China’s New Silk Road Is Getting Muddy

Commentary | January 31, 2017

BY: JOSHUA EISENMAN 

With the future of U.S.-China relations an open question for the incoming Donald Trump administration, many have focused on whether the president-elect’s promise to withdraw from negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will enhance Beijing’s growing influence in East Asia. But rather than hand-wringing over TPP’s ignominious failure, Asia watchers should turn their attention to China’s unprecedented $1 trillion strategic gambit: the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, aka “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR). Launched in 2013 as President Xi Jinping’s signature initiative, OBOR holds great promise, as well as potential pitfalls, for both China and its neighbors.

OBOR is a game-changing plan to bring about the next stage of globalization, a Sinocentric vision that harks back to the ancient Silk Roads — but this time on Beijing’s terms. The goal is to create a new economic “belt” of connective infrastructure westward into Eurasia and a new maritime “road” connecting China to Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Examples of OBOR projects include a railway linking China to Laos and another one through Mongolia and Kazakhstan; gas and oil pipelines through Turkmenistan and Myanmar; road and port development in Sri Lanka; and the cornerstone $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which encompasses highways, pipelines, coal-based electricity generation, and the Chinese-operated Gwadar port.

 

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