OBOR, Chinese Strategy and Implications

[Vips]

China copying Pakistan in cultivating Bollywood Jaichands to push its agenda.

Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan is set to take part in the Beijing International Film Festival (BIFF), scheduled to be held between April 13 and April 20. Legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray's classic Pather Panchali and Khan's last release Zero are among the five Indian films that have been listed to be screened during the event. Zero, which also stars Anushka Sharma and Katrina Kaif, will close the movie gala.

The Indian movies will be showcased under the category of films from its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries, despite strong reservations expressed by India over the trillion-dollar project. The festival also features a segment dedicated as 'India Week'.

It is significant that China has included the Indian movies clubbing them along with those from the BRI countries ahead of this month's second Belt and Road Forum(BRF) which is likely to be boycotted by New Delhi. India has objected to BRI as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which is its flagship project is being laid through Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).

[Tuan]

In its first edition The Bridge magazine's compilation of articles about "Exploring the Belt and Road Initiative" analyzes one of the single most significant transnational geopolitical initiative undertaken by a country in this first half of the 21st century and perhaps beyond. China’s Belt and Road Initiative is much more than a simple Chinese political plan to push further economic development for its own domestic consumption.

https://moderndiplomacy.eu/product/the-bridge-01/

[siqir]

bits that stood out in this bridge report

they actually brazenly included an entire article on xtians in china and crowing about conversion stats etc
is that really the entirety of italian european strategy of responding to obor and china aside from the usual hand wringing
didnt they try that with ussr and russia how did that end up and is that why the west is back to demonizing the russians

had heard before but highlighted here is that uae dubai ports world was apparently kicked out of djibouti to favor the chinese
might explain some of the sudden sweetness from uae towards india

[Peregrine]

X Posted on the Analyzing CPEC Thread

India to stay away from Belt Forum as China tries to build influence - Saibal Dasgupta

BEIJING: China is using the three-day Belt and Road Forum, which opens on Thursday, to exert its political muscle and establish itself as a rallying point for international business exchanges. This is besides the stated goal of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which is to construct infrastructure projects across the globe.

India is likely to be the only major country to not participate in the event which will attract leaders and officials from 150 countries. India has chosen not to avail of the economic opportunity because the BRI hurts India’s sovereignty; a part of the BRI passes through disputed areas of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Significantly, India has also objected to other aspects of the BRI programme, saying it it opaque and has the potential of pushing developing countries into a debt trap as they borrow heavily to support massive projects.

India’s stand has been vindicated as several countries like Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Sierra Leone have either cancelled or renegotiated contracts with Chinese companies.

“A lot of the forum will be an attempt at restoring the Belt and Road brand, which has been tarnished over the past two years, ” said Jonathan Hillman, director of the Reconnecting Asia Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The US has objected to the BRI on several counts and has decided to send only a low-level delegation. But China is using the event to emerge as a countervailing power to the US by showing off its ability to attract heads of state/government and senior leaders of 40 countries besides officials from 110 others.

“It is a political show of strength. In a sense, it is about China slipping itself into American clothing which the US itself has discarded. It is about mainstreaming China as a leader of the global development system, ” said Sourabh Gupta, senior fellow at the Institute of China-America Studies in Washington.

For its part, China objects to criticism that it has political and military objectives behind the plan to build seaports, airports, roads and railways across dozens of countries, including Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

“The Belt and Road Initiative is not a geopolitical tool but a platform for cooperation. We welcome all parties to take part in it, ” Chinese state councillor and foreign minister Wang Yi had said at a recent press conference.

At the same time, China has indicated that the forum will discuss issues like the importance of multilateralism and rejection of protectionism in business and world affairs. This is seen as a thinly veiled attempt to build up world opinion against the US

Cheers

[SSridhar]

Immy was sober enough to give a speech in the Second BRF today

Surprisingly, no hyperbole of 'Taller than the tallest . . . ' nonsense. May be the Chinese have ordered the Pakistanis to stop this now that Pakistan is no longer sovereign and indeed a tributary of Emperor Xi.

[SSridhar]

Two things in that Immy talk that captured my attention:

Fourthly, to create a Poverty Alleviation Fund that supplements national efforts in the fight against poverty and malnourishment.{That is a begging bowl, the usual Pakistani predilection} In Pakistan, we have recently launched a targeted poverty alleviation programme called Ehsas, or feeling. The aim should be to emulate China’s spectacular success in lifting 800 million people out of poverty within a matter of decades.

Fifthly, to take concerted efforts to further liberalize trade and investment flows encouraging our private sector and businesses to collaborate in projects. {This is telling. This means that there is zilch participation by Pakistani industries in CPEC so far. Immy is begging, the usual Pakistani predilection.}

[Peregrine]

Immy was sober enough to give a speech in the Second BRF today

Surprisingly, no hyperbole of 'Taller than the tallest . . . ' nonsense. May be the Chinese have ordered the Pakistanis to stop this now that Pakistan is no longer sovereign and indeed a tributary of Emperor Xi.

SSridhar Ji:

Surely you will agree with me that this speech was handed over by His Majesty the Chinese Emperor to his Kneeling, Obedient and Big Kaskol Carrying i.e. Immy or as they say in Ox fart I'm the Dim Nephew of the "Surrendering" to the Indian Army - the one and only - Terroristani Lt. Jernail Niazi

Cheers

[Peregrine]

Two things in that Immy talk that captured my attention:

Fourthly, to create a Poverty Alleviation Fund that supplements national efforts in the fight against poverty and malnourishment.{That is a begging bowl, the usual Pakistani predilection} In Pakistan, we have recently launched a targeted poverty alleviation programme called Ehsas, or feeling. The aim should be to emulate China’s spectacular success in lifting 800 million people out of poverty within a matter of decades.

