The Great Game Changer: Belt and Road Intiative (BRI; OBOR)

[shahbaz baig]

India is likely to keep its participation limited in China’s One Belt One Road summit starting from tomorrow (Sunday), The Indian Express reported.

Signalling displeasure over China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’s route, New Delhi has decided on not sending a high-level representative to attend the two-day summit.

Sources revealed that there was a possibility that India might send a junior diplomat to witness the summit proceedings.


One Belt, One Road: Shehbaz to represent Punjab at OBOR summit in China

There was no official announcement by India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) regarding New Delhi’s participation in the summit. Sources said that a decision has not been taken yet.

The May 14-15 summit is set to be attended by 29 heads of state and governments, including one of India’s strategic partners — Russian President Vladimir Putin. Most of India’s neighbours are attending the One Belt One Road (OBOR) summit, which is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s pet project.

source

 

[shahbaz baig]

NEW DELHI:India is unlikely to send any representative to China's big "One Belt One Road" summit beginning Sunday, in effect to a boycott of Beijing's ambitious initiative for cross border connectivity through ports, railways and roads.

One part of the project called the CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) runs through Azad Kashmir. India has strongly objected to this project, maintaining that Azad Kashmir is a part of India, not Pakistan.

The Ministry of External Affairs has not officially commented today on participation in the two-day meeting. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay earlier this week told reporters that the government hadn't taken a decision yet.


"You know that our position is that since the so-called CPEC forms a part of OBOR, that is where our difficulty is," Mr Baglay had said. "It passes or proposes to pass through what is sovereign Indian territory and we have made our views in this regard very, very clear to the Chinese side."

But Beijing has brushed aside Indian concerns. Last week, the China's ambassador to India, Luo Zhaohui, asked New Delhi to look at the project from the prism of economics, and not sovereignty.


Leaders of 29 countries plus senior delegates from other nations gather in Beijing for a two-day summit for the road project that stretches from China to Europe with infrastructure projects in between. The initiative involving hundreds of billions of dollars over the coming decades is expected to cement China's dominance over Asia, including in India's neighbourhood.

Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan are already attending. The US too has decided to attend, marking a U-turn in its position that is seen as a symbolic boost for the summit.

China's economy is nearly five times the size of India's.

India, which is Asia's third largest economy behind China and Japan, sits near one of the world's busiest shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean. For Delhi not to be part of the continent-wide project presents a headache for both China and India.

Delhi is upset over China's refusal to allow it entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a global cartel that controls nuclear trade, and over Beijing blocking a request at the UN to sanction Masood Azhar, the Pakistan-based head of terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed, which has attacked military bases in India.

source

 

[Jlaw]

Interesting. India boycotting obor by sending a delegation?

 

[grey boy 2]

Interesting. India boycotting obor by sending a delegation?

A "Junior Diplomat" to WITNESS the summit same old story=Indian style boycott like calling for boycotting Chinese goods last time

 

[Zhukov]

Good riddance.

 

[Logicaldude]

Blatant lie. We are sending our guy Nawaz.

 

[terranMarine]

This news isn't shocking nor unexpected to be honest, i find the delegates from US & Japan joining the summit as an amusing surprise that deserved more highlight than from a nobody supa powa.

 

[terranMarine]

India should stick to her words, do not participate

 

[Lucky Breeze]

I think Indians are taking it as a matter of their ego.

" dil py mat ly yaar , dil py mat ly, mar jye ga"

 

[艹艹艹]

poor Indians

 

[graphican]

If India will be connected with OBOR, that will be to its Eastern Naxal states which are already pro-China and demanding freedom from India. That is one smart move by China, If India joins OBOR, it loses some, if it doesn't join OBOR, it loses some.

 

[onebyone]

Published May 13, 2017 at 4:18 PM
There will be a safe, convenient and efficient system of China-Europe direct cargo trains by 2020, the country’s top economic planning body has said.

It is estimated that there will be around 5,000 cargo trains running between China and Europe annually by 2020, according to a development plan issued by the National Development and Reform Commission.

As a key component of the Belt and Road initiative, direct cargo trains will connect a growing number of cities in China and Europe.

Demand for rail cargo service between China and Europe has exploded in recent years because it offers an alternative to slower and riskier sea freight and much costlier air cargo.

The development plan shows that the cargo train service system will consist of three routes — an east route, a central route and a west route. The routes will not only connect China with Europe, but also with East Asia and Southeast Asia.

Some 43 transport hubs will be created along the three routes and 43 railway lines will be built, according to the plan.

There were 1,881 China-Europe cargo trains in service as of the end of June, which transported imports and exports worth 17 billion U.S. dollars.

The European Union has been China’s largest trading partner for more than a decade, while China is one of the EU’s biggest sources of imports. Bilateral trade amounted to 3.51 trillion U.S. dollars in 2015.

Story compiled information from Xinhua News Agency.
https://america.cgtn.com/2017/05/13/5000-china-europe-cargo-trains-expected-by-2020

 

[Water Car Engineer]

If India will be connected with OBOR, that will be to its Eastern Naxal states which are already pro-China and demanding freedom from India. That is one smart move by China, If India joins OBOR, it loses some, if it doesn't join OBOR, it loses some.

They're not demand freedom from India, they want a communist India. Let's not even compare their movement to the communist take over of Russia, China, Vietnam, etc.

 

[xunzi]

Indian needs to stop being childish.

 

[Place Of Space]

It's more like India boycott itself.