By: Zain Farooq
The Belt and Road initiative has brought considerable economic benefits and created a large number of employment opportunities in Asian, European and African continents after it’s commencement in 2013. The Belt and Road initiative aims to promote connectivity of these continents and their adjacent seas. This has strengthened partnerships among the countries along the Belt and Road, set up all-dimensional, multi-tiered and composite connectivity networks and realized diversified, independent, balanced and sustainable development in these countries. These regions are mainly composed of emerging markets with over 70 countries taking part in the initiative, representing more than a third of the world’s GDP and two-thirds of the world population.
The official Belt and Road initiative promotes the joint formulation of development plans and measures for advancing cross-national and regional cooperation between the countries involved in Belt and Road Initiative.
Chinese President Xi Jin Ping announced the ambitious One Belt, One Road project to enhance regional connectivity and to embrace a brighter future.
It is $1 trillion of spending in 138 different countries to create a global trade route. “Belt” describes overland routes for road and rail transportation, while “road” describes maritime passages.
Mr. Xi Jin Ping set the magnanimous goal of completing all of the BRI projects by 2049, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.
Considerable research and several government officials have considered CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) projects to be beneficial for Pakistan and China. CPEC is transforming Pakistan’s economy by modernizing rail, road, air and energy transportation systems as well as connecting the deep-sea Pakistani ports of Gwadar and Karachi to China’s Xinjiang province and beyond by overland routes. According to a report published by Energy Strategy Reviews, CPEC is expected to add 2.5% into the current GDP and its growth to 7.5%. Due to this CPEC related investment, Thirty thousand jobs have been created by energy projects alone in Pakistan.
On 22nd April 2021, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne cancelled two accords between Victoria State and China on the Belt and Road Initiative under the new foreign veto laws stating that the two deals were out of line with the federal government’s foreign policy, which sees a “free and open Indo Pacific” as a key goal. The cancellation covers a memorandum of understanding that the Labor Premier, Daniel Andrews, signed with China’s national development and reform commission in 2018. That included a pledge to work together on initiatives under President Xi Jin Ping’s signature Belt and Road infrastructure-building program. China has always considered the cooperation between China and Victoria under the Belt and Road Initiative as conducive to deepening economic and trade relations between the two sides promoting economic growth and the well-being of the people of Victoria.
This unforeseen stance has labeled Australia with a ‘Cold war mentality and ideological bias.’
China is the largest trading partner of Australia and New-Zealand. Diplomatic relations between Australia and China have worsened since Canberra called for an International inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus, prompting trade reprisals from Beijing. Victoria reaped increasing surpluses from exports to China, including last year’s two-way merchandise trade totaled at $30.7 billion, a 60% growth since 2014. The bilateral relationship of Australian federal government and the State of Victoria over its inclusion in the BRI has created disputes nationally and globally. Is it a propaganda aligning geopolitical stance of the Australian government by calling BRI a debt trap diplomacy resulting in pseudo economic losses?
The Australian’s side’s action show that they are not genuine in wanting to improve China-Australia relations by propagating BRI as a threat to their national interests. The aim of China is boost interconnectivity and trade; encompassing infrastructure developments around the world but has been criticized by some as forcing ‘nations into a debt trap. CPEC has witnessed these developments first-hand and has fulfilled President Xi Jing Ping’s initiative of building communities of common destiny for all mankind.
A surprising part of Victoria’s curious deal is that no one at a federal level in Australia seemed to know about it – something that’s fairly unusual in normal dealings. A blame for the level of public distrust about the arrangement lies with Mr. Andrews and his government for the secretive nature of the deal. The Commonwealth seemingly wanted nothing to do with the BRI itself.
“With the biggest infrastructure program in our state’s history under way, we have the design and delivery skills China is looking for, meaning more jobs and more trade and investment for Victorians,” Mr. Andrews said in October 2018.
At the time of the announcement, the developed framework revealed that BRI partnership was set to go beyond infrastructure investment to include technology and agriculture investment. Only time will show if Victoria has signed away Australia’s sovereignty by calling off the BRI. It is a bit of a disappointment in the sense that the big investment in infrastructure projects haven’t materialized.
The Geo-strategic element of the BRI has been largely misinterpreted as broad and ambiguous by the Australian officials during their interviews leading to political pressure abandoning Victoria’s deal with China stating that “It needs to be halted and reassessed.”
Clearly this unreasonable and provocative move taken by the Australian side against China bound to bring further damage to bilateral relations. Australian Universities have labelled the new foreign veto laws as “significant overreach”. They have complained the legislation is so “extraordinarily wide” that it allows the foreign affairs minister to cancel agreements with international counterparts that may go against Australia’s foreign policy, even if that policy isn’t written down anywhere, publicly available or formally decided.
The writer is a Doctor by profession, he believes in youth empowerment and economic alleviation. He can be reached at [email protected]
The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the ‘The Dayspring’