Fifthly, to take concerted efforts to further liberalize trade and investment flows encouraging our private sector and businesses to collaborate in projects. {This is telling. This means that there is zilch participation by Pakistani industries in CPEC so far. Immy is begging, the usual Pakistani predilection.}

SSridhar Ji:

Well. Well and Well! I am sure I’m the Dim will be singing “Strenuous Days are here again, I’ll have to bend down again, Carrying the Big Kashkol again, Standing up or sitting Down, To the Mighty Chinese Crown” sung to the Tune of “Happy days are here again, Our Stocks have Split again”

BTW : The Synonyms of Predeliction are : Fawning, liking, fondness, preference, partiality, taste, penchant, weakness, soft spot, fancy, inclination, leaning, bias, propensity, bent, proclivity, proneness, predisposition, tendency, affinity, appetite, love; archaic ”gusto” i.e. “His Predeliction of Married Men”

Cheers

[Peregrine]

X Posted on the Analyzing CPEC Thread

A trap of one’s own
China tries to calm jitters about the “Belt and Road” initiative
Though belt-and-road lending is worrisome, it is not malevolent. The real problem is overreach

Chinese engineers are drilling their way through the green hills of Laos, clearing a path for a railway that one day may traverse South-East Asia. Each time they complete a tunnel—at least three times in the past month—they hold a brief ceremony, waving Chinese flags for the cameras. They are celebrating not just their engineering success but also the evidence before them that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s global infrastructure-building scheme, is making progress. The full railway is a long way off. Work has barely begun in Thailand, the next link. But the section in Laos should be in use by 2021.

It will be a test of what many see as a big economic danger of the BRI: that it will saddle poor countries with unmanageable debts. China insists that its tens of billions of dollars in loans and investments are fostering global prosperity—a message that it is sure to repeat to foreign leaders attending the second Belt and Road Forum, which takes place from April 25th to 27th in Beijing (pictured is a floral display marking the event). But worries about the cost of the BRI, a project closely linked with President Xi Jinping’s foreign policy, have become widespread. Malaysia, Pakistan and Sierra Leone are among a growing list of countries that have delayed or scrapped China-led projects.

There are three main concerns about the BRI’s financial consequences. The most extreme is that the scheme involves what is pithily described as “debt-trap diplomacy”. In this view, China is deliberately overloading weak countries with loans; when they buckle, it seizes their assets and influences their politics. This idea has featured in speeches by some American officials, including the vice-president, Mike Pence, who see BRI as an attempt to undermine America’s global influence.

Yet the investments funded by Chinese cash are not in China, so China has limited ability to grab assets when governments default. If it pushes too hard it may merely stoke antipathy. Instead, it usually responds by reducing the amount of money that debtors have to repay. Countries with longer records of lending to poor countries often do the same: the Paris Club of creditors was formed in 1956 to devise ways of reducing defaulters’ debt loads. The Centre for Global Development, a think-tank in Washington, has counted more than 80 cases between 2000 and 2017 in which China provided relief to its debtors overseas.

An oft-cited example of China’s supposedly predatory approach involves Hambantota, a Sri Lankan port which has flopped commercially. In 2017 Sri Lanka handed control of the port to a state-owned Chinese company on a 99-year lease. But Deborah Brautigam of Johns Hopkins University says that of more than 3,000 China-financed projects that she and others have tracked, Hambantota is the only one that is used in support of the debt-trap theory. It is the exception, not the rule.

What it lacks in malevolence, the BRI may make up in clumsiness. This is the second concern: that China is lending to vulnerable states without sufficient caution. Take a group of 37 poor countries monitored by the IMF. Loans from traditional bilateral lenders, including America and Japan, have declined from 7% of the debtors’ GDP to 2% over the past decade. Loans from China, by contrast, have soared from virtually nothing to 4%.

It is welcome that China is supporting hard-up nations. But its enthusiasm generates foolhardiness. David Dollar of the Brookings Institution in Washington has found that Chinese development lending appears indifferent to political and economic risks. The Centre for Global Development has identified eight countries drowning in red ink that could be further swamped by BRI projects (see chart). A report in December released by Peking University ranked 94 BRI countries based on measures such as the quality of their financial regulation and their openness to trade. Pakistan came second to last. That is awkward for China: Pakistan may receive as much as $60bn in BRI loans, which would make it the biggest recipient of all.



There is truth to claims that BRI credit can be ruinously expensive. Consider China Eximbank’s lending to Kenya for the Nairobi-Mombasa railway. Local reports say half the $3.6bn loan was priced 3.6 percentage points above a floating market interest-rate. That is high for a poor country. It is just one of many such loans by Eximbank, which said this week that its outstanding BRI-related credit was more than 1trn yuan, or nearly $150bn.

The BRI’s success will depend on whether Chinese lenders can tighten their procedures for assessing creditworthiness while making their loans more affordable. There are some promising signs. This week’s forum in Beijing is expected to stress the need for bri debt to be sustainable. In the case of the railway in Laos, caution is already evident. The project involves $6bn of Chinese lending, which is about one-third of the GDP of Laos. So a joint venture has been created. It draws 70% of its capital from China and 30% from Laos. To fund its portion, Laos took a $465m loan from Eximbank. The loan was generous, according to local reports: it matures in 35 years at a 2.3% annual interest rate, well below the commercial price of such debt. Laos has five years before it has to begin making repayments. That is the kind of concession that it might have got from the World Bank. China may offer such generous terms more frequently. Last year it set up an agency to oversee its foreign aid, in part to turn the BRI into a more co-ordinated development programme.

