeking co-financing with multilateral institutions as well as private capital for a Silk Road Bond.
- Fifth, for the BRI to have strategic objectives is not unusual. The Marshall Plan in the 1950s also required recipients to accept certain rules for deepening trade and investment ties with the U.S.
Way forward for India
- The BRI’s commercial advantage has certainly increased China’s international weight and India needs to shape the new standards to benefit Indian technology companies.
- India has declared a cooperative vision of the ‘Indo-Pacific’. Hence, joining the BRI seems logical.
- China recognises the difficulties inherent in the interlinked international and domestic agenda of the BRI, and needs India’s support for reform of global governance, which was an important part of last year’s discussion at Wuhan.
- India should respond to the strategic complexity arising from the BRI, a key part of which cuts through Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, through three related but distinct diplomatic initiatives.
- First, India needs to highlight that a British-led coup by the Gilgit Scouts led to Pakistani occupation of this territory and seek appropriate text recognising India’s sovereignty — a drafting challenge but not an insurmountable one.
- Second, New Delhi should give a South Asian character to the two BRI corridors on India’s western and eastern flanks, by linking them with plans for connectivity in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region.
- Third, India needs work towards ‘multilateralising’ the BRI with a set of rules.
