The Belt and Road (B&R) initiative is a global as well as a revolutionary venture. It is expected to be completed by 2049 when China would celebrate the centenary of its founding and at same time would in on probability throw open the gates on a new political and economic world.
For areas of economic activity to grow as the infrastructure develops the geographic space on the B&R landscape needs to be connected. Industrial parks along infrastructure routes are slowly integrated to establish regional and global value chains.
According to Bruno Macaes, the author of Belt and Road, The Dawn of Eurasia (What you need to know to understand Belt and Road--published on December 7, 2018 in Foreign Policy) as it expands, the Belt and Road is bound to become increasingly futuristic with "Self-driving vehicles on land, sea and air and trillions of connected devices worldwide will be empowered by a Belt, Road and Space fleet of China-centered satellites.
"Chinese companies are already planning to engage in deep-space economic activity, like building orbit solar power plants, and mining asteroids and the moon. One or more Sputnik moments - when Chinese technology leaps far ahead of what the West can do - will offer the final and most meaningful metric of success for the Belt and Road."
Some even believe that the rise of Asia as a whole is recasting the physical and mental map of the world. These analysts believe that proliferating transnational relationships and new flows of finance, trade, technology, information, energy and labour have created three new strategic geographies which are already escaping the shadow of transatlantic arrangements.
According to Samir Saran, President Observer Research Foundation (The collision of these three geographies is creating a new world order - published on November 1, 2018 in Foreign Policy) how nation states imagine the world is significant; their mental maps dictate diplomatic priorities, economic partnerships and security arrangements.
"In the 21st century, East and West are meaningless constructs. More important is how actors and institutions resolve the contradictions that will inevitably arise in Indo-Pacific, Eurasia and the Arctic. This is that strange and rare moment when global governance is more than the sum of its parts or individual regional configurations."
While the Belt and Road initiative is being viewed by many impartial analysts as being futuristic as well as being capable of introducing a new global economic order, its flagship project the China- Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is being see with suspicion.
Many projects selected so far are being projected by some analysts as ill-timed. For example, a commuter rail line for Lahore could have been deferred in favour of those that would boost exports more quickly and that the economic corridor should have been paired with an aggressive export incentive programme to offset the outflow of dollars.
According to Arif Rafiq, the author of book The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor: Barriers and Impact (China didn't cause Pakistan's financial crisis but it should play a role in helping to solve it, published in the Monthly CPEC Wire magazine November, 2018) for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to succeed, help is needed to restructure the Pakistani economy.
He says at the moment, CPEC is merely a collection of electric power and infrastructure projects and "current and planned aid and investment for the corridor need to be used primarily as vehicles for boosting Pakistan's exports to China and elsewhere."
"Beijing should agree to allow power purchasing agreements to be renegotiated between Chinese producers and the Pakistani government's transmission and distribution company. Presently, electricity is too expensive.
"A cut in the electricity purchasing price would make long-term contracts more viable and create space for additional waves of Chinese investment with higher rates of return. More affordable electricity would increase the ability of Pakistani consumers to pay bills to local power companies which, in turn, have to pay Chinese independent power producers.
"This would ease the task of reforming Pakistan's electricity industry, enhancing Chinese companies' opportunity to purchase state-owned distribution companies through privatisation.
"Lower electricity costs would also open up opportunities for Chinese investment in the corridor's special economic zones and enable Pakistani exporters to better compete with global peers.
"However, some projects are unlikely to pay for themselves any time soon (or, with public transport, ever) and their loans should be restructured. These include the Orange Line metro rail project in Lahore, the Karakoram Highway realignment, and the proposed main railway line project.
"Beijing could extend their maturity periods to 30 or 40 years, reduce interest rates to 2 per cent or below, and extend their grace periods to 10 years. This would give Islamabad and Pakistan's provincial governments a cushion to responsibly pay back Chinese creditors.
"China could also amend its free trade agreement and provide Pakistani exporters with greater market access, reducing import duties on meat, seafood and fruits.
"Islamabad could end up taking over US$2 billion in loans from Beijing to upgrade the Karakoram Highway, which would only see a return on investment through overland trade with Xinjiang.
"The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor can specifically serve as proof that Beijing can effectively provide public goods, match infrastructure development with job-generating foreign direct investment, and provide a new model of development in frontier markets."
Meanwhile, a very interesting news report has appeared in the New York Times on December 19, 2018 authored by Maria Abi-Habib(China's 'Belt and Road' Plan in Pakistan Takes a Military Turn) which views the B&R initiative as a disruptive development at the global level and marks CPEC with a red flag:
"A less scrutinized component of Belt and Road is the central role Pakistan plays in China's Beidou satellite navigation system. Pakistan is the only other country that has been granted access to the system's military service, allowing more precise guidance for missiles, ships and aircraft.
"The cooperation is meant to be a blueprint for Beidou's expansion to other Belt and Road nations, however, ostensibly ending its clients' reliance on the American military-run GPS network that Chinese officials fear is monitored and manipulated by the United States.
"In Pakistan, China has found an amenable ally with much to recommend it: shared borders and a long history of cooperation; a hedge in South Asia against India; a large market for arms sales and trade with potential for growth; a wealth of natural resources.
"A Chinese-built seaport and special economic zone in the Pakistani town of Gwadar is rooted in trade, giving China a quicker route to get goods to the Arabian Sea. But it also gives Beijing a strategic card to play against India and the United States if tensions worsen to the point of naval blockades as the two powers increasingly confront each other at sea.
"The focus of Belt and Road is on roads and bridges and ports, because those are the concrete construction projects that people can easily see. But it's the technologies of the future and technologies of future security systems that could be the biggest security threat in the Belt and Road project," said Priscilla Moriuchi, the director of strategic threat development at Recorded Future, a cyber threat intelligence monitoring company based in Massachusetts."
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