But this points to another concern that will be harder for China to deal with because it relates to the very nature of the BRI: its sheer ambition. Potential benefits look impressive. A recent study by the World Bank concluded that BRI transportation projects could lift global GDP by 3%. That is larger than the benefits that are usually shown to be generated by free-trade agreements. It could yet bear out China’s notion that Westerners (save Donald Trump) just want to lower tariffs, whereas China is trying to build the roads that let trade happen.

This, though, is where the risks come in. The World Bank’s rosy analysis assumes that BRI projects are completed and work efficiently. The scale of the effort is a huge challenge, and such projects are a magnet for graft. Vast sums are being spent quickly in badly run places. The railway in Laos ought to make the landlocked country more accessible. But for it to prove effective, much more will be needed: better roads to link it to existing transport, new urban centres around the stations and freer trade with other countries.

China cannot achieve this alone, but its often overweening approach to the BRI has alienated potential partners. America, India and Japan want little to do with it. One reason is that China is, in effect, asking others not only to sign up to its infrastructure plans but also to endorse Mr Xi’s worldview. It does not help that China reveals so little about its lending and that contracts go mainly to Chinese firms.

Some analysts in China have started to express unease. Economists at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a think-tank, argued in a paper last year that the government must entice other countries to back BRI projects in order to share the risks. Otherwise, it could be China that finds itself trapped. Conservative estimates are that China will spend $1trn within the next decade on its monumental scheme—about as much as it holds today in American government bonds. Mr Xi would be wise not to let such an outlay turn sour.

Cheers

[Rudradev]

What happens if multiple countries forced into OBOR debt-traps simply decide to default on the debt? Bus, we won't pay. What will China do? Invade and dig up the roads?

Here's the thing. Sovereign debt works on a peer-based system. If country A does not pay its debt to country B, then all countries C,D,E...Z would decline to do business with country A because it would no longer be considered credit-worthy.

But what if a diplomatic effort could be undertaken to ensure that OBOR/China is treated as a special case? What if all the major economies (e.g. US, India, EU, Japan, ASEAN etc.) were persuaded to ignore OBOR defaults, and continue doing business with for example Sri Lanka even if Colombo refused to pay China the $8B reportedly owed?

What will China do then? It is not Khan that it can bring tremendous international pressure in retribution. Moreover it is openly flouting institutions of international law, such as with the Indo-China Sea ruling. Will it go back before those same institutions to demand justice?

[Peregrine]

What happens if multiple countries forced into OBOR debt-traps simply decide to default on the debt? Bus, we won't pay. What will China do? Invade and dig up the roads?

Here's the thing. Sovereign debt works on a peer-based system. If country A does not pay its debt to country B, then all countries C,D,E...Z would decline to do business with country A because it would no longer be considered credit-worthy.

But what if a diplomatic effort could be undertaken to ensure that OBOR/China is treated as a special case? What if all the major economies (e.g. US, India, EU, Japan, ASEAN etc.) were persuaded to ignore OBOR defaults, and continue doing business with for example Sri Lanka even if Colombo refused to pay China the $8B reportedly owed?

What will China do then? It is not Khan that it can bring tremendous international pressure in retribution. Moreover it is openly flouting institutions of international law, such as with the Indo-China Sea ruling. Will it go back before those same institutions to demand justice?

Rudradev Ji:

If I am not mistaken in the case of CPEC & OBOR all disputes to be resolved by engaging in Arbitration which would be held in Beijing with Chinese Law to Apply.

Cheers

[Austin]

China's billion-dollar Belt and Road party: Who's in and who's out

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/26/asia ... index.html

[Aditya_V]

China's billion-dollar Belt and Road party: Who's in and who's out

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/26/asia ... index.html

Notice how the article is silent about India the main opponent of BRI. And regarding Chinese courts, no one in Europe or Africa will care about Chonese courts. US has miltary to enforce the law, China does not. China will have to show it can enforcw recovery of its debts. Thats when the fun starts

[SSridhar]

Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) Economic Corridor no longer listed under BRI umbrella - Atul Aneja, The Hindu

India’s decision to skip the Belt and Road Forum (BRF) may have led to the exclusion of the Bangladesh- China- India- Myanmar (BCIM) Economic corridor from the list of projects covered by the China-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) umbrella.

In an annex tagged with the Joint Communiqué of the Leaders' Roundtable of the BRF, which concluded in Beijing on Saturday, the Chinese foreign ministry website has not listed the BCIM as a project covered by the BRI—the giant connectivity initiative speared by China to revive the ancient Silk Road across Eurasia and Africa.

Instead, South Asia is covered by three major undertakings—the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), the Nepal-China Trans-Himalayan Multi-dimensional Connectivity Network, including Nepal-China cross-border railway, as well as the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Citing “sovereignty” concerns, India, for the second time, has not officially participated in the BRF, as CPEC—a flagship of the BRI—passes through Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).

The 2800 km BCIM corridor proposes to link Kunming in China’s Yunnan province with Kolkata, passing though nodes such as Mandalay in Myanmar and Dhaka in Bangladesh before heading to Kolkata.

Significantly, a report titled, “The Belt and Road Initiative Progress, Contributions and Prospects,” released by the Leading Group for Promoting the Belt and Road Initiative of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on April 22 does list the BCIM as a BRI project.

“Over the past five years or so, the four countries [of the BCIM] have worked together to build this corridor in the framework of joint working groups, and have planned a number of major projects in institutional development, infrastructure connectivity, cooperation in trade and industrial parks, cooperation and opening up in the financial market, cultural exchange, and cooperation in enhancing people's wellbeing,” says the report.

Last September, the BRI had got a high octane boost when Myanmar — facing the heat from the West because of the Rohingya refugee crisis — inked an agreement with Beijing to establish the CMEC.

