CONCEPT – BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE (BRI / OBOR)

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 CONCEPT – BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE (BRI / OBOR)

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• One Belt One Road - OBOR (Belt and Road Initiative BRI) : It was a grand vision unveiled in 2013 by the new President of China, Xi Jinping. It was promoted heavily across Asia and Europe, and soon emerged as a grand Eurasian vision.
• Top level vision : The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) or the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road is a grand project of connectivity and cooperation between Eurasian countries, led by the People's Republic of China (PRC). The name OBOR was changed to BRI as the Chinese realised it sounded misleading. India opposed BRI and didn’t attend the 2017 summit.
• Aim of OBOR : “To construct a unified large market and make full use of both international and domestic markets, through cultural exchange and integration, to enhance mutual understanding and trust of member nations, ending up in an innovative pattern with capital inflows, talent  pool, and technology database.”
• Scope and Size : The initial focus has been infrastructure investment, education, construction materials, railway and highway, automobile, real estate, power grid, and iron and steel. It may be one of the largest infrastructure and investment projects in history, covering more than 68 countries, including 65% of the world's population and 40% of the global GDP (figures of 2017).
• Geographical spread : The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is made up of many land corridors, and the maritime silk road. The infra corridors are spread in 60 countries, in Asia and Europe but also including Oceania and East Africa, costing more than US$4–8 tr
• The land corridors include:

1. The New Eurasian Land Bridge : from Western China to Western Russia through Kazakhstan, and includes the Silk Road Railway through China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region, Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany
2. The China–Mongolia–Russia Corridor : from Northern China to the Russian Far East
3. The China–Central Asia–West Asia Corridor : from Western China to Turkey
4. The China–Indochina Peninsula Corridor : from Southern China to Singapore
5. The Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) Economic Corridor : from southern China to Myanmar
6. The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor also called CPEC that connect China with the Arabian sea directly

• Geographical spread : The Maritime Silk Road (21st Century Maritime Silk Road) is a complementary initiative aimed at investing and fostering collaboration in Southeast Asia, Oceania, and North Africa, through several contiguous bodies of water: the South China Sea, the South Pacific Ocean, and the wider Indian Ocean area.
• Funding of the BRI : 

1. AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) – The AIIB is a development bank dedicated to lending for infra projects. The primary goals of AIIB are to address the expanding infrastructure needs across Asia, enhance regional integration, promote economic development and improve the public access to social services.
2. Silk Road Fund – In November 2014, Xi Jinping announced plans to create a $40 billion USD development fund, to invest in businesses rather than lend money for projects. The Karot Hydropower Project in Pakistan is the first investment project of the Silk Road Fund (not a part of CPEC).

• Political concerns : The CPEC was built right across Indian territory illegally occupied by Pakistan, in the Gilgit Baltistan region. Hence, India refused to participate in the BRI and boycotted the 2017 global summit also, despite assurances to rename the CPEC etc., by China. There are serious concerns about indebtedness of many nations that may not be able to repay the loans given for BRI, under commercial terms by China.

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