China’s Belt and Road expects no friction with India-led trade corridor

China's Belt and Road Initiative sees no friction with the proposed counterweight headed by India and considers the two trade corridors as more of an opportunity to work towards common goals, the commissioner of the Beijing-led programme has said. India has opposed the BRI primarily because of the 3,000km China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which it claims violates its sovereignty because it runs through the disputed Kashmir territory. As an alternative, it has spearheaded the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, or Imec. But BRI commissioner Nicholas Ho brushed off any concerns of tension between the two trade corridors and their leading players, welcoming co-operation. China has repeatedly said it wants India, its ally in the Brics bloc, to join the BRI fold. “There's no conflict.

If you ask me, working together closely [with them] … does it contradict with the Belt and Road Initiative? It doesn't. It goes hand-in-hand,” Mr Ho told The National on Thursday, on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Summit in Hong Kong. “The BRI … believe in a stable, transparent marketplace. It is an inclusive partnership that we hope more [countries] will join,” he said. “We don't necessarily need to become a zero-sum game or black and white, because different international co-operation platforms will have different memberships, and we can work with each other on these different platforms.” Launched in 2013, the BRI has poured in nearly $1.4 trillion of investments, making it the initiative largest infrastructure endeavour by a single country, according to the latest data from the Griffith Asia Institute and the Green Finance and Development Centre.

The initiative aims to connect Asia, including the Middle East, with Africa, Europe and the South Pacific, using land and maritime corridors. It has 155 members, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, Imec, which is backed by the US and the EU, was unveiled in 2023 and aims to connect South Asia, the Middle East and Europe, with routes bypassing the Bab Al Mandeb strait and Suez Canal. It is also backed by the UAE and Saudi Arabia, as well as France, Germany and Italy. The Imec signatories are at the centre of a shifting Eurasian geopolitical scene, in which middle powers are “carefully adjusting their alliances and balancing” between the US, China and Russia, according to the Middle East Institute. For India, Imec means new international data infrastructure, increased exports and efficient access to European markets. For Europe, it is about balancing in the new world order and advancing its commercial relationship with India, the Washington-based think tank said in a June analysis. The Gulf, in turn, is looking to grow into its role as the world’s central logistics hub and develop land routes to export goods that would otherwise be subject to the risks or limitations of relying on open access to maritime chokepoints, the Middle East Institute added. Mr Ho said the common interests both sides can work on include energy, climate change, green transformation and the digital economy. On a broader scale, multilateral platforms such as the World Trade Organisation, the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum and Brics, as well as free trade agreements, provide varying perspectives on regional and global trade. “But if you cut across in the middle, it all goes back to the same core, which is [a] multilateral form of co-operation based on mutual respect and rules-based multilateralism,” Mr Ho said. “Everyone and anyone is welcome to join the BRI, if they want to,” he added, acknowledging India's “economic development blueprint” and welcoming the chance to “connect these economic engines together”. “I'm sure we can find areas and ways, or sectors, that we can specifically work together on,” Mr Ho said.