The 1,700-km corridor provides China yet another node to access the Indian Ocean. The CMEC will run from Yunnan Province of China to Mandalay in Central Myanmar. From there it will head towards Yangon, before terminating at the Kyaukpyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ) on the

Bay of Bengal. Last August, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) opened a new center in Yangon, which could help fund some of the CMEC driven projects, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency had reported.

The CMEC will also reduce Beijing’s trade and energy reliance on the Malacca straits — the narrow passage that links the Indian Ocean with the Pacific. Chinese planners worry that the military domination over the Malacca straits of the United States — a country with which it is already engaged in a trade war — can threaten one of China’s major economic lifeline.

Earlier, speaking to The Hindu, Long Xingchun, Associate Professor of China’s West Normal University, had said that, “The CMEC was proposed during Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Myanmar in November 2017, because India has not been acting on the BCIM sub regional cooperation proposal. So it is better for China to go for bilateral cooperation with Myanmar and simultaneously wait for India’s participation.”

At a press conference ahead of the BRF, which was formally inaugurated on Saturday, Mr. Wang, the state councilor and foreign minister, was emphatic that ties between India and China were insulated from their differences on the Beijing-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). He had also stressed that China-India ties had a “bright future” and the two countries were preparing for a summit between their leaders as a follow-up to last year’s two-day across-the board Wuhan informal summit between President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Nepal-China Trans-Himalayan connectivity network listed by the annex starts from Chengdu, from where it is linked to Tibet by the Sichuan-Tibet Highway, or the Sichuan-Tibet Railway. It is proposed

that the railway from Tibet will be further extended to Kathmandu, via Ya’an, Qamdo, Lhasa and Shigatse. Chinese planners visualise that that railway will be eventually connected with the Indian railway network, linking China and India across the Himalayas.

[Guddu]

Two things in that Immy talk that captured my attention:

Fourthly, to create a Poverty Alleviation Fund that supplements national efforts in the fight against poverty and malnourishment.{That is a begging bowl, the usual Pakistani predilection} In Pakistan, we have recently launched a targeted poverty alleviation programme called Ehsas, or feeling. The aim should be to emulate China’s spectacular success in lifting 800 million people out of poverty within a matter of decades.

Fifthly, to take concerted efforts to further liberalize trade and investment flows encouraging our private sector and businesses to collaborate in projects. {This is telling. This means that there is zilch participation by Pakistani industries in CPEC so far. Immy is begging, the usual Pakistani predilection.}

SSridhar Ji:

Well. Well and Well! I am sure I’m the Dim will be singing “Strenuous Days are here again, I’ll have to bend down again, Carrying the Big Kashkol again, Standing up or sitting Down, To the Mighty Chinese Crown” sung to the Tune of “Happy days are here again, Our Stocks have Split again”

BTW : The Synonyms of Predeliction are : Fawning, liking, fondness, preference, partiality, taste, penchant, weakness, soft spot, fancy, inclination, leaning, bias, propensity, bent, proclivity, proneness, predisposition, tendency, affinity, appetite, love; archaic ”gusto” i.e. “His Predeliction of Married Men”

Cheers

Sir, baki begging bowl has been found
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D5KECW4VUAE6UXd.jpg

[yensoy]

China's billion-dollar Belt and Road party: Who's in and who's out

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/26/asia ... index.html

Notice how the article is silent about India the main opponent of BRI. And regarding Chinese courts, no one in Europe or Africa will care about Chonese courts. US has miltary to enforce the law, China does not. China will have to show it can enforcw recovery of its debts. Thats when the fun starts

Don't need military. US has not really used military to enforce IMF loans. The biggest stick ensuring recovery of loans is the threat that further loans will stop. These countries are enmeshed in debt, and the political class needs a steady stream of Chinese money to keep their populations from revolting. The Chinese will figure out some other means of recovering their investment - monopoly rights to sell services, resource extraction, land leases for agriculture and military bases, dumping effluents/pollutants, highly subsidized labour intensive factories (possibly with hazardous operating conditions) etc.

[SSridhar]

Singapore, China ink deals on trade, Belt and Road projects - Straits Times

Singapore and China signed five agreements on Monday (April 29), drawing closer in their collaboration on trade, law enforcement and projects under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The deals were inked after Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. Earlier, Mr Lee also met President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People.

Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) sealed two new partnerships. In one, Minister for Trade and Industry Chan Chun Sing and Shanghai mayor Ying Yong agreed to set up a ministerial-level Singapore-Shanghai Comprehensive Cooperation Council.

Through this platform, both sides will cooperate in six areas: the BRI, financial services cooperation, technology and innovation, ease of doing business, urban governance, and people-to-people exchanges.

Incoming Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat {Tharman Shanmugaratnam was relieved of Deputy Prime Ministership last week. One wonders why though Singapore says that it was part of succession planning} and Mr Ying will co-chair the council, while Senior Minister of State for Law and Health Edwin Tong and Shanghai's vice-mayor Xu Kunlin will be deputy co-chairs.

Enterprise Singapore and Shanghai's Foreign Affairs Office will be the council secretariats.

The first meeting is on May 24 in Shanghai. The council is Shanghai's first comprehensive institutionalised platform with a foreign country, says a statement from MTI.

Mr Chan also signed a memorandum of understanding with Mr Zhang Yong, the vice-chair of China's state planner, the National Development and Reform Commission, on an implementation framework for third-party market cooperation.

The agreement takes further an earlier MOU signed in April last year and now identifies logistics, e-commerce, infrastructure and professional services such as financial and legal services, as areas for collaboration in third-party markets under the BRI {Singapore is known for International Arbitration and expertise in financial services. Probably, China wants to give a veneer to its BRI initiatives because it has been criticized on these two issues}.

