Sandeep Dikshit
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, April 29
Chinese President Xi Jinping was at his conciliatory best at the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing this weekend, a change in tactics that the western media badly missed.
At the inaugural summit two years ago, Xi was expansive if not condescending. The Middle Kingdom was positioned squarely as the repository of wisdom on economic rejuvenation. Till then, the economic slowdown was a hazy possibility and its military bases in Africa and Central Asia had not come into view.
Changed tone
Xi’s tone has changed because the field has become tougher since then. The tit-for-tat arrests of corporate executives by China and Canada, the worsening climate for Chinese investments especially 5-G and the perception of burdening poor countries with unpayable debts from opaque projects have considerably sullied Beijing’s self-projection of a compassionate and accommodative family elder out to redistribute his accumulated stash.
At the second Belt and Road Forum, Xi was more intent on addressing all these global reservations. China has responded to criticism of high levels of debt by timing the publication of a Debt Sustainability Framework with the summit. It has sought to answer salvos on opaque terms of loans by unveiling the Guiding Principles on Financing the Development of the Belt and Road.
Documents to chew upon
These documents give breathing space to participating countries facing domestic criticism on allying with China. But the documents are bare-bone outlines or an expression of intent. Better-off participants, who will provide the volumes and the business to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), will need more to satisfy their auditors and domestic constituents.
Different approaches
Yet, the US and its allies will maintain a wary distance. BRI’s promise of unhindered movement of goods will produce a new mechanism for monetary settlement. It could erode the post World War-II American monopoly over world payment systems, rendering sanctions, its primary tool of non-military coercion, ineffective.
China may be reconciled to the permanency in Indian reservations towards the Pakistan-centric BRI corridor. But it has offered India an opportunity to develop the regional infrastructure by removing the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar corridor from projects covered by the BRI tag. This means India can develop its North-East while keeping alive its objections to the CPEC of the BRI.
from The Tribune http://bit.ly/2Wech5X
via Today’s News Headlines
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