BRI in South Asia

History:

In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping, during his visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia, expressed his vision to build a Silk Road Economic Belt (SERB) and a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR), to break the “bottleneck” in Asian connectivity.
Thus, the Belt and Road initiative was born.

The China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is considered to be the biggest project under the Belt and Road initiative.
China is also significantly financing at low interests to many countries in South Asia, it has pledged over $62 billion.
Bangladesh, which joined the BRI in 2016, has been promised the second-highest belt and road investment by China in South Asia after Pakistan.
So, Bangladesh is balancing its ties with both India and China and reaping economic benefits from both the countries.

The initiative envisioned a Chinese-led investment of over $1 trillion in partner countries by 2025.
More than 60 countries have now joined BRI agreements with China, with infrastructure projects under the initiative being planned or under construction in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America.
To finance BRI projects, China offers huge loans at commercial interest rates that countries have to pay within a fixed number of years.
The west has accused China of debt-trapping by extending “predatory loans” that force countries to cede key assets to China.
However, research indicates that low and middle-income countries are often the ones to approach China after not being able to secure loans from elsewhere.

USA has come up with the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Intelligence with a package of $600 billion.
This was announced at the recently concluded G7 Summit.
The west has also accused China of debt-trapping by extending “predatory loans” that force countries to cede key assets to China.
However, research indicates that low and middle-income countries are often the ones to approach China after not being able to secure loans from elsewhere.

Source The Hindu