"As China enters its next phase of economic transformation, these MOUs will strengthen Singapore's participation in China's new growth strategies to mutual benefit. The newly established Singapore-Shanghai Comprehensive Cooperation Council will help to anchor Singapore's engagements of China's key financial and business hub, and tap into the economic integration of the Yangtze River Delta," said Mr Chan in a statement.

The agreement will also bolster Singapore's role as a launchpad into the South-east Asian markets for Chinese companies looking for opportunities along the Belt and Road, he added.

According to MTI figures, trade between Singapore and Shanghai hit US$13.5 billion (S$18.3 billion) last year, accounting for nearly 14 per cent of Singapore's trade with China.

As of the end of last year, Singapore had over 4,800 projects in Shanghai, amounting to US$15.2 billion worth of cumulative actual investments.

Singapore was the largest foreign investment destination for China along the Belt and Road last year, capturing close to 23 per cent of the total investment outflow from China to Belt and Road countries.

Singapore and China have collaborated in third-party markets in sectors from infrastructure, financing to professional services.

For instance, DBS, Bank of China, mining firm Top International and Chinese logistics company Yantai Port have jointly financed a greenfield alumina refinery in Indonesia.

Singapore Customs also signed two agreements with its Chinese counterpart on closer collaboration in tackling customs offences and the setting up of a data exchange system.

In the first agreement, both sides will share findings collected from new customs enforcement equipment and techniques.

The second MOU spells out the implementation of an electronic data exchange system that was agreed on under the China-Singapore Free Trade Agreement upgrade signed last November.

This system will allow for faster transfer of information for trade and eliminates the need for companies to submit hard-copy certificates of origin. It will kick in on July 1.

Singapore government-owned infrastructure consultancy Surbana Jurong and China’s state-owned Silk Road Fund also inked a co-investment deal. Under this agreement, the two sides will set up a US$500 million infrastructure co-investment platform that will fund infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia.

[SSridhar]

Xi urges more countries to join Belt and Road project - Straits Times

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for more countries to join his pet mega project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), even as world leaders expressed their support and rejected protectionism.

In a joint communique at the end of the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, Mr Xi and foreign leaders agreed to further open their markets and promote green growth and sustainable financing for BRI projects.

Mr Xi made similar points at a 15-minute press conference that closed the three-day event, where Beijing has sought to address international criticism over the project to revive old trade links.

"All interested countries are welcome to join us. We are committed to supporting open, clean and green development, and rejecting protectionism," he said.

The press conference - where Mr Xi did not take questions - was held after meetings with the world leaders attending the summit, the second edition of the forum.

Conceived in 2013 by Mr Xi, the BRI aims to build a vast mercantilist framework linking China to Europe, Africa and the rest of Asia by building a network of ports, roads, railways and trading hubs - reviving ancient overland and maritime trade routes.

But the plan has also been criticised as being a form of "debt-trap diplomacy", where poor countries are saddled with loans and become pliant to China.

It is also said to support polluting industries, and to benefit China more than partner countries.

Beijing has sought to rebrand the BRI at this year's forum as a green and sustainable platform that is open and inclusive.

The joint communique released by leaders yesterday mentioned the word "green" seven times. It was not mentioned in the communique of the 2017 forum.

On the first day of the forum, Beijing also released an analysis framework aimed at helping countries manage debt.

Yesterday, it released a list of 283 deliverables, including initiatives on cultural exchanges, scholarships and programmes for the youth in partner countries.

It also noted the latest countries to sign on to the BRI, such as Peru, Italy and Cyprus, and listed deals that Beijing is inking with Singapore, including one on third-party cooperation.

"In all Belt and Road cooperation projects, the government will provide guidance, enterprises will act as the main players, and market principles will apply," said Mr Xi.

"This will make the projects more sustainable, and create a fair and non-discriminatory environment for foreign investors."

There were 37 foreign leaders, including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and all nine other Asean leaders, at this year's forum, up from 29 in 2017.

Earlier in the day, PM Lee told a Leaders' Roundtable that the BRI was a platform where China could both assume a position of greater influence and contribute more to the world.

Mr Xi's press conference yesterday also brought to an end an event that at times seemed disorganised and chaotic, with reporters and delegates given hazy schedules or left unclear about which discussions they could attend.

But observers say the clear message coming out of the event is that China wants to shift the BRI onto a more multilateral platform.

"With more multilateral participation, some of the misunderstandings about the BRI will be addressed," said Dr Wang Huiyao, president of the Beijing-based Centre for China and Globalisation think-tank.

Mr Daniel Russel, vice-president of the US-based Asia Society Policy Institute, said: "China's challenge now is to demonstrate that the forum's lofty rhetoric about 'Green BRI' and 'Clean BRI' has been translated into action throughout the Belt and Road."

[Peregrine]

Xi urges more countries to join Belt and Road project - Straits TimesChinese President Xi Jinping has called for more countries to join his pet mega project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), even as world leaders expressed their support and rejected protectionism.

SSridhar Ji :
Why is Xi Jinping so desperate to have all and sundry "Join CPEC/OBOR System". What - in your considered opinion the Reason for his desperation - urgency?

