US Silk Road counterpoise a boost for India

It is happy augury that spurred by China’s ambitious and much-touted Belt and Road initiative which has the potential to link itself with markets in Europe and Africa through Asian countries and the Indian Ocean, the US has revived two major infrastructure projects in South and Southeast Asia in which India would be a vital player. India had stayed away from a crucial meeting to announce the Chinese B& R initiative largely because it involved as part of it a US $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor linking China's restive Xinjiang region to Balochistan's Gwadar port, built with Chinese funding. The port, Indian analysts felt, could potentially be used as a naval outpost for the Chinese military. New Delhi had expressed apprehensions that with the economic corridor slated to pass through a section of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, India’s sovereignty would be compromised. Since the access that the ‘economic corridor’ would provide to China to further its hegemonistic designs with Europe and Africa would have jeopardized American interests too, the Trump administration has announced plans to swing into alternative action. The intended US counterpoise is a resuscitation of the 'New Silk Road' initiative, first announced by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in July 2011 in a speech in Chennai, and the Indo-Pacific Economic Corridor linking South and Southeast Asia. A brief outline of the two projects was made available in the administration's maiden annual budget recently, which indicated that the 'New Silk Road' project would be a public-private initiative in which India would be a key player. This will be leveraged through side-by-side collaboration with regional countries, other bilateral donors, multilateral development banks, and the private sector. The US said "the importance of...the New Silk Road grows" as the transition in Afghanistan continues and the US "strives to help the Afghan people succeed and stand on their own."

The US State Department said it will deepen support for the objectives through "far-reaching" public diplomacy programmes. According to James McBride of the Council on Foreign Relations, the New Silk Road refers to a surfeit of joint investment projects and regional trade blocs that have the potential to bring economic growth and stability to Central Asia. For India, which was apprehensive of China’s intentions on CPEC, this is a big morale booster. It goes without saying that India must go whole hog in supporting the US Silk Road initiative with an eye on containing the damage from the China-Pak Economic Corridor.