How can India respond to China's One Belt, One Road plan?
China's President Xi Jinping took Prime Minister Narendra Modi by surprise when he pulled the PM aside, during their long walk at Xian's Giant Wild Goose Pagoda in May 2015, and proposed linking China and India through Nepal. Modi listened as Xi outlined a plan for a Himalayan corridor of roads and railways, which would be part of his pet project to revive the old Silk Road that once originated from Xian. Since that visit, the Modi government has made plainly clear its wariness at Xi's grand 'One Belt, One Road' (OBOR) plan. India was the only major absentee at May's Belt and Road Forum hosted by Xi in Beijing. China, nonetheless, is powering ahead.
During the first phase of OBOR that coincided with Xi's first term, China launched infrastructure projects around its periphery, sending trains across Central Asia to Europe, building a railway deep into Thailand and Laos, and investing in ports across Southeast Asia. Now, ahead of Xi's second term, the Communist Party has scaled up its OBOR ambitions by writing the plan into the Party Constitution at the Communist Party Congress on October 24. This means, say officials in Beijing, OBOR is here to stay as a centrepiece of China's diplomacy. And as Xi starts his second term, South Asia is the next frontier.
IN OUR BACKYARD
Pakistan has always been China's 'all weather' ally in South Asia, but today, Beijing is casting