Cheers

[SSridhar]

Peregrine ji, the Lifelong Chiarman-cum-Emperor has staked everything on BRI (possibly he had no other option too after building up huge industrial capacities) and has been selling the 'Chinese Dream' to his citizens on the twin pillars of economic and military domination of the world. And, it hit the road block right at the beginning with India putting a big spoke in that wheel. Now, more and more countries are wary of the Chinese debt trap, demand for strategic concessions if unable to pay the debts, arbitration only in Chinese courts, unscrupulous financial deals, environmental damage, unviable projects, no local participation, opaque objectives, corruption, exploitation, arrogance-by-Chinese-project managers etc. So, China is feeling the headwind strongly and is making 'cosmetic' changes (only cosmetic, IMO) to make its BRI appear to be following International norms. It desperately wants legitimization and only approval from countries like India or G-7 can give that legitimacy. Italy was a good example lately. Recent engagements with Singapore were towards the 'cosmetic' aspects and Singapore is playing along. One hopes that Singapore, whose Late Lee Kuan Yew is universally acknowledged as the greatest Chinese watcher ever, is aware of the pitfalls. In the meanwhile, some of Xi's deadlines are approaching and he has made enough enemies. If he doesn't deliver, he has huge problems.

[ArjunPandit]

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/wor ... 212830.cms

One Belt-One Road got a different connotation in my mind altogether.
"It's purely supply and demand," she said. "It used to be, 'Is she light-skinned?' Now it's like, 'Is she female?'"

[Peregrine]

X Posted on the Analyzing CPEC & Terroristan Threads

The U.S. Can’t Make Allies Take Sides Over China

Washington wants its friends to steer clear of Beijing, but they can’t ignore the allure of its Belt and Road Initiative. - MICHAEL SCHUMAN APR 25, 2019

The next summit for China’s grandiose Belt and Road Initiative, beginning on Thursday in Beijing, will host one especially welcome guest: Italy.

Washington pressured Rome, a proud member of the G7, to steer clear of Beijing’s global infrastructure-building program, warning that Italy’s participation “lends legitimacy to China’s predatory approach to investment and will bring no benefits to the Italian people.” The plea fell on deaf ears: Not only did Rome sign on to Belt and Road in March, no less a figure than the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, will attend this week’s gathering.

Italy’s snub may appear to be yet another sign that American power is on the wane while China’s is on the rise. Score: China 1, United States 0. But Italy’s decision is even more an indication of how such thinking has become dangerously out of date in the modern world order. While Washington still often perceives foreign policy in us-against-them terms, much of the rest of the world no longer does. That’s why in its attempts to contain China, the U.S. is discovering, to its dismay, that its allies aren’t always on board.
“No one wants to choose sides,” Parag Khanna, founder of the strategic advisory firm FutureMap and author of the book The Future Is Asian, told me. “We live in a multipolar system. No smart country sides with only one power. Instead they play all the powers off each other to derive maximum benefit for themselves.”

As the U.S. and China spar over everything from trade to technology, fears have risen that the world is spiraling into a renewed Cold War, with two ideologically opposed blocs battling it out for global dominance. But, as Khanna noted, that Cold War paradigm has “almost no relevancy” today.

Back when the U.S. and the Soviet Union were engaged in their nuclear-tipped global struggle, dividing up the world’s nation-states was much easier. The blocs were almost alternative universes, based on distinct political and economic systems, and choosing one camp or the other was clear-cut. (Not all countries wished to take a side, of course, which is why leaders of some developing nations launched the “Non-Aligned Movement.”)

This is not the case anymore. While Washington and Beijing have different political ideologies, akin in some ways to the former Cold War divide between the “free” and “unfree” worlds, their economies are tightly intertwined with each other’s, and with the rest of the world’s. Longtime security allies of the U.S., such as Japan, South Korea, and Germany, also have strong trade and investment links with China that are crucial to their economic future. So while they are not prepared to ditch their alliance with Washington, they can’t afford to unduly alienate Beijing, either. Add in other divisions—the strained relations between the U.S. and Europe, for instance, or within the European Union itself—and the global picture becomes even fuzzier.

All these geopolitical complexities are tied up in this week’s Belt and Road Forum. The initiative, also known as One Belt, One Road, is the brainchild of Chinese President Xi Jinping, and aims to build railways, port facilities, power systems, and other infrastructure across the globe. Xi has sold it all as a model of peaceful development. “We should foster a new type of international relations featuring win-win cooperation,” he once said when discussing the initiative. Washington has painted a very different picture, of a self-serving scheme designed to extend Chinese strategic and economic influence. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently charged that the Belt and Road plan was “a non-economic offer,” and said Washington was “working diligently to make sure everyone in the world understands that threat.”

Granted, the Belt and Road program has run into its fair share of potholes. The amorphous program lacks transparency on how projects get chosen, financed, and built, and major Asian countries have either stayed away or minimized their involvement. India—even more distrustful of China than it is desperate for infrastructure—has rebuffed Beijing’s advances. In Pakistan, Belt and Road projects are being blamed for burying the country in debt, forcing the government in Islamabad to scale back the building program.

Cheers

[Singha]

by mid century, unless US softens its hardline posture on latin immigration and takes steps to improve generational mobility of its vast underclass, the US and EU will be like rivendell.....good technology but fading in demographic and political clout ... people tired of war , aeging .....

india and china will be gondor

the string of failed islamic states from mauritania to pakistan with their vast, heavily armed population will be mordor....vast legions of orcs er mujahideen willing to wage endless "holy war" on the faultlines with rivendell and gondor. always blaming others for their inability to build sustainable nation states.

just as gondor had treacherous factions, so too parts of china will play that role , seeking to turn the hordes of mordor into directions they profit from.
TSP is one of these legions.

[NRao]

This is how China wants India to pay it back for listing Masood Azhar a terrorist

New Delhi: China is trying to leverage Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar’s listing as a global terrorist last week to bring India on board the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) bandwagon, ThePrint has learnt.

China has increased pressure on India to bring the long-pending Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) rail corridor under Beijing’s ambitious BRI, urging New Delhi to take a call before President Xi Jinping arrives for an “informal summit-level” visit in July-August, according to diplomatic sources.

