couple of years has been the Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI), an ambitious project to
boost economic cooperation and connectiv-
ity between Asia, Europe and even Africa.
China has repeatedly called for India to
cooperate with China on these projects, ar-
guing that improved economic cooperation
and interdependence create a win-win situ-
ation that would help to address the region’s
security issues.
But it is China’s overreach in the Indian
sub-continent and beyond that has deepened
India’s security concerns over China’s strate-
gic intentions in the region. A major point
of objection for India is the “China-Pakistan
Economic Corridor” (CPEC), a sub-projectunder the Belt and Road Initiative.
China’s “all-weather” friendship with
Pakistan, with which India has fought three
major wars since 1947, has long been a stick-
ing point in China-India ties. New Delhi
complains that as the CPEC passed through
the Pakistan-administrated areas of Kashmir,
where both India and Pakistan claim territo-
ry and have been locked in border conflicts,
the project indicates Beijing’s support for
Pakistan’s territorial claim and violates Indian
sovereignty.
Also in June 2016, China, alongside seven
other countries, blocked India’s entry into
the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a group
that controls transfer of nuclear technologyworldwide. While Beijing argues that it can-
not bend the rules for India since it has not
joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)- no country has joined the NSG without
signing the NPT first – New Delhi has inter-
preted it as an effort by Beijing to undermine
its nuclear power status and to indirectly sup-
port Pakistan, also a nuclear power that has
not joined the NSG.
Beside these issues, the basic concept of
China’s Belt and Road Initiative with its pri-
mary focus on infrastructure building has an
entirely different connotation for India. In
past decades, China’s rapid economic growth
has been characterised by an infrastructure
boom involving the mass construction of
China and India sign the Agreement on the Maintenance of Peace and Tranquility along the Line of Actual Control in the Sino-Indian Border Areas, during
Indian Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s visit to Beijing, September 7, 1993
Photo by xinhua