Once dependent on Beijing during the years of international isolation imposed by the West for its nuclear program, Iran is now critical to China’s ability to realize its grandiose ambitions. Other routes to Western markets are longer and lead through Russia, potentially a competitor of China.
Read Here – The New York Times
When Li Keqiang, China’s premier, took 16 European leaders on a high-speed train ride in 2015, the trip revealed more than an enthusiasm for rolling stock. It was also Beijing’s big sell for an engineering technology that it hoped would spearhead the launch of a grand geo-strategic ambition.
China wants resources to support its growing population, and the Arctic, with its untapped resources, offers those opportunities to mine natural resources. China’s lack of geographical presence in the Arctic has not stopped it laying out its 2017 launch of its Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure project encompassing 60 countries and designed to boost the global economy and link China with the world, via sea, land and rail.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the G20 Summit, in Hangzhou, China in 2016. Photo: Press Information Bureau
As China continues to travel toward its goal of becoming the second superpower, it sees India as a challenger that should not be ignored for at least two reasons. First, India has managed to develop close strategic ties with the United States through the purchase of military weapons, the planning of joint military exercises, and the transfer of technology. India also aspires to become a member of the Nuclear Supply Group, after which it would likely become a serious competitor of China in the area of nuclear weapons development.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a group photograph of the SCO Member States at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, in Astana, Kazakhstan on June 09, 2017.
Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling for closer cooperation between the two countries. Faced with profound and complex changes of the international situation, China and India, as the world’s two largest developing countries, should pay more attention to cooperation and go ahead with each other as partners, so as to instil more momentum into each other’s development and contribute to world peace, stability and common development, said the Chinese president.
The VIP list at Beijing’s glittering launch party for its massive Silk Road trade plan was worth scrutinising not for the luminaries who were on it, but those who weren’t. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who irritates Beijing by standing up to its bullying in the South China Sea, was notably missing; he didn’t get an invitation. European government heads were welcome, but mostly stayed away, as did leaders from India and Japan. The no-shows reflect a broad disquiet: To skeptics, what President Xi Jinping calls the “Project of the Century” is, at heart, an imperial venture.
What does China’s President Xi Jinping want? Four years before Donald Trump became president, Xi became the leader of China and announced an epic vision to, in effect, “make China great again”—calling for “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”
There are two major reasons China is able to move much faster than India on deals and aid, including a one-party system that gives Xi decision-making power far beyond what Modi is able to command. The world’s second-largest economy, China has far more resources, from the world’s largest foreign reserves, to some of its biggest infrastructure companies.
In the US, China’s pan-Eurasian infrastructure initiative is more or less invisible outside of news reports from domestic media that mostly frame it as Beijing’s grand plan for geopolitical domination
Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to pump billions of dollars into the new Silk Road initiative as he described his signature foreign policy push as inclusive, one that should not be held hostage to old rivalries and power games. China is hosting at least 29 heads of state, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz, Sharif, for a two-day “Belt and Road” conference which India has chosen to give a miss.
Also Read: Belt and Road new model of win-win, not outdated geopolitical manoeuvring
