China's Belt and Road Initiative: Perspectives from India

• Author: Jabin T. Jacob
• Date: 01 September 2017
• Published date: 01 September 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/cwe.12215

©2017 Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

China & World Economy / 78–100, Vol. 25, No. 5, 2017

78

*Jabin T. Jacob, Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies, India. Email: jabinjacob@gmail.com. This essay has

beneted from multiple private conversations and interviews since 2015 with government ocials in India, as

well as academics and analysts from Pakistan, China and India.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative:

Perspectives from India

Jabin T. Jacob*

Abstract

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is often simplistically understood as being

opposed by India and supported by Pakistan. The reality on the ground is rather more

complex. The emerging consensus in India appears to be that, far from being exclusively

an economic and infrastructure development program, the BRI may be understood as a

long-term strategic initiative that seeks to convert China’s current economic might into

diplomatic influence. While attempts have been made by Beijing, the reflexive Indian

suspicion of Chinese international projection, including of China’s BRI, has not yet

been met by a coherent discourse designed to specically address Indian concerns. In

contrast, in Pakistan, widespread acceptance of the importance and necessity of the

China–Pakistan Economic Corridor is increasingly coupled with concerns within sectors

of Pakistani society over the fairness, transparency and eventual economic outcomes

of the project. Accordingly, this paper is divided into two parts: the rst looks at how

Indian analysts have viewed and responded to the Chinese discourse and arguments on

the BRI; the second considers the debate over the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor

within Pakistan.

Key words: diplomacy, economic integration, infrastructure development, mutual

mistrust, strategic competition

JEL codes: H77, H81, L94, O19, O53

I. Introduction

A fundamental premise to properly frame the debate on China’s Belt and Road Initiative

(BRI) currently taking place in India is that such conversations are primarily conducted

within the realm of strategic studies, within a community comprising current and former

civilian policy-makers and military personnel, researchers in think-tanks, and university

academics. Despite a gradual improvement toward a more comprehensive engagement

©2017 Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

BRI: Perspectives from India 79

with the concept of the BRI, the attention currently being paid to it by the Indian

business community and civil society at large remains modest. In essence, the economic

dimension of the BRI does not appear to be the focus of Indian attention, either within

or beyond the government apparatus.

The present paper is divided in two sections. The first examines how Chinese

analysts have been debating India’s role in the context of the BRI, and contrasts this

with India’s own understanding of the implications of the BRI for its region. The second

discussion focuses on the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as a case study

of the economic and strategic logic underpinning the BRI. In light of India’s official

position hitherto of not actively participating in the BRI (except in the case of the Asian

Infrastructure Investment Bank), how the CPEC develops, independent of the territorial

dispute between India and Pakistan, is likely to dene India’s future attitude towards the

BRI in general.1

II. China, India and the Belt and Road Initiative:

Missing Interest Encapsulation

When Chinese President Xi Jinping officially announced his vision of a Silk Road

Economic Belt (sichou zhilu jingjidai) in a speech on 7 September 2013 at the

Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan (MFA PRC, 2013) and the parallel launch of a

Maritime Silk Road (haishang sichou zhilu) during his visit to Indonesia the following

month (Wu and Zhang, 2013), the boldness of the twin initiatives was met with apparent

surprise among China’s neighbors and even within parts of the Chinese community of

strategic analysts.2

Beijing’s dynamism in promoting regional connectivity was not without precedent,

China already had a track-record across South Asia, having been a leading force behind

the Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar regional economic cooperation forum (BCIM)

for well over a decade. This project is especially notable for two reasons: rst, it saw

the provincial authorities of Yunnan (and not China’s central government) as the agency

spearheading trans-border cooperation; second, it constituted the most articulate attempt

by China to engage in deeper regional interaction as a way to boost the development

of a key province. Today, the BRI in many ways replicates on a larger scale this same

approach, rst pursued in China’s south-western province as

early as 1999.

1For a summary of India’s ocial position, see the Ministry of External Aairs, Government of India (2016)

and Kasturi (2015).

2This was admitted by Chinese scholars in several conversations and discussions in China and India in 2015

and 2016.