China's OBOR faces major challenge from ISIS

Though the two-day "One Belt and One Road" summit has been described as a successful event by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the flagship project faces two very distinct challenges namely 1)overcoming the view that OBOR violates the rule of accepting and respecting international borders, norms and rule of law on the pretext of connectivity and 2countering the f new and barbaric terrorism face of the Islamic State.

India, on the other hand, has joined hands with Japan to embark upon multiple infrastructure projects across Africa, Iran, Sri Lanka. To counter China's OBOR initiative, both India and Japan plan to launch an Asia-Africa connectivity for supremacy in the Indian Ocean.

China's consistent efforts of aggressively pursuing diplomacy from 2002 and then transforming the same to economic and investment ties from 2013 has resulted in Beijing emerging as a new global economic power.It has thus re-invented the centuries-old Silk Road and other routes on land as well as through sea.

China has already attained greater connectivity and military might through the one-party rule of the Communist Party of China and having bilateral relations with the maximum number of countries through soft diplomacy. In fact, the grand economic plan presents China as an emerging economic superpower.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is credited with initiating a New Silk Road from China to Europe dubbed as One Belt, One Road, but what is actually a combination of various routes that facilitate the export of silk and other commodities from China to Asia.In practice, OBOR is a collection of the land -based Silk Road economic belt and the Maritime Silk Road with primary points at Urumqi, Dostyk, Astana, Gomel, Brest and the Polish cities of Malaszewicze and Lodz which would be hubs for logistics and transshipment to other countries of Europe.

China's long-term goals, ambitions, and initiatives have been shaped byOBOR, that aims to increase connectivity between the continents of Asia, Europe and Africa.

Timeline of starting of OBOR

• On September 7, 2013 President Xi raised the One Belt One Road at Kazakhstan's Nazarbayev.

• August 22, 2014- President Xi welcomed neighbouring countries to join the One Belt One road initiative in his visit to Mongolia.

• October 24, 2014 -The establishment of AIIB: Twenty-one countries, including China and Singapore signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) regarding the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Beijing.

• December 29,2014 - the Chinese government pledged US$40 billion for the creation of the Silk Road Fund, which is a state owned investment fund of the Chinese government.

• Feb1,2015 -Advance One belt one road construction Conference was held in Beijing.

• March 26,2015 -President Xi delivered a speech Boao Forum for Asia, stated that OBOR is to promote mutual economic strategy along countries achieve docking.

• March 28, 2015 Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of commerce issued the vision and actions on jointly building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st century Maritime Silk Road.

• May 7,2015-President Xi visited Kazakhstan, Belarus and Russia for the implementation of OBOR.

Specifically India which has skipped the summit due to its sovereignty issues as China's OBOR grand plan is under the framework of the China-Pakistan-Economic-Corridor, a series of projects that stands to connect the Asian giant to Central Asia and Europe .CPEC which connects China's largest province, Xinjiang, with Pakistan's Gwadar port in Balochistan, the largest and most impoverished province of Pakistan bordering Iran's Sistan and Baluchestan province.

India has opposed the CPEC route and development at Gwadar port for several reasons as

1)The route passes through the controversial territories of Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir.

2)On the pretext of connectivity and economic development China violates sovereignty and territorial integrity of many countries including India.

3)Gwadar will act as a Chinese naval base in the Arabian Sea with access to Mid-East and Mediterranean Sea in Europe.

4)In addition, Chinese navy plans to have access to Indian Ocean at various places including Sri Lanka.

China's hegemony and neo-imperialistic designs

China has been working on the old tradition of foreign relations as the basis for Imperial China during the times of Qin dynasty and consider all other powers subservient.

Under this approach, China has roped in 65 countries somewhat connected and covering more than half of the world's population.

That includes:

1)Planned projects to focus on the development of numerous assets, including ports, roads, railways, airports, power plants, oil and gas pipelines, refineries and Free Trade Zones

2)The OBOR also includes China -Pakistan -Economic -Corridor and Chinese heavy investment in Myanmar including Bangaldesh-China-India-Myanmar Corridor

China's approach begins with soft diplomacy stating that it will not charge hefty amounts for the investments they have already done stressing on the inclusiveness of the other countries in this connectivity corridor.But in the long run Beijing plans to charge them heavily.

China insists that the objective of OBOR is to facilitate smoother trade flow within the connected regions and an improved linkage via railways and maritime connectivity will reduce the transit time between Europe and China.The land route will also emerge as an option for the movement of goods

Challenges to China's OBOR

But China's flagship project faces many challenges in the form of terrorism that currently plagues various areas of the world. CPEC that connect China's Xinjiang is a conflict zone where Uyghur separatists claim that the region is not a part of China but was part of East Turkestan Republic that was illegally incorporated into the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Now, the second point of concern is Balochistan has been under attack by separatists, insurgents and Islamic State-Khorasan jihadists for over a decade.

Apart from the terrorism angle, regional conflicts can also hinder the initiative and there exists skepticism about Chinese hegemony by various countries.

Moreover, the OBOR has had long-term geopolitical and strategic implications for Europe, creating political and economic dependencies, accompanied by the real threat of poorer EU states succumbing to the political leverage exercised by China, through massive infrastructure investments.

-ANI