The Belt and Road initiative’s potential impact on international trade — cargo volume and velocity, shipping routes, supply chain reliability, and transparency — has strategic benefits and risks for the United States because of its dependence on importing raw and strategic materials for manufacturing processes, and exporting finished goods to emerging markets where consumer catchment areas are expected to be created or expanded.
A country’s transportation infrastructure is plugged into other national and supranational networks in such a way as to impact, not just domestic economic interests, but also advance national security and foreign policy objectives.
The recent kidnapping and murder of two Chinese nationals by ISIL in the Pakistani province of Balochistan raises a fundamental question: how will China secure its ambitious and potentially transformative Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)? If recent developments are an indication, Beijing plans to send in the Marines. In March, China quietly revealed plans to expand the People’s Liberation Army Marine Corps (PLAMC) from 20,000 to 100,000 with the intent to garrison an unspecified number of marines at its “dual use” port facilities in Obock, Djibouti and Gwadar, Pakistan.
Our “Big Questions” series brings together leading scholars, former policymakers, and top industry experts to tackle critical questions. In the sixth part of this series, we asked a group of experts the following:
Connectivity is an old game that great nations have played since times immemorial. To sustain its empire, Rome supposedly paved 55,000 miles of roads and built aqueducts across Europe. It is China’s turn to play this game now. Discussions on connectivity should address not only the physical infrastructure aspects but also the institutional, financial, commercial, legal, and management issues. International collaborative projects demand statecraft and sagacity of a unique order to reconcile different points of view.