China’s belt and road plan deserves the benefit of the doubt

Derwin Pereira says critics wary of China’s belt and road should understand that all great powers seek to win political influence using the pull of economics. So far, Beijing has not detracted from this playbook

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Derwin Pereira

Published: 5:05pm, 9 May 2017Updated: 8:54pm, 9 May 2017

The belt and road affords China a moment of great diplomatic opportunity to show that it is a normal power – one which seeks to maximise its legitimate interests within the multilateral system – and not a revisionist power which seeks to expand its interests by subverting the international order. Illustration: Craig Stephens

The belt and road summit, to be held in Beijing in the middle of this month, could help inaugurate a new intercontinental order that brings Asian countries closer to one another, and collectively to Europe and Africa. This shift would occur even as America reassesses the value of its international economic engagements. Clearly, the winner in the circumstances will be China and the countries that join it in its historic endeavour.

The scope of the Chinese initiative is truly breathtaking. It seeks to connect 65 countries across three continents to China, thereby influencing the lives of 4.4 billion people with a total gross domestic product of US$2 trillion once the vision is realised.

The Belt and Road Initiative has two parts: the land route known as the Silk Road Economic Belt, and the sea route which is called the Maritime Silk Road. The names are a throwback to pre-colonial times in which Chinese wealth and political prowess underwrote a transcontinental economic system. It is that system which the belt and road seeks to recreate today.

The economic benefits of the project are clear. It will dramatically overhaul the nature of economic relations over a massive area by increasing connectivity in the areas of policy, infrastructure, trade, currency and people.

This will benefit many, including members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The belt and road will complement and give added impetus to the Master Plan on Asean Connectivity, which lies at the heart of the association’s credibility as an economic organisation.

The key challenge for the belt and road will be to institutionalise the progress, now occurring in some areas but not yet forming a contiguous whole, which has been made since its announcement in 2013. For example, there has been a spurt of activity in countries such as Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Belarus and Poland, but it will take time for the epic route to gain an economic identity of its own.

Nevertheless, the economic direction is clear: towards an integrated world to maximise economic opportunities for all its members.