Beijing, the sources said, has intensified its lobbying in the matter since it allowed Azhar’s listing as a global terrorist at the United Nations Security Council last week. It was China’s serial “technical hold” that had kept Azhar out of the list, and the sanctions it entails, since 2009.

The BCIM corridor was conceptualised in 1999, and an agreement to this effect signed between former prime minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in 2013, four years before the BRI took off.

The BRI is a pet Xi Jinping initiative inspired by the ancient Silk Road, meant to serve as a network of land and maritime trading routes connecting Europe and Africa with Asia.

Also read: What China’s Belt and Road Initiative is, and why India gave it a miss again

India has so far cold-shouldered the project because of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a Beijing-Islamabad initiative that runs through Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), which New Delhi sees as its own territory.

According to the sources, the Chinese have told India that while New Delhi is opposed to the CPEC, it should not have any issues in a project spanning over India.

However, an Indian official told ThePrint that New Delhi is “not keen” on bringing the BCIM under the BRI as it feels any such move may compromise the country’s security arrangement in the northeastern region.

China expert Srikanth Kondapalli, professor of Chinese studies the JNU, explained why: “India is concerned that China supports the insurgents that are present in the northeastern states and hence the BCIM is not a feasible idea.”

The matter is likely to come up when External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj meets her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Foreign Ministers’ meeting on 21-22 May in Kyrgyzstan capital Bishkek.

During PM Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping’s informal summit at Wuhan in April last year, the two countries had resolved to speed up the BCIM project, which envisages the creation of a 2,800-km long rail link between Kunming in China and Kolkata in West Bengal, passing through Mandalay, Yangon and the Rakhine state in Myanmar and Dhaka in Bangladesh.

India is planning to host a second version of the informal summit this year, although it would depend on the outcome of the ongoing Lok Sabha election and whether the next government wants to follow this dialogue format, the sources said.

Also read: Two phrases critics of China’s BRI must not use – debt trap & threat to sovereignty

India opposed to BRI
After the BRI was launched in 2017, China had asked the Modi government to bring the BMIC corridor under the project, but New Delhi has not relented so far.

India’s opposition to the CPEC has seen New Delhi shun the two big-ticket BRI summits hosted by China since 2017, including the one held last month.

New Delhi believes Pakistan is in illegal occupation of PoK, and thus sees CPEC as a challenge to “Indian sovereignty” in the region.

The BMIC project itself has been played down by the Modi government, which has instead promoted the BIMSTEC (Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand Economic Cooperation) framework.

Meanwhile, the Chinese have also gone ahead and signed a separate China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) with Myanmar, which may serve as another impediment to the progress of BCIM may suffer.

[Tuan]

China's objective is achievement of hegemony in East Asia and later South Asia.
The US, India and to a lesser extent Japan are the only powers that stand in the way of this.

You can already see parts of this vision unfold in their annexation of the South China sea through military means.
Their attempted balkanization of South East Asian countries through military control over their maritime region is a template of things to come.
And this Cold War hasn't even got started..

China wants India to be economically weak and distracted with internal and external conflicts while this expansionism continues.
Nothing would please them better than a poor India, harried by terrorists unable to assert its strength while this takeover is underway.

China blocking of moves to ban terrorist Masood Azhar in Pakistan from sanctuary in that country, the violation of India's boarders, their illegal construction of a road through PoK and funding of activities in that region, their military entry in the IOR and building of bases around India are but the tip of the iceberg of what's coming.

That being said, as long as India continues to grow economically and maintain good relations with external powers, we are likely to give them a run for their money. They are not trusted by any Western or Asian country (including Pakistan!). They have no major allies (and Russia with its small population is even more wary of them).

Most importantly, they are enemy #1 to the United States which has buried more great powers than 1 hand can count.

Neshant,

This is exactly the strategy China is attempting to implement. Especially, as you pointed out, "China wants India to be economically weak and distracted with internal and external conflicts while this expansionism continues. Nothing would please them better than a poor India, harried by terrorists unable to assert its strength while this takeover is underway...[...] their military entry in the IOR and building of bases around India are but the tip of the iceberg of what's coming...."

A case in point is the Easter Sunday bombing in Sri Lanka, where China begins to dry run its implementation model in the IOR...

[souravB]

TSP is one of these legions.

TSP is Isengard. Friends with Rivendale, think themselves vastly superior to humans of Gondor, does experiments with orcs to supply Mordor, deluded to take over reign from Mordor.

[V_Raman]

On the LOTR trivia - which place is minas tirith? who is the steward of minas tirith and who is returning as the king?

[Peregrine]

Fully Posted on the P E S W Thread & X Posted on the Analyzing Thread

Pakistan discloses borrowing from China - Shahbaz Rana

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan, for the first time, fully disclosed the debt taken from China which stood at $6.5 billion for the current fiscal year alone, equal to three-fourths of the $8.6 billion worth of total loans that Islamabad received in the past 10 months, show official documents. I bet that this disclosure has been Treated and Approved by and with the Chinese Medicine Man's "DOCTORING"

Cheers

[Katare]

China copying Pakistan in cultivating Bollywood Jaichands to push its agenda.

Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan is set to take part in the Beijing International Film Festival (BIFF), scheduled to be held between April 13 and April 20. Legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray's classic Pather Panchali and Khan's last release Zero are among the five Indian films that have been listed to be screened during the event. Zero, which also stars Anushka Sharma and Katrina Kaif, will close the movie gala.

The Indian movies will be showcased under the category of films from its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries, despite strong reservations expressed by India over the trillion-dollar project. The festival also features a segment dedicated as 'India Week'.

It is significant that China has included the Indian movies clubbing them along with those from the BRI countries ahead of this month's second Belt and Road Forum(BRF) which is likely to be boycotted by New Delhi. India has objected to BRI as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which is its flagship project is being laid through Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).

China is huge market for Indian media products, much bigger than even the home market. Most east asians watch indian movies and our stars are household names in many communities (like Hmongs of Vietnam and Cambodia). This is our opportunity to monetize the market and increase our cultural influences.

By lumping it with BRI and other tricks China would extract its share of meat outta its own initiatives. Thats fine as long as we have our eyes set on the prize of dominating content market.

[Tuan]

In this second issue of MD’s new BRIDGE project, the focus can be simply put: growth and relations. This will likely be the underlying foundation of all future BRIDGE issues, as there can be no doubt that China’s purpose in creating the Belt & Road Initiative has always been two-fold: improving relations from its immediate Southeast Asia neighborhood to the far western shores of Western Europe and to promote growth globally in a manner that will further feed Chinese interests and ambitions long into the 21st century.

https://moderndiplomacy.eu/product/the-bridge-02/

[chola]

China copying Pakistan in cultivating Bollywood Jaichands to push its agenda.

China is huge market for Indian media products, much bigger than even the home market. Most east asians watch indian movies and our stars are household names in many communities (like Hmongs of Vietnam and Cambodia). This is our opportunity to monetize the market and increase our cultural influences.

By lumping it with BRI and other tricks China would extract its share of meat outta its own initiatives. Thats fine as long as we have our eyes set on the prize of dominating content market.

Cheen is the only market in East Asia to be perfectly honest. Japan, Korea, Vietnam, etc. have negligible market for Indian content. So small in fact that I have rarely come across any figures for those countries. Taiwan and Hong Kong follow Cheen once a Bollywood flick hits it big there.

Our presence in Cheen would make the Koreans and Japs jealous. In movies anyways (though Kpop is more prevalent in their music scene and is making the chini population effeminate.)

We really have nothing like it anywhere else. Our biggest box office used to be in the UK/US or the Gulf where $10M would be considered a massive hit. In those places, the audience are mainly NRIs. In Cheen, we attract mainly the natives and the numbers are way beyond anywhere else at $200M for Dangal and over $100M for Secret Superstar along with $50M for Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Andhadhun.

It is a market worth protecting but still security trumps all. I would sacrifice the market if it means Cheen gives up OBOR. If they continue irregardless then I'll keep the market. The truth is unless we offer alternatives to OBOR the sundry muzzies from Afghanistan to Turkey will take the investment from Cheen.

[Kashi]

Our presence in Cheen would make the Koreans and Japs jealous. In movies anyways (though Kpop is more prevalent in their music scene and is making the chini population effeminate.)

You forget the impact of J- and K-dramas and movies in China, not to mention JAV. Do check on the popularity of Sora Aoi in China.

[chola]

Our presence in Cheen would make the Koreans and Japs jealous. In movies anyways (though Kpop is more prevalent in their music scene and is making the chini population effeminate.)

You forget the impact of J- and K-dramas and movies in China, not to mention JAV. Do check on the popularity of Sora Aoi in China.

Lol. Yes, I know Japanese "pawn" is massive in Cheen. Obviously, their dramas are big there. The entertainment cultures between the three are practically the same with same (weird) tastes. What trends in one place trends in the other two. But still no Japanese or Korean flick has come close to Dangal in terms of box office -- again no mean feat when considering the cultural distance.

[Aarvee]

Another way OBOR/CPEC screws local countries: import of diseases!

https://www.pigprogress.net/Health/Arti ... s-462822E/

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3764739

I know the peaceful countries dont care about pigs but whats to stop other disease hitching a ride!

[SSridhar]

China Silk Road plan needs clean investment safeguards - Reuters

SHANGHAI: China's Belt and Road Initiative must bring cost-effective new low-carbon methods to developing countries and avoid outdated polluting technologies in order to ensure global climate goals are met, a new study said on Monday.

The 126 countries in the Belt and Road region now account for 28% of global emissions, but on their current trajectory, that could rise to 66% by 2050, researchers, led by Ma Jun, a special advisor to China's central bank, said.

That could mean global carbon levels would rise to nearly double the level needed to keep temperature increases to below 2 degrees Celsius, a major goal of the Paris agreement.

"If B&RCs (Belt and Road countries) follow historical carbon-intense growth patterns... it may be enough to result in a 2.7 degree path, even if the rest of the world adheres to 2 degree levels of emissions," the report said.

The research was published jointly by China's influential Tsinghua Center for Finance and Development, which provides recommendations to policy makers, along with London-based Vivid Economics and U.S.-based Climate Works.

The study estimated that more than $12 trillion in infrastructure investment would need to be "decarbonised", and called for safeguards to ensure existing low-carbon technologies and practices were implemented, although even that might not be enough to meet 2050 goals.

The Belt and Road Initiative is a Beijing-led programme aimed at boosting economic integration through infrastructure and energy investments in Asia and beyond. Signatory countries account for about a quarter of the global economy.

Although China has promised to decarbonise its energy system, it has continued to approve and finance coal projects, using $1 billion in "green finance" to fund coal-fired power projects in the first half of 2019.

According to a study by environmental group Greenpeace, China has also invested in 67.9 gigawatts of coal-fired power in Belt and Road countries since 2014, compared to 12.6 GW of wind and solar.

China has also been criticised for investing in overseas coal-fired power projects using polluting technology no longer permitted at home.

Li Gao, a senior Chinese climate official, told reporters on the sidelines of a briefing on Friday that as a matter of principle, China would not use outdated technology in overseas projects, but in practice this would depend on circumstances and the actual standards of the hosting country.

[ramana]

SCMP Infographic on OBOR:
https://multimedia.scmp.com/culture/art ... 11A43.html