One Belt, One Road, Big Ambition

China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative is an incredibly ambitious undertaking — and perhaps Beijing is only starting to realise just how ambitious.

The OBOR involves building a web host of new infrastructure connections between China, Russia, Central Asia and the Indian Ocean. A complementary series of ports and other infrastructure projects across the Indian native Ocean called the Maritime Silk Route (MSR) adds a maritime leg to the land-based connections with the Indian Ocean, including the China–Pakistan Financial Corridor (CPEC) and the proposed Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar Economic Corridor (BCIM). China has now also established major financing bodies, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Silk Street Fund, to help fund approximately US$250 billion worth of OBOR projects.

In some ways, the initiative seems the best expression of China’s goals to remake the world about it. If built, the actual initiative could change the proper and economic character of Eurasia and the Indian Ocean region. China would no longer be dependent upon its connections with Eastern Asia and the Pacific; it might sit astride two oceans as well as potentially be able to dominate the whole Eurasian continent.

However, there is reason to become sceptical about how much of China’s plans will actually come to fruition. Elements of the OBOR — particularly in the Indian Ocean region — are increasingly more of the expression of China’s long-term aspirations than reality.

The OBOR initiative demands cooperation among many nations that are politically unstable, corrupt or experience high levels of civil conflict. This creates considerable risks for the implementation and operation of integrated facilities projects. This is particularly the case within the Indian Ocean region. A number of China’s neighbours — particularly India — have considerable concerns concerning the strategic consequences of China’s plan, although they remain tempted by the prospects of main Chinese investments.

There are other issues. The MSR remains one of the minimum defined elements of the OBOR. The far east has been involved in constructing a number of ports in the northern Indian Ocean for several years. However, there are few signs of this evolving as planned into a cohesive regional system in which goods move freely between Chinese-owned production areas situated in different countries.

Several South Asian states that are embroiled in maritime territorial disputes along with China are looking at China’s proposed port projects warily. While Myanmar as well as Sri Lanka are happy to take Chinese investment, in recent years their leaders possess faced considerable political backlash more than corruption issues and Chinese control over infrastructure.

Security concerns about any Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean drives India’s sensitivities towards the MSR. In 06 2015, India’s Foreign Secretary, S Jaishankar called the MSR: ‘A [Chinese] national initiative devised with national curiosity, it is not incumbent on others to buy it’. Given India’s financial heft and geographic centrality, it is not clear whether the MSR would be practical without Delhi’s cooperation.

There will also be questions about the proposed BCIM task. The BCIM has been under discussion for some years and could well stay just an idea for years to come.

In order to be successful, the BCIM project might require the coordination of major infrastructure projects and the totally free flow of goods and people between China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and India – 4 countries whose relationships have already been historically difficult. Delhi has essentially placed the project on maintain. India has security issues about developing roads between China and its northeast states, because of the potential for China in order to effectively colonise that economically undeveloped region.

Some in China are beginning to realise that India is an essential element in the BCIM and the MSR. Which China’s failure to properly talk to India about its ideas would inevitably put India offside.

Given the problems faced with the BCIM and also the MSR, China is focusing on it’s third arm: the CPEC. Within March 2015, President Xi announced Chinese investments in the CPEC of some US$46 billion. Pakistan is responding to China’utes proposals enthusiastically, seeing it as being an important balance against India, and perhaps for many, an opportunity to cut the ticket on Chinese investment.

However, China also faces substantial challenges in Pakistan. The CPEC’s route is still being finalised, but much of it would likely mix territories ripe with insurgency as well as resentment against foreigners. Making certain the security of thousands of Chinese nationals will be a major problem as well as infrastructure itself will be susceptible to attack.

Many Chinese analysts have a somewhat rosy view that Pakistan’s problems will be solved by ‘development’ (i.e. huge state sponsored projects carried out by state-owned companies). But China may find that Islamic fundamentalists cannot be so easily bought off.

The CPEC can fundamentally alter the China–Pakistan relationship. So far, China has had the luxury associated with taking the position that Pakistan’utes domestic woes were not one of its business. However, using the security of thousands of excellent and billions of dollars associated with investments at stake, China may find itself increasingly drawn in to Pakistan’s politics and security concerns.  China may need some luck in these endeavours.

In all likelihood many of these grand projects in the Indian Ocean area will unfold slowly and incrementally and not at the breakneck pace that we typically see from China.

China’s rocky Man made fiber Road is republished with permission from East Asia Forum