In the recently concluded G7(Group of US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan) summit, China was the major focus of discussion. Among COVID, Chinese atrocities on Uighur Muslims, the major focus was on countering China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

What is BRI?

  1. China provides funds in term of loans to developing countries to build all kinds of infrastructure like Roads, Railways, Ports and even Cities.
  2. The BRI was started in 2013.
  3. As a part of the initiative, it is seen China gives huge amount of loans (in a very opaque manner) to countries having extremely corrupt governments where the benefit of the loans goes to ruling elite, the country is unable to pay off the loan and is forced to sell “something” to China. For e.g. Srilanka could not repay Chinese loans and had to give away the Hanbantota port for a 99 year lease. Similarly, Pakistan is unable to pay the loans back and there were rumors that Pakistan could give away 2 islands in Arabian sea in lieu of that. That could not happen due to massive protests in Pakistan.
  4. Nearly 100 countries have come under the spell of the BRI. And most of the countries are developing nations, and having corrupt leaders.
  5. There is a lot of opposition to the BRI. Recently, there were huge protests in Hungary where students protested Chinese funding for building an University. BRI is very unpopular in Pakistan and many African Countries also.

It is good to see that G7 is waking up to the Chinese nuisance. Better late than never. What is G7’s plan to counter the BRI? Lets analyze.

  1. The plan is nicknamed as “Build Back Better World(B3W)“.
  2. It envisages to spend USD 40 trillion to build infrastructure in developing and needy nations. This is a huge amount.
  3. The funding will be done by both Government and Private sector unlike the Chinese model where couple of Chinese banks controlled by Chinese Communist Party are doing the funding.
  4. They would ensure that the funding and execution of projects is transparent, environment and viability study is done properly etc.

If successful, this would obviously counterweight Chinese influence to a great extent.

What should be India’s stance?

Though UK had ruled India, UK is actually a great friend for India in recent times. UK’s PM (who was the chairperson of the summit)had invited PM Modi to the summit. Though Modiji could not visit personally, he attended the summit over video conferencing. It is good to see that India is shedding one of Nehru’s curses on India – the evil “Non-Alignment Policy”.

I am of the view, India should play an active role in the BRI and especially in India’s neighborhood. India’s Government should rope in India’s private sector to contribute to the effort also. This would not only project India’s soft power, but also give an edge to India over China.

In nutshell, this is a great opportunity for India which it cannot and mustn’t miss.

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