Beijing’s multibillion dollar project, that as per Chinese Communist Government aims to promote regional connectivity and prop up domestic development at home, has raised skepticism abroad. The project is being termed as Chinese economic ambition, which aims to challenge the US global leadership role. China rejects all of these allegations while asserting the Belt and Road Initiative as a win-win for all the stakeholders, with no such imperialistic designs.

The Belt and Road Initiative has also been dubbed as the 21st century Silk Road, connecting Asia, Africa and Europe by land corridors and maritime routes that include some 71 countries, half of world population, and quarter of the global GDP. With no second thought, the BRI is the project of the century that has the potential to change the course of world history.

Critics have described the BRI project as a state-backed campaign to change the economic world order and to play an assertive role in world politics, especially during the era of Brexit and United States increasingly isolationist policies under the Trump presidency. The experts are also cynical when it comes to Chinese-interest based secret loans as dept-trap diplomacy.

To cap this all, if our iron-brother China’s Road and Belt Initiative aspires to encourage regional connectivity and domestic development at home with no imperialistic plans it must rid the fears of the participatory and non-participatory countries by making their plans more transparent, and rendering a better, proper, prospective and progressive environment for all the stakeholders to ease their anxieties.

AAMIR KHAN WAGAN,

Larkana, January 24.