I spoke about China’s Belt and Road initiative in yesterday’s piece and how hostile Western politicians and media have been regarding its layout and execution. Many have called it a failure and an instrument for China to pursue an aggressive foreign policy. I have argued that Beijing will naturally try to further its economic cause and actively try to expand its ecosystem beyond its borders. The Middle Kingdom itself has no choice, as it is inevitably growing into a behemoth of an economy.
Against this backdrop, it may be worthwhile to observe and comment on three geographies very relevant in the Belt and Road context. One, we are all aware of Pakistan’s extensive ties with China. The South Asian country is probably a prototype of sorts for the project. Massive infrastructure has been erected with the help of Chinese funding and operators to connect Central China with the Arabian Sea. The looming build-out of the deepwater port of Gwadar is only the next logical step.
Gwadar is designed to become one node among many in a vast network of trading routes across the Indian Ocean, linking the likes of Sri Lanka’s Hambantota, Iran’s Chabahar, Tanzania’s Bagamoyo, Djibouti, and others. This development will likely clash with the interests of America and its allies who claim quasi-sovereignty over the ocean and want to restrict China’s influence. India has repeatedly voiced grievance over what it perceives to have become an encirclement of the Subcontinent.
Two, and as we also know all too well, Turkey has had to deal with significant economic problems. Recep Erdogan is paying the price for his credit-fuelled domestic consumption boom over the past decade. A finance minister and central bank head were fired, Turkey’s currency has been in free-fall, and the economy almost crashed with it. Due to Erdogan’s idiosyncratic foreign policy conduct, no one is keen to come to his rescue, not the Americans, not the Europeans, and not even the Russians…
… except the Chinese. Beijing has had its tussles with Ankara but kept offering economic and financial support, obviously with the intention to cultivate Turkey as a Belt and Road partner of the future. Chinese companies have bought into existing infrastructure, rail links are planned to link Turkey with Chinese economic growth, Huawei is building the country’s 5G broadband network, the PBoC has offered swap lines, and last year imports from China were for the first time settled in Renminbi.
Three, not even two weeks ago China and Iran signed a 400 billion dollar 30-year landmark investment deal. Chinese money and construction capacity will build crucial infrastructure within Iran and linking the country with China across that part of the Eurasian plate and facilitate trade away from the dollar settlement system. Effectively, US sanctions have become obsolete overnight, and that deal overturns the geopolitical landscape in the Middle East at the stroke of a pen.
It will now be difficult if not impossible for Washington to resuscitate its desired version of the nuclear agreement. As long as China supports Iran’s economy and system, the Biden administration will be dependent on Chinese goodwill and cooperation. The other stakeholders, Europe and Russia, could easily side with Beijing now and essentially isolate America with regards to the Iran question. This must cause further reverberations in the region.
Now, the above may sound like simple and isolated observations, but in aggregate they are poised to have enormous implications. Attracting these three countries to remain and gradually become fundamental parts of Belt and Road would be a game-changer. They are sizeable geographies, incremental in nature, encompassing a combined population almost as large as the European Union, and act as influencers for smaller nations in their vicinities stretching from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean.
You see what I am getting at. Grooming these jurisdictions as partners would effectively integrate them into China’s Eurasian infrastructure program and technology outreach. It would give China leverage against all those containment efforts America and its allies may pursue. Also, it could finally veer European nations interested in economic ties with both the Middle East and China away from the trans-Atlantic script and potentially isolate Washington’s allies in the region, particularly India.
