To OBOR or not to OBOR

A grand summit is now on in China. Around 65 countries are participating in the One Belt One Road (ORBOR) meeting which envisages construction of international trunk passageways and an infrastructure network connecting all sub-regions in Asia, and between Asia, Europe and Africa.

There is big money promised for these projects - China has committed a total of about $100 billion to three new infrastructure funds: a $ 40 billion fund to the Central Asia-focused Silk Road Fund, a $ 50 billion fund to a new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and a $ 10 billion fund to the BRICS-led New Development Bank.

India, however, has opted out. It is anything but enthusiastic about the CPEC, a highway that cuts through territory that has been illegally occupied by Pakistan.

What does this mean to countries that are enthusiastically participating in OBOR? Perhaps they expect a windfall by way of investments and market access. Or perhaps they will take a closer look at countries that have already borrowed tons of money from China, and ten contemplate - like Sri Lanka - whether they did the right thing.

Sri Lanka is currently in $58.3 billion debt to foreign financiers, and 95.4% of all government revenue is currently going towards paying back its loans. Of this, about $8 billion is owed to China alone, of which $1.4 billion was borrowed by the Sri Lankan government for constructing the Hambantota port.

Since these investments are not bringing in revenue as projected during the - rather hasty and secretive - planning & approval, the state is handing over its assets to Chinese companies on long-term lease:

• 80% of its Hambantota port has been handed over for 99 years, to China Merchants Holdings.
• Colombo’s South Container Terminal is a 35-year Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) arrangement with the same company
• IZP, a Chinese informational technology company, has been put forward as a potential purchaser of Mattala International Airport.

So is there a pattern here? Borrow on easy terms, belatedly discover that the revenue model was flawed, and grudgingly hand over your land and assets to the foreign lender?



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LINKS & REFERENCES


* (2017) ET - http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/obor-summit-in-china-know-what-it-is-and-why-india-is-not-attending/articleshow/58656653.cms

* (2017) IE - http://indianexpress.com/article/what-is/china-one-belt-one-road-project-obor-4653564/

* (2017) IE - Belt Road Initiative - http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/china-belt-and-road-initiative-in-giant-trade-belt-road-to-new-growth-rush-4651727/

* (2017) FT - One belt, one road and many questions -- https://www.ft.com/content/d5c54b8e-37d3-11e7-ac89-b01cc67cfeec

* (2017) - Bloomberg - https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-17/can-china-afford-its-belt-and-road

* (2017) Wanda Bullish on India - http://m.indiatoday.in/story/china-one-belt-one-road-meet-india-boycott-wang-jianlin/1/955695.html

* (2017) Express edit - https://www.google.co.in/amp/indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/after-the-no-show-india-china-one-belt-one-road/lite/

* (2017) The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/15/eu-china-summit-bejing-xi-jinping-belt-and-road

* (2017) Dawn, Pakistan - CEPC for Pakistan - A Colonial Enterprise?  - https://www.dawn.com/news/1333244

* (2016) Wire -- https://thewire.in/40388/one-belt-one-road-shaping-connectivities-and-politics-in-the-21st-century/


Hanbantotta - China's own port in Sri Lanka

* (2017) Forbes - India Tells Sri Lanka: You Can Take Your Port And Shove It - https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/01/21/india-tells-sri-lanka-take-your-trincomalee-deep-sea-port-and-shove-it/#14a10f915f88

* (2016) Forbes -- https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/07/31/china-to-sri-lanka-we-want-our-money-not-your-empty-airport/#27d0ecb21beb

Ashoka - Search for the Lost Emperor

Ashoka by Charles Allen.

This is the sort of book that makes you wonder what on earth Indian historians have been up to since 1947. Why is it that hardly any of them writes about our own history in a manner that is both engaging and scholarly?

We have all plodded through history in our school textbooks. We see Ashoka's royal insignia on every single coin and currency note we pass around, and yet, how many wonder about the kind of international effort that has gone in, to piece together the life and times of a king who ruled most of today's India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan, 300 years before Christ was born?

Charles Allen weaves a wonderful narrative based on ancient texts recovered from Sri Lanka, China, Persia, Myanmar, and, of course, India. In the end, he notes:

‘It is striking - even downright disheartening - how the quintessentially Indian monarch still fails to be accorded a wholehearted welcome in the land of his birth more than a century after he first emerged as a subject fit for a biography... 

The nation that adores Rama - the mythical hero - but has very little time for the real thing: the man who first forged India into a single nation state, and thus the real claim to be its founding father; the first ruler with a distinctive, identifiable voice; the pre-Gandhian pioneer of non-violence, the first proponent of conquest by moral force alone, whose words remain absolutely, unequivocally unique among rulers as a statement of governing principles.

Amazing book.

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LINKS / REFERNCES

* Review - Goodreads - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13220954-ashoka

* Allen, Charles (2012): ASHOKA, Little Brown, UK  -- Google Books - http://books.google.co.in/books?id=K4vHjbUtf_4C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false