Principal speaker
Professor Ian Hall
South Asia is one of the world's least integrated regions, with an acute need for investment in infrastructure within and between states. As the region's biggest economy, India stands to benefit - in principle, at least - from efforts to meet that need, and India's leaders, including Narendra Modi, have called for greater infrastructure investment and better connectivity. For these reasons, we might have expected New Delhi to welcome China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which promises significant funds for better roads, rail links, and ports, as well as investment in special industrial zones, power generation, and a range of other projects. That support has not, however, been forthcoming. On the eve of President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Forum in May 2017, a spokesperson for India's Ministry of External Affairs responded to a Chinese invitation to send a delegation to attend the conference with a highly critical assessment of the BRI. They questioned whether the BRI was financially responsible and called for transparency in project costs, it expressed concerned about the debt burdens that might be created for partner states and the environmental damage that might be caused, and it insisted that projects respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states. This paper examines the reasons for this stance, arguing that India's objections to the BRI run much deeper than its objection to the BRI-lined China Pakistan Economic Corridor, which runs through territory claimed by India, tapping into long-standing concerns about the economic drivers of political influence, as well as geostrategic worries about growing Chinese influence in South Asia.
Ian Hall is a Professor in the School of Government and International Relations at Griffith University and a member of both the Centre for Governance and Public Policy and the Griffith Asia Institute. He is also a Fellow of the Australia India Institute at the University of Melbourne. He is currently working on a project on India and the liberal international order.
Event categories
RSVP
RSVP on or before Monday 7 August 2017 , by email gai@griffith.edu.au , or by phone x54705