News Story: World Bank to provide technical assistance to rebuild Philippines' war-torn city of Marawi

MANILA, Sept. 1 (Xinhua) -- The World Bank (WB) said on Friday that it will provide technical assistance for the early recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction planning to rebuild the ruined southern Philippine city of Marawi torn by an ongoing war between the government security forces and the extremists.

"The WB, together with the Asian Development Bank, will coordinate financial assistance from the development partners for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Marawi City," Mara Warwick, the WB country director for Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, said in a statement.

The WB also vowed to scale up support for peace-building and development in Mindanao as part of the midterm adjustment of its country partnership strategy.

It said the "scaled-up program from the entire Mindanao will focus on supporting the government's program to raise agricultural productivity and improve connectivity from farm to market, boost educations, skills, and employability of the youth, and help build resilient communities."

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Report: Fear of Chinese Spies Halts Australia-Solomons Cable Project

A project to build a 4,000-kilometer underwater cable connecting Sydney and the Solomon Islands came to a screeching halt following the Australian Secret Intelligence Service’s warning to the Solomons Islands prime minister that the Chinese firm contracted to do the work, Huawei, allows Chinese spies access to conduct cyberattacks.

During a June visit to the Solomons, ASIS head Nick Warner informed Solomons Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare of his concerns about the use of Huawei as a contractor. Huawei’s ability to securely install the cable came into question as a result of “backdoors” found in the firm’s products.

"It is no secret that China is very active in intelligence activities directed against us," Defence Secretary Dennis Richardson said in his final speech before retiring in May.

Honiara gave contract rights to Shenzhen-based telecom giant Huawei in mid-2016, though a US-UK firm was initially awarded contract rights following "a competitive tender process," the Sydney Morning Herald reported. The US-UK company had full permission from Canberra’s Attorney General to carry out the work. Huawei has yet to be granted such a permit. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) promptly pulled its financing of the project after the US-UK firm was snubbed.

News Story: EU providing P49-M aid to Marawi evacuees

By Richmond Mercurio

MANILA, Philippines - Nearly two months since the Duterte administration decided not to accept new funds from the European Union (EU), the European Commission yesterday announced it is providing 850,000 euros or about P49 million in humanitarian aid to the country to support victims of the conflict in Marawi City.

The funding is seen to benefit over 50,000 people affected by the ongoing fighting between the Armed Forces and Islamist militants who have taken over parts of the city. 

“The unprecedented violence in Marawi has caused tens of thousands of families to flee, leaving everything behind. This has triggered a sharp increase in humanitarian needs as many of the displaced people are currently deprived of fundamental means to sustain their day-to-day lives,” said Pedro-Luis Rojo, head of the East, Southeast Asia and Pacific Regional office for the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO).

“This grant from the EU will support the delivery of immediate life-saving assistance to those most in need and contribute to increased protection of populations affected by the conflict,” he added.

The EU funding, which will be channeled through the Commission’s ECHO, will focus on the provision of crucial support including food, water supply, healthcare, hygiene kits, sanitation facilities and essential household items as well as ensuring improved protection for those of concern.

Local business chambers led by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry are also donating P1.65 million in cash in addition to relief goods for Marawi city evacuees.

Read the full story at PhilStar

News Report: Bhutan Blocks Key India-Led Road Project Over Climate Concerns

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet sub-regional project to boost road connectivity in India’s eastern flank hit a roadblock in Bhutan, the country’s closest ally, with the Bhutanese opposition parties objecting to the project on environmental grounds.

New Delhi (Sputnik) — Along with the recent launch of the South Asia Satellite, the Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal (BBIN) connectivity project is part of PM Modi’s foreign policy’s “Neighborhood First” approach. Aided with technical assistance from the Asian Development Bank, the BBIN envisages a seamless connection of roads to promote trade and commerce between member countries. Over five years, 30 road projects were to be implemented at a cost of $8 billion – to fill in and upgrade connectivity gaps.

India has been pushing for such a project within the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) grouping where Pakistan too is a member and blocked a regional motor vehicles agreement during the 18th SAARC Summit in Kathmandu in November 2014.

