New silk roads

As a xenophobic Indian political class rails against the international system, China leverages global institutions for its own ends. Take the Asian Development Bank. For decades, India has blocked the ADB from funding road projects in the subcontinent. As a consequence, India’s connectivity with its natural hinterlands has steadily dissipated.

China, in contrast, gets the ADB to finance better road links with its neighbours and help penetrate their markets. After effective exploitation of international funding for trans-national infrastructure in Southeast Asia, Beijing is now turning to Central Asia. Last week at a conference in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, China mobilised international finance for an initiative to build new trans-national highways in Central Asia at a cost of nearly US $19 billion.

Attending the conference were ministers from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Representatives of the ADB and five other multilateral institutions also joined in.

On his way to Central Asia, ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda had passed through New Delhi. There was much talk about infrastructure, but no new project announcements.

The writer is professor at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore