China's One Belt, One Road Initiative in Focus
The OBOR initiative (One Belt, One Road) seeks to systematically expand China's influence by establishing a comprehensive Eurasian infrastructure network composed of China-centric pipelines, railways, and maritime shipping lanes. Elements of the OBOR initiative will likely be a central focus of the upcoming G20 meeting in China. However, China faces an anti-globalism backlash that may undermine it's OBOR initiative. Events such as the British exit from the European Union, the rise of nationalist leaning politicians around the world, and recent decisions of nations to block the sale of national infrastructure to Chinese firms underscore the anti-globalism headwinds China faces.
The OBOR initiative has three main goals as identified by Chinese leadership:
1) Economic diversification - China hopes new trade routes will reduce it's dependency on any single supplier of goods and materials, thereby enabling it to drive down the price it pays for those supplies. China also seeks new markets as many of its sectors are capable of producing more products than established trade partners demand, a situation of oversupply.
2) Political stability - China aims to better secure its Western provinces and neighboring central Asian nations along its land-based trade-routes between China and Europe.
3) Development of a multi-polar global order - Finally, China plans to continue building its strength as a global super-power through a foreign policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states. Such a policy may appeal to many emerging nations that where Western agents are meddling within internal affairs. However, its hard to understand how China can buy billions of dollars of infrastructure in a foreign nation and still claim it isn't affecting internal affairs.
Why this news is important
The agreements achieved during upcoming G20 meetings are worth paying attention to as China seeks to expand its global influence through its One Belt, One Road initiative. More to come in future posts on this blog.
Links and image credit:
The G20 meeting in China official website for 2016.