At the Kathmandu summit, Modi had said that regional integration in South Asia would go ahead “through SAARC or outside it, among all of us or some of us”. But the BBIN project is already delayed by over eight months and may take more time to come to fruition.

News Report: CPEC road project in central Pakistan to be completed by April 2018

FAISALABAD, Pakistan, June 26 (Xinhua) -- Part of a major highway extension project in central Pakistan, which falls under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) initiative, is expect to be completed in less than two years' time, a project manager said Sunday.

"We will deliver the project on time and up to standard," Wang Feng of China Railway First Group Co., Ltd (CRFG) told Xinhua at the site.

The CRFG is commissioned to pave 30 km of a 192 km-long project to connect the central cities of Faisalabad and Khanewal with a four-lane highway.

Once completed, the road will halve commute time between the two cities to 2 hours.

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Story: AIIB approves half a bln USD for its first four projects in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Tajikistan

DHAKA, June 24 (Xinhua) -- Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank or AIIB has approved 165 million U.S. dollars in loans for a Bangladesh project - the first batch of loan for the country from the China-led development bank.

The banks Board of Directors Friday approved its first 4 loans totaling 509 million U.S.dollars to finance 4 projects including that one of Bangladesh.

Three of the 4 projects are co-financing operations with multilateral development bank (MDB) partners, said the global lender in a website post on Friday.

The three other approved loans are a 216.5 million U.S. dollars loan for Indonesia, a 100 million U.S. dollars loan for Pakistan and a 27.5 million loan for Tajikistan.

Read the full story at Xinhua

Editorial: China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Enters Into Force - What Next?

By Ankit Panda

The AIIB’s Articles of Agreement entered into force, taking the China-led development bank one step closer to operational status.

On December 25, the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) effectively launched in earnest, marking a major milestone in China’s bid to play a more active role in global governance and development. With the ratification of the bank’s Articles of Agreement by 17 member states, representing 50.1 percent of the bank’s capital stock, the AIIB entered into force. The members that have ratified that bank’s Articles of Agreement include Australia, Austria, Brunei, China, Georgia, Germany, Jordan, Luxembourg, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea and the United Kingdom.

In a press release on the bank’s website, the AIIB interim secretariat noted that “Entry into force under Article 59 of the Articles of Agreement required deposit of such instruments by at least 10 Signatories with at least 50 percent of the shares allocated.” The next step for the bank as it moves toward becoming operational as a full-fledged multilateral development bank will be the inaugural meeting of its Board of Governors, which will be held on January 16 and 17 in the new year. The interim secretariat, in the same release, notes that “the Board of Governors will announce the commencement of operations, in accordance with Article 60 of the Articles of Agreement.”

The inaugural meeting of the Board of Governors is really when the bank will “kick off,” so to speak. According to Article 60 in the AIIB’s Articles of Agreement, the inaugural governors meeting will formally anoint Jin Liqun (whom I wrote about here), a Chinese bureaucrat and vice minister of finance, its first president. The meeting will additionally elect directors for the bank, set a start date for the bank’s formal operations, and decide a range of other administrative matters.

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Editorial: China’s AIIB and OBOR - Ambitions and Challenges

By Zhiqun Zhu

The two ambitious projects have become an integral part of Chinese diplomacy.

The China initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), signed by 51 Prospective Founding Members (PFMs) as of September 2015, is expected to be operational by the end of this year. China has been generally cooperative with and supportive of the Bretton Woods institutions. At the same time, it is frustrated that existing multilateral institutions limit its global ambitions. The slow pace of reforms at the Western-dominated IMF and World Bank prevents China and other emerging economies from playing a greater role in international political economy. The AIIB will help to rectify the situation and boost China’s status as a global power.

China has also proposed the “Silk Road Economic Belt” and “21st Century Maritime Silk Road,” or “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR), an even broader and more ambitious initiative. The AIIB will serve as the financing arm of OBOR. The AIIB will begin with authorized capital of $50 billion, eventually to be raised to $100 billion. The projected investment for OBOR will be $1.4 trillion, about 12 times larger than the Marshall Plan, which was about $120 billion in today’s value. In addition to the economic benefits, the AIIB and OBOR will significantly facilitate the movement of goods, services, and people across national borders. Over the past two decades, China has contributed substantially to infrastructure or “hardware” of many developing nations, but it remains short of “software” or soft power. Beijing hopes that its new initiatives with a non-coercive, non-military approach will help enhance its international image as a responsible global power. The AIIB and OBOR have become an integral part of China’s new diplomacy, reflecting its growing interests and clout. They are also important steps to realizing President Xi Jinping’s “Chinese dream.”

China is transitioning from export-oriented growth to a new model based on consumption and outward investment. This process accelerated after the 2008-9 global financial crisis, which sharply weakened the ability of Western countries to absorb Chinese manufacturing products and to invest in developing countries. China is not just investing in developing countries; it is investing in developed economies as well. According to a recent study by the National Committee on United States-China Relations and Rhodium Group, from 2000 to 2014, Chinese firms spent nearly $46 billion on new establishments and acquisitions in the U.S., most of it in the past five years. Chinese-affiliated companies now directly employ more than 80,000 Americans. If the U.S. continues to be a major recipient of China’s booming outward investment, it could receive between $100-200 billion of investment by 2020. This would increase the number of full-time U.S. jobs provided by Chinese U.S. affiliates to somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000.

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Interview: ASEAN Impact - Ideas, Identities and Integration

By Mercy A. Kuo and Angelica O. Tang

Insights from Alice Ba.

The Rebalance authors Mercy Kuo and Angie Tang regularly engage subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into the U.S. rebalance to Asia. This conversation with Alice Ba, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations, University of Delaware, and author of (Re)Negotiating East and Southeast Asia: Regions, Regionalism, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is the thirteenth in “The Rebalance Insight Series.”

What three overarching ideas are underpinning ASEAN’s integration?

Resilience or strength in unity. This has interdependent national and regional dimensions. Integration is associated with development and stability. Similarly, integration is also about the pursuit of regional unity. A particular challenge to ASEAN has been the unevenness of economic development among states, especially the newest members. This affects their connectedness with others in Southeast Asia and consequently, their economic priorities, their external relationships, and their perceptions of ASEAN. Integration is about leveling development gaps, linking economies through various economic and infrastructure ties, and serving common security through shared development.

Competitiveness or relevance: ASEAN states are small-to-middle sized countries and economies. Integration serves states’ interests in bolstering their standing vis-à-vis larger players.

Centrality – meaning ASEAN’s occupying pride of place in Asia’s institutional architecture. Of the three ideas, this is the most recent and controversial. Some think that ASEAN is ill-equipped to occupy such a place. Others think that it sets unrealistic, potentially detrimental, objectives for ASEAN. Notwithstanding significant challenges, ASEAN centrality, for the ASEAN states, serves as a counter to great power concert and rivalry, and other great power dominated scenarios; however, ASEAN centrality ultimately depends on a more united and coherent ASEAN. Greater integration is part of that.

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Editorial: Shaping the Asia-Pacific Order - Don’t Count the US Out

By Robert A. Manning

With some foresight and leadership, the postwar system can survive.

For all the hand-wringing about China remaking Asia in its image – as evidenced in the recent controversy over Beijing’s new investment bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank – reports of a U.S. retreat are greatly exaggerated.

Congress’s recent approval of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) and the likely approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Obama administration’s legacy trade deal, is the sort of economic statecraft that can update and sustain the open, ruled-based order. Yet as the pending demise of the EXIM Bank illustrates, such efforts have been all too rare.

Yes, a global diffusion of power from West to East is unfolding with potentially profound challenges to the international system under which the global economy has flourished since 1945. And yes, a shift in the center of economic gravity to the Asia-Pacific region has occurred.

China’s re-emergence is raising questions about the underlying bipartisan premise in the U.S. that as rising powers like China integrated into the global system, they would develop a stake in the stability of the international system and its norms, and would advance their interests within established institutions, rather than challenge its structures or seek to create alternative institutions.

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Editorial: The Philippines' Dilemma on China's New Infrastructure Bank

By Richard Javad Heydarian

Manila faces a tough balancing act.

Earlier this year, China was painfully isolated during the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier security forum, when it came under criticism from across all quarters for its expansive reclamation activities across disputed features in the South China Sea. Recent weeks, however, have been kind to China.

China formally launched the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), a promising rival to the Bretton Woods institutions of the World Bank and its regional derivative the Japanese-dominated Asian Development Bank (ADB). China’s national legislature also approved another major Chinese-backed global financial institution, the New Development Bank (NDB). On paper, the NDB symbolizes the emergence of the BRICS as active shapers of the international economic order. In reality, however, it will depend largely on Chinese contributions ($41 billion), which represents 39 percent of total shares.

China’s ultimate economic initiative will be the “One Belt, One Road” project, which will place Beijing at the heart of infrastructure development across the Eurasian landmass while connecting a wide network of ports from the Pacific to the Mediterranean waters. These ambitious efforts fall under Xi Jinping’s “Peripheral Diplomacy” doctrine, aimed at wooing China’s immediate neighborhood, reviving ties with estranged maritime neighbors, and transforming China into the pillar of the Asian economic order.

Unsurprisingly, some neighboring states, particularly the Philippines, have come to view the AIIB and other Beijing initiatives as a disguised effort to create a Chinese ‘zone of deference’ across Asia. Amid an intensifying dispute in the South China Sea, Manila has shunned robust economic and diplomatic linkages with Beijing, depriving itself of much-needed capital and investments.

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Editorial: A Boost to Sub-Regionalism in South Asia

By Sridhar Ramaswamy

A landmark agreement is expected to pave the way for regional integration.

At the 18th SAARC summit in Kathmandu, held in late November 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated that regional integration in South Asia would go ahead “through SAARC or outside it, among all of us or some of us.” On June 15, 2015, the transport ministers of four South Asian neighbors – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, now better known as the BBIN – signed a landmark Motor Vehicles Agreement (MVA) in Thimpu. The agreement is expected to pave the way for a seamless movement of goods and people across their borders, encouraging regional integration and economic development.

Indian Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari commented, “This indeed is a momentous achievement for all the four neighbours. This historic agreement will further promote our cooperation in trade and commerce.” He added, “The Motor Vehicles Agreement is the ‘overarching’ framework to fulfill our commitment to enhance regional connectivity. The agreement will help in creating transport corridors linking the four countries into economic corridors as well as enable transit of passengers and goods along designated key routes in the four SAARC countries, thereby reducing the time-consuming exercise of disembarking of passengers.”

The agreement will be phased in over six months. The first phase will include the preparation of bilateral (and perhaps trilateral or quadrilateral) agreements and protocols for implementation of the MVA, to be completed by July 2015. The second phase will entail negotiation and approval of additional agreements and protocols, by September 2015. This will be followed by installation of the IT systems, infrastructure, tracking, regulatory systems and other tools for implementing the approved agreements, by December 2015, and then by gradual roll out from October 2015.

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Editorial: US Mulls New Asia Infrastructure Facility to Rival Regional Players

By Prashanth Parameswaran

“One-stop shop” would better coordinate and market what the United States can offer.

The United States is mulling the development of a new facility based in Asia to coordinate and market U.S. infrastructure to the region in the face of growing competition by China and other countries, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

The facility, which is still in the works, would serve as a “one-stop shop” for various U.S. actors to better coordinate and market their activities to Asian nations and other relevant regional institutions, James Carouso, Director of Maritime Southeast Asia Affairs at the U.S. State Department, told a roundtable at the Stimson Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

The news comes in the wake of growing demand for infrastructure in Asia as well as new efforts by regional actors to fill it. According to KPMG, the ten countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) alone will need around $60 billion per year until 2022 to fulfill their infrastructure needs. China has been keen to step in, most recently with its Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (See: “The Truth About China’s Big, Bad Infrastructure Bank”). Japan has also recently unveiled its own proposal to inject $110 billion to develop high-quality Asian infrastructure (See: “Is This Japan’s New Challenge to China’s Infrastructure Bank?”).

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Editorial: With AIIB, US Shot Itself in the Foot on Indian Infrastructure

By Raymond E. Vickery, Jr and Michael Kugelman

The United States’ reaction to China’s AIIB will be a setback for its cooperation with India. It’s not too late to fix this.

During his first year in office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has articulated his vision of Indian economic development to almost anyone who would listen – perhaps most notably to presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping. “Make in India,” electricity in every village, modern sanitation, and rising standards in health, education, and individual prosperity are all part of the Indian future according to Modi. With Obama’s visit to New Delhi earlier this year, U.S. support for this vision is now the cornerstone of U.S.-Indian relations. However, when Modi visits Xi next month, they will discuss India’s benefits from China’s new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and what India may receive from the $62 billion China has just announced for its “new Silk Road” infrastructure initiative.

Under these circumstances, the U.S. Congress has blocked the effectiveness of the most vital institutions for U.S engagement with India on infrastructure development. The Obama Administration has compounded the error through a futile effort to hamstring China’s attempts to provide a source of additional infrastructure financing through the AIIB. The U.S. effort has been rejected by India and 55 other nations, including some of America’s closest allies. Surely, this constitutes a self-inflicted wound—a shot in the foot.

Modi’s vision of exponential economic growth simply will not occur unless India can fix its infrastructure problem—the Achilles heel of the Indian growth story. The most pressing need is for energy infrastructure to rectify the rolling power cuts that have become endemic. Not far behind is transportation, where India wastes vast amounts of productivity through delays in moving people and goods to, from, and around the country. The Asian Development Bank estimates that Asia will need to invest about $800 billion a year on infrastructure through 2020. The previous Indian government estimated India’s share of that needed investment at about $200 billion a year.

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Editorial: After Devasating Earthquake, China Rushes Aid to Nepal

By Shannon Tiezzi

China is sending hundred of rescue workers and billions of dollars worth of supplies to Nepal.

Saturday’s earthquake in Nepal, registered at magnitude 7.8 by the U.S. Geological Survey, has devastated the country, leaving at least 3,617 dead. The death toll is expected to continue to rise as rescue teams make their way to remote villages where damage is feared to be extensive. Survivors, meanwhile, must cope with shortages of basic necessities — food, water, shelter, and medical supplies.

Amidst the devastation, Nepal’s government is looking to the international community to provide desperately needed aid. In particular, Kathmandu will need help from its two powerful neighbors, India and China. China in particular, which is trying to bolster its presence in South Asia through the “One Belt, One Road” initiative, will find its actions heavily scrutinized by people wondering if China is really ready to play the role of a great power.

China, well-versed in earthquake rescue and relief efforts from its own tragic experiences, moved quickly to respond. China’s first rescue team, consisting of 62 people (“40 rescuers, 10 medical workers, and 12 seismic experts,” according to Xinhua) and six sniffer dogs, arrived in Nepal on Sunday. A separate 58-member medical team followed on Monday, bringing with them 13 tons of medical aid.

The PLA has also dispatched 55 soldiers (plus four rescue dogs, recovery vehicles, and rescue equipment) to Nepal on board a IL-76 transport plane. Another 45 soldiers are expected to head to Nepal on Tuesday. In all, a total of 170 PLA soldiers will be sent to Nepal as rescue and medical teams, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday. That makes this already one of China’s largest disaster relief operations conducted on foreign soil.

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Editorial: AIIB - China's 'Phase Zero Operation'?

By William Yale

Can Beijing’s claim that it wants to provide ‘global public goods’ via the AIIB taken at face value?

A month after controversy erupted over the announcement that multiple U.S. allies will join China’s new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Obama administration’s response was clearly misguided. Concerned that the AIIB represented a power play by China for influence in the rest of the world at the expense of the U.S., administration officials criticized the bank for not adhering to the “high standards” required of U.S. and Western-led international institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

In contrast, there was a clear alternative for the United States: welcome China’s contribution to economic development in the developing countries of Asia and even join the bank itself. Indeed, U.S. officials, intellectuals, and pundits of all stripes repeatedly complain that China has not lived up to its obligations as a major power to provide the “global public goods” that help prop up the international system. At face value, the AIIB seems like it will exemplify the kind of role in the world the U.S. would like China to play.

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Editorial: China’s AIIB - The Final Tally

By Shannon Tiezzi

Interesting facts about the members of China’s AIIB — with even more interesting implications.

The deadline for prospective founding members to submit their applications to China’s new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) came on March 31, leading a flurry of final applications from countries all over the world. When the dust settled, China moved on to selecting who would actually made the cut. Yesterday, the AIIB released its final, approved list of founding members (excluding Taiwan). With 57 countries signed up, the AIIB includes well over a quarter of the world’s nations. Even more interestingly, 16 of the world’s 20 largest economies are on board (with the U.S., Japan, Mexico, and Canada as the holdouts).

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Editorial: China’s AIIB and the US Reputation Risk

By Mercy A. Kuo and Angelica O. Tang

What are the implications of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank for the next U.S. president?

India, Iran and Israel joined. Europe’s leading economies – France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and United Kingdom – are approved members. Russia is in. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are on board. Australia and South Korea are confirmed. Japan has allocated $1.5 billion for AIIB membership, though Tokyo is assessing AIIB’s governance framework and will decide in June. Canada is considering. North Korea’s application was rejected. Currently, 57 countries are confirmed founding members. The United States stands alone.

Critics of the U.S. decision not to join see Washington sidelined as allies jump on the AIIB bandwagon. Proponents of Washington’s position, mainly Obama administration officials, decry the absence of transparent governance standards and competition with the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, even though both banks have endorsed the AIIB. The White House’s concerns over AIIB’s environmental and social responsibility framework, though valid, miss the bigger picture. What is the strategic significance of the AIIB for the next US president and US rebalance to Asia?

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Editorial: Australia Caught in Middle of US-China Power Tussle

By Nick Derewlany

Canberra could struggle to balance its interests as tensions rise over the AIIB and TPP.

Tensions between the United States and China over the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) are the next embodiment of a hard and soft power battle for economic and political dominance in the Asia-Pacific, and come amid concerns arising from the stalled negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). For Australia, a key focus of its foreign policy should be how to balance its economic ties with China and its cultural ties with the United States; appeasing both without getting in the middle of an ugly tug-o-war that forces Canberra to take sides.

Officially, both the U.S. and China have attempted to downplay the gravity of the tussle. Hugo Llorens, U.S. Consul General, in a guest lecture given at the University of Sydney, reassured students that “Australia does not have to choose between the United States and China.” But while it is true that Australia is not at a point where it needs to make such a choice, the reassurance misrepresents the dynamic of Australia being caught in the middle of a power struggle between the worlds two largest economies.

Read the full story at The Diplomat

News Story: China's 'One Belt, One Road' Strategy

By Wendell Minnick

Modern-day Silk Road Effort Could Challenge US Influence in Asia, Africa, Mideast

TAIPEI — China's "one belt and one road" initiative could usher in a new era that sees China as the undisputed geopolitical powerhouse in the region, experts say.

The initiative will establish new routes linking Asia, Europe and Africa. It has two parts — a new "Silk Road economic belt" linking China to Europe that cuts through mountainous regions in Central Asia; and the "maritime Silk Road" that links China's port facilities with the African coast and than pushes up through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean Sea.

Chinese President Xi Jinping revealed during a speech at the Boao Forum on March 28 in Hainan, China, that China intends to push forward on the initiative that many are comparing to the ancient Silk Road.

"The idea of one belt and one road is based mainly on the economy, but has political and strategic components and implications," said Zhuang Jianzhong, vice director of Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Center for National Strategy Studies. "It aims for the joint development, common prosperity and for energy security, too."

Read the full story at DefenseNews