China hopes to develop “Southern silk road” to India
November 14, 2013 Category Logistics, Road transport
Beijing is keen to develop a Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) economic corridor along the “southern silk road” that extends from Yunnan to India. The road, dating back to the second century BC, would shorten travel time, cut transport costs, provide landlocked Yunnan province with access to the Bay of Bengal, open up markets, and create production bases along the way. The plan for the BCIM corridor is also at the center of Premier Li Keqiang’s offer of a “handshake across the Himalayas”. It was during Li’s visit to India this year that the corridor was first mentioned in official statements, even though it was mooted more than a decade ago. India, on the other hand, is fearful of the security implications of allowing China direct access to its border states and being overrun by China’s more developed economy. But several Indian experts see in the BCIM plan the promise of economic salvation for the country’s impoverished northeastern states and are urging the government to seize the opportunity. “As Yunnan is the most advanced in the cluster, India fears that it will become BCIM’s economic center, with the rest of the region reduced to its periphery,” said Binoda Kumar Mishra, Director of India’s Center for Studies in International Relations and Development. The proposed route would run from Kunming to Imphal in northeast India through Ruili in Yunnan and Mandalay in Myanmar. The idea of the BCIM is to first put in place a highway system along the land route and then turn it into an economic corridor with trading entrepots, tourism infrastructure and manufacturing hubs, possibly hosting production lines displaced from China and creating jobs along the corridor. But the sheer logistics of the 1.65 million square kilometer corridor, encompassing an estimated 440 million people, worry Ravi Bhoothalingam, who is on the Indian government’s panel on BCIM. “The area is huge, ecologically complex, ethnically diverse and needs the cooperation of multiple administrations. All these issues need to be studied”, he said. A strong Defense and Commerce Ministry lobby in India is still blocking development of the BCIM, the South China Morning Post